Australia's leadership challenge is just the latest embarrassment for the two-party majoritarian system

Last week Australian politics found itself thrown into crisis, as once again the position of Prime Minister was turned into the subject of an internal party squabble. Tony Abbot, PM and Liberal Party leader, has had his leadership challenged following collapsing ratings in the polls (Jabour & Hurst, 2015).

This is just the latest embarrassment for the old two-party system. That system - which revolves around two monolithic groups, with machine politician leaders, using cheap popular appeals and sound bites to build workable majorities, or to struggle over control of them - in the end merely demonstrates its own weakness.

By centralising power around individual figures, the focus is put on the squabbles for control over the establishment. Those squabbles, over often marginal differences, only leads to an increasing detachment from reality that alienates voters and shuts down open political discussions. The disaffection of voters and the narrowing of choice reduces politics to little more than a stagnant and unstable popularity contest.

This is not the first time that Australia has faced this particular kind of crisis (Howden, 2015). Both major parties, Liberal and Labor, have had a number of so called leadership 'spills', where the party leadership is challenged, over the last half decade. The Labor Party suffered through four contests in just four years, as Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd repeatedly clashed between 2010 and 2013 (Phillips, 2012; Pearlman, 2013).

Coming into power on the back of that Labor Party squabbling, the Liberal leader Tony Abbott was elected offering stability (BBC, 2015). And yet, even if Abbott survives this challenge, his time as leader is limited. His rivals are circling and his authority, or popularity, has been undermined (Massola & Kenny; 2015).

In his desperate attempts to ward off those challengers, Abbot has been telling the same old story, warning Australians, and his own party, to be wary of turning leadership into a Game of Thrones (Pearlman, 2015). But it's a tired tale, used to justify centralised and unchallenged leadership. Justifying centrality and authority, not on their own merits, but as a ward and bastion against chaos.

It is the same story in the UK, where a free political choice is suppressed by the two major parties, Conservative and Labour, who cling to power by scaremongering against third parties, warning against split votes, hung parliaments and coalitions (BBC, 2010). These methods are justified as a practical and necessary response to the iniquities of the electoral system, and yet they persist in their refusal to pursue the meaningful electoral reform needed to make politics more representative - all to protect the fragile balance of their system. And so far those methods have worked.

However, the two-party system is fracturing all over the world. The squabbles over power and the suppression of alternatives should, by now, simply act as a reminder that the majoritarian two-party system simply does not offer enough accountability or representation.

These leadership squabbles simply emphasise the detachment from reality suffered at the highest levels of power. In Australia, both Liberals (who in Australia are conservatives in everything but name) and Labor, and in the UK, both Conservatives and Labour, all of the mainstream parties are guilty.

These parties support a system that hands power to one person, who is surrounded by a small group that represents just a fraction of the population, and has been tightly whipped into an ideological line. People are alienated from control over political decisions. Even parliaments and assemblies are regularly cut out of the process.

There is a great danger in structuring the stability of our institutions around any one individual and the power they can muster in support. It has frequently become the means by which an isolated elite make serious and impactful decisions - affecting real people's lives - in ivory towers detached from reality.

We need to find new ways to govern. We need more choice, more representation, and governments that reflect the whole electorate not just the loudest minority.

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References:
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+ Bridie Jabour & Daniel Hurst's 'Australian prime minister Tony Abbott may be deposed after party revolt'; in The Guardian; 6 February 2015.

+ Saffron Howden's 'Australian politics: Why is it so tumultuous?'; on The BBC; 8 February 2015.

+ Liam Phillips' 'Labor leadership challenge - Gillard vs Rudd'; in The Sydney Morning Herald; 27 February 2012.

+ Jonathan Pearlman's 'Julia Gillard defeated by Kevin Rudd in leadership challenge'; in The Telegraph; 26 June 2013.

+ 'Australian PM Tony Abbott 'will fight leadership challenge'; on The BBC; 6 February 2015.

+ James Massola & Mark Kenny's 'Supporters say Malcolm Turnbull will run against Tony Abbott for Liberal Party leader if spill motion succeeds'; The Sydney Morning Herald; 7 February 2015.

+ Jonathan Pearlman's 'Tony Abbott faces 'Games of Thrones' showdown'; in The Telegraph; 8 February 2015.

+ 'Election 2010: Cameron warns over hung parliament'; on The BBC; 17 April 2010.