Politics Is Made in the Centre Ground. The SDP Must Reclaim It

Tonight's election defeat was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster for the Social Democratic Party. The party has lost the presidency, bringing an end to two years and four months of the complete absence of the Demarcian National Party from all areas of governance in the country.

Meanwhile, in the parliamentary election, the SDP has collapsed, losing two seats, while managing to do well enough to at least deny the DNP an outright majority in the country's legislature.

Let's be clear. The SDP has been the Titanic heading into an iceberg for several months now, and Brandin was its Edward Smith - a well-intentioned captain who ended up leading the party into its doom.

As a result of the past few months of disaster, chaos and decline, the SDP will have to renew itself.

There can be no Action 2022 - that venture has failed and, frankly, has been pointless from the beginning, as the DNP and Greens, and even the SDP, were never going to just go away and remove themselves from the political scene to pave the way for one-party rule.

It is time for a complete re-evaluation of the tactics of the SDP over the past few months, and, to some extent, even years. It is time to rebuild the party from the ground on up and nothing short of a complete transformation will do the trick and bring it back to power.

Whenever the SDP won power, they did so by being in the centre of politics, in the centre of the people's concerns, in the centre of the people's hearts. In February 2020, we adopted a radical but reformist platform that ended up transforming the country as we know it.

With the Labour Act, we changed the way bosses treat their employees at work and gave employees enormous power over their working environments, wages and lives.

With the Environmental Protection Act, we implemented the country's first environmental regulations and made sure to tackle pollution as well as climate change. Remember, it was us who introduced the first environmental regulations - not the future Green Party.

With the Settlements and Local Governance Act, we gave Demarcia's communities the right to manage their own affairs, to elect their own mayors, and to work together, respectfully and harmoniously, to build a better life for themselves and their friends.

With the Companies Act, we gave Demarcians the legally recognised right to form corporations while obliging employers to give something in return to the employees - namely, a say in the way their companies operate.

All this was done by radical yet pragmatic SDP governments over the past two years, and together, we had changed the country as we know it - and we had done this with the active engagement of the Demarcian people, whom we are proud to represent. Because we are the People's Party, and we forever shall remain.

In order to remain fully deserving of that title, we need to once again prove our credentials as the People's Party and bring ourselves back to the heart of the people's concerns.

There is a Third Way between the kind of governance the DNP, allied with the Greens, has to offer, on one hand, and the outdated, worn-out style of governance that the SDP has, until now, been able to offer, on the other hand.

This Third Way is the new centre of Demarcian politics. It is the Demarcia that wants innovation, the chance to level up, the ability to realise fully their individual dreams and aspirations - yet at the same time, it is the Demarcia that wants to live in a society based on dignity, solidarity and respect, a country in which the struggle of one of us touches all of us.

The SDP must completely change tack. It must transform itself into a party that deserves the people's trust yet again. It must become a party firmly rooted in politics for all of us. It is a party that must bring people together rather than tear them apart, like certain voices within the DNP and Greens have tried to do at the 19 June press conference.

We must represent the best of Demarcia. We must bring out the best of Demarcia. We must build the best Demarcia.

The SDP has always been a proudly progressive, social democratic political party that sought to reform capitalism and tame its worst excesses. This is the kind of SDP that has always been popular with the people, and that the people want to see more of, as the free-market gospel of Vincent_Wolff is not as popular as she might believe.

The people voted for the DNP not because they are fully supportive of their agenda - but because they do not have any confidence in the SDP's agenda anymore. They believe we had become old and stale, and they want change.

Bold ideas, and real change. Like we had offered them before.

And we must offer it again. We must use the upcoming period in opposition to rebuild and to rejuvenate ourselves, and we must focus on becoming a party in power again, that can transform people's lives and make this country a better place for us all.

I am counting on Brandin or whoever becomes our next leader to do just that.

Penstubal,

Demarcian Inquirer.