"a sound, well functioning political system" is not the goal, or we'd all adopt the single party run like a corporation model from Singapore. The goal is to re

"a sound, well functioning political system" is not the goal, or we'd all adopt the single party run like a corporation model from Singapore. The goal is to represent all the citizens' wishes as best as possible when taking decisions about issues of common interest. And the more power is concentrated in unaccountable parties, the less chances we have at doing that. Italy may have more than 2 parties, but they are already moving towards a less democratic system where only 2 of them matter. They are already at the point where the only way to access significant positions is through a party. Independents are heavily penalized and mostly eliminated from the picture. Then there's the lack of internal democracy in those structures supposed to democratically represent the people. Party members are forced to respect party lines instead of what they personally believe, and in some cases the party line is dictated by a single person - the founder/CEO/father-figure of the corporate party (Berlusconi, Grillo, etc.).