I am not proposing, nor do I think anyone here is proposing, to abolish elections, whereby the voters hold politicians accountable.
If voters have the impression that they should choose candidates based on the promises those candidates made for the future they will put less effort into rewarding past actions and holding politicians accountable for past actions.
I want politicians you listen to expert advice and changing circumstances and are willing to change their mind about what has to be done.
I don’t want that our political system turns into a copy of the soviet system that replaces 5-year plans with 4-year plans. Advocating that an election for a president should be understood as agreeing to a 4-year waterfall plan is in my mind likely to damage our democracy from functioning properly.
Yes, I agree; that’s one of the reasons why “often the actions are better than the promises”. Though candidates’ promises are generally nothing as specific as 4-year waterfall plans, and I would expect them to get less specific if a law of this sort were introduced.
In Germany there was a campaign promise of the SPD at the last election to not change the current law of accepting refugees.
The SPD broke that promise when the amount of refugee seekers rose drastically. I think that fact that they did so, shows that they react intelligently to changing circumstances.
I wouldn’t want to have politicians looked into 4-year promises that prevent them from acting dynamically.
Binding promises also make consensus finding harder and could even forbid it when the promises made before the election aren’t compatible.
If voters have the impression that they should choose candidates based on the promises those candidates made for the future they will put less effort into rewarding past actions and holding politicians accountable for past actions.
I want politicians you listen to expert advice and changing circumstances and are willing to change their mind about what has to be done. I don’t want that our political system turns into a copy of the soviet system that replaces 5-year plans with 4-year plans. Advocating that an election for a president should be understood as agreeing to a 4-year waterfall plan is in my mind likely to damage our democracy from functioning properly.
Yes, I agree; that’s one of the reasons why “often the actions are better than the promises”. Though candidates’ promises are generally nothing as specific as 4-year waterfall plans, and I would expect them to get less specific if a law of this sort were introduced.
In Germany there was a campaign promise of the SPD at the last election to not change the current law of accepting refugees.
The SPD broke that promise when the amount of refugee seekers rose drastically. I think that fact that they did so, shows that they react intelligently to changing circumstances. I wouldn’t want to have politicians looked into 4-year promises that prevent them from acting dynamically.
Binding promises also make consensus finding harder and could even forbid it when the promises made before the election aren’t compatible.