Single-issue Politics - Single-issue Parties

Single-issue Parties

A single-issue party is a political party that campaigns on only one issue. Such a party is rarely successful in gaining elected office.

It is generally believed that single-issue parties are favoured by voluntary voting systems, as they tend to attract very committed supporters who will always vote. Through systems like instant runoff voting and proportional representation they can have substantial influence on the results of elections. First past the post voting systems tend to nullify their influence.

In instant-runoff electoral systems which allow unsuccessful parties to designate where their votes are redistributed, single-issue parties may be formed as a way to funnel more votes to another candidate with quite different policies. For instance, in the New South Wales state election, 1999, one candidate who received just 0.2% of the primary vote achieved the quota of 4.5% required to win a Legislative Council seat after receiving preferences from a wide range of minor parties (including both the 'Gun Owners and Sporting Hunters Rights Party' and the 'Animal Liberation Party'); MLC Lee Rhiannon accused many of these parties of being nothing more than fronts..

Some examples of single-issue parties are the former Greedy 40% Extra party formed to protest against the increase in politician wages, the Bloc Québécois party in Canada, formed to call for the separation of Quebec, and the Party for the Animals, which gained two seats in the Dutch parliament in 2006.

Green parties and cannabis political parties, which exist in a number of countries, are explicitly based around single issues. These parties often evolve to adopt a full platform, however, and most Green parties and today's Bloc Québécois have full platforms. In the case of the Bloc Québécois, separatism is today a secondary issue.