Political parties of Zwangzug

Zwangzug is a complex multiparty democracy. Each district elects a representative to Parliament via instant-runoff voting, on a rotating schedule. Because no party holds a majority, there are frequent short-term coalitions that form and dissolve based on whichever issues are salient.

Political map of Zwangzug as of April 2018. Dark green: Liberal Conservative Party. Red: Progressive Traditionalist Party. Blue: National Socialist Grammarian Writers Party. Pink: Birthday Party. Navy: Pragmatic Radical Party. Purple: Mental Asylum Party. Brown: Isolationist Party. Gray: Digital Party. Lime: Capitalism Now Party. Orange: Libertarian Party. Dark gray: Infinite Power Party. Yellow: Vanguard Party. White: Independent.

Represented in Parliament

• Liberal Conservative Party: they support lots of personal freedom (liberal) on social issues, but favor strict regulation when it comes to environmental protection (conservatism). This party includes many new Supreme Court justices. For some time they were Zwangzug's largest "left-wing" (loosely defined) party, but now grapple for control with the MAP and Grammarians.

• Progressive Traditionalist Party: having not much of a country-wide tradition to follow in, their progressivism comes through by their interests in banning everything. Targets such as tobacco, alcohol, and capitalism have been enthusiastically opposed; Harry Potter books, same-sex marriage, and graffiti are still around.

• Pragmatic Radical Party: a generally rightist party slowly rebounding from the failures of the Coriolis administration, which tainted indefinitely the relatively strong nationalism the party had extolled.

• Mental Asylum Party: a rapidly-growing group advocating health-care spending and tolerance of all neurologies, it nevertheless is not understood by much of an apathetic populace. (Electing Coco the Clown didn't help either.)

• Capitalism Now Party: a vocal minority despite widespread preference for capitalism someday, maybe, or just not at all.

• National Socialist Grammarian Writers' Party: only "nationalist" due to its uninterest in worldwide communist revolution, this pro-education party has been the home of several recent Composite Ministers.

• Libertarian Party: comparatively late to have reached the Parliament, arguably because its members were too apathetic to have organized before then.

• Birthday Party: somewhat aligned with the PTP, but preferring broad community activism to governmental bureaucracy.

• Vanguard Party: advocates guarding the van, of course, which makes it unpopular among Zwangzug's train-friendly populace.

• Digital Party: advocates...um, some sort of paring back the bureaucracy, like making decisions by sitting at your computer and clicking. Founded by Aaron Seaberg, before he was eligible to vote.

• Isolationist Party: advocates the withdrawal of Zwangzug from the world stage. No domestic or economic platform.

Recently represented

• Infinite Power Party: formed under the guise of mathematical exploration (n^∞), this group rapidly became a strong force due to its successful push for longer parliamentary terms, but has since lost power.

Not represented in Parliament

Survey of Zwangzug political parties (and independent candidate) as of October 2011.

• Socialist Alternatifs
• d'Avant-garde des Parties
• Equality Movement,
• Communist Party (the most recent, anyway)
• Гармония Альянс

Historic parties

• Centrist Front: fiscally conservative, small-government fans renowned for getting in the way of every "brilliant" scheme proposed by the Pragmatic Radicals, they were unable to garner popular support afterwards and eventually faded out of politics.

• Conservative Liberals: could potentially have formed an influential coalition with the Liberal Conservatives (both supported personal freedoms, while the Conservative Liberals were classical (big-L) Liberals in the economic sense as well) to counter the Progressive Traditionalists if the former pair hadn't been forced to spend all their time explaining to an increasingly confused populace how they weren't each other. Some Conservative Liberals eventually formed the much-more self-explanatory Capitalism Now Party, others led the modern Libertarian Party, and a few incongruous stragglers wound up impressed with the "back-in-my-day"ism of the Progressive Traditionalists.

• Precalculus Party: more active on the local than statewide level, the single-issue educational reformers were eventually called upon to establish the current instant-runoff system. Turns out that reviewing for ridiculous standardized tests actually does pay off in real life.