Okay, so as the current Minister of Regional Affairs, rather than as a member of a political party (TIL, for those who aren't aware), I actually think that more parties might well be a good thing and that, as part of the various integration resources we have/are working on, some kind of mention of the possibility of joining or creating parties should be seen.

My logic on this is twofold:

I believe that parties are capable of driving activity and developing new players, although it's not happening that much right now. Part of the reason for that is that we only have two parties with very similar platforms and they haven't gone out of their way to reach out to new players (although TIL have been, very, very slowly, working on it). If parties were more publicised, however, I could easily seem them becoming an attractor for new players, serving almost like guilds or clans in other games.

I also think - and I'm genuinely surprised that no one has mentioned this at all up to this point - that parties are a kinda fun element to have in a game about politics. Whilst I appreciate that this is a game where the politics are pretty real and we want to have a functioning government, I think that fun elements like these draw people in and are part of what they think of when they think of 'playing politics'. It's certainly one of the reasons why I decided I wanted to join a party, and the added sense of belonging, in a region which can be pretty intimidating to get involved in, is quite important too.