[philyg]

Political parties can be harmful because once you have made your allegiance you do not need to expend much energy to research policies and can just support your party's position.

That's why there is I think some merit to how some elections are run in Cuba where candidates essentially run as independents. Whatever the motivations of this system are I see multiple benefits:

- candidates themselves have to show policy acumen and cannot rely on party policy

- Each candidate's personal opinion is therefore more likely to be relayed to the public

- less political conformism as large parties cannot dominate

- Voters are forced to review policies every election rather than simply voting for the same party/party candidates

[StanislavPetrov]

>Political parties can be harmful because once you have made your allegiance you do not need to expend much energy to research policies and can just support your party's position.

This isn't just limited to political parties, but group "identity" in general.