The Flux party’s campaign is at its height in view of national elections on 2 July. The party has no programme. Instead, it offers a new model of democracy: its members will vote directly through blockchain.

For the first time in history, the Flux startup suggests building “democracy-as-a-service”, claims party co-founder Max Kaye, obviously hinting at the “blockchain-as-a-service” term.

With the help of a free mobile application, every citizen will be able to deliver their opinion regarding this or that bill to the blockchain. The task of the MPs will be to inform party members about new bills and then vote in accordance with common opinion reflected in the blockchain without making any decisions of their own and simply acting as a proxy of the people. Thus, the party is going to introduce elements of direct democracy into modern politics.

However, while normally direct democracy is associated with the lack of specialisation (anyone can do politics), the proposed model is quite an opposite. The project will lead to a more professional decision making: the old principle of equal participation in all issues does not work anymore, claims Kaye. 

"Being in a society full of knowledge and specialisation, we thought that it was a bit of an outdated idea now and it would be more useful for people to have a say in areas where they know a lot as opposed to having an equal say on every issue."

Specialisation will be realised through the mechanism of vote transfer. A party member may avoid voting on a bill they are not interested in, and transfer their voting power to someone who knows more in the field. Active participants who have received others’ votes in such a way will, in turn, get some bonuses.

Nevertheless, the founders of the party provide no restrictions as to professional qualification. Specialisation will remain spontaneous, and any unqualified party member will be able to vote for or against a bill without thorough analysis if they want. Besides, as CoinFox reported earlier, there is no formal mechanism (claim the project’s critics) that could make MPs vote exactly in accordance with the public opinion.

The party employs decisive rhetoric that suits the disruptive spirit of the blockchain. “We're fed up with the political process too,” reads a slogan on the organisation’s website, urging participants to change the system. The party co-founder Nathan Spataro has recently noted that the project will not become just “a neat little plug-in to the Senate”, it will create an alternative democracy. AS of today, the party still has less than 3,000 members most of whom are quite young people 20 to 40 years of age, although two of the registered members were born in 2016.

Elections to both Houses of the Australian Parliament, the Senate and the House of Representatives, will take place on 2 July. Not all the seats in the Parliament are usually contested during elections. However, this time due to a parliamentary conflict Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has initiated a so-called double dissolution poll, the first time since 1987.

Andrew Levich