The fragmentation of popular will and the internal conflict of group interests in democratic parliaments result in the impossibility of a united, organic expression of the real popular will.

Fragmented Unity: The Crisis of Genuine Representation

The fragmentation of popular will and the internal conflict of group interests in democratic parliaments result in the impossibility of a united, organic expression of the real popular will. Essentially, when the people are divided into numerous small groups, each claiming to represent the true will, the final vote and the formation of parliamentarianism become merely a mechanical summation of individual positions—devoid of a deep, unified essence.

As noted in one argument, the parliamentary system emerged during a crisis when “the people do not live an organic life and do not have their own organic will,” which leads to representative bodies acquiring only a formal significance of representation (source: link txt). In this context, each group, based on its ideological positions and interests—be it the “red-collared” or “black-collared” approaches—seeks to define what exactly constitutes the genuine popular will. This results in a conflict in which the legitimate aggregate of votes becomes fragmented and reduced to a mechanical sum, incapable of conveying the historical and cultural essence of the people as a whole.

Another perspective emphasizes that “democracy arises when the organic unity of the popular will disintegrates, when society is atomized…” and in such a state the system is only capable of “mechanically summing everyone’s will, but no common will, no organic will of the people, emerges from this” (source: link txt). Thus, in the presence of constant struggles among groups for legitimacy and recognition of the correctness of their positions, parliament remains an institution devoid of true unified representation, where a mechanical tally of votes fails to reflect the profound unity of the popular will.

Additionally, as noted in another cited opinion, “How can one determine the popular will in a critical era when there is, in a sense, no unified, organic popular will at all?

… Parliamentary system is the political structure of a historical epoch in which the unity of the popular will seems to have vanished” (source: link txt). Here it is stressed that the lack of cohesion in collective self-expression makes the transition from formal representation to a real embodiment of the general interest and will of the people impossible.

Thus, the fragmentation of the popular will, expressed through the conflict of diverse group interests, results in parliaments becoming arenas for the struggle for formal recognition rather than centers for uniting the genuine, organic popular will. The outcome is the impossibility of creating a unified system of vote representation capable of fully expressing the historically evolved and deeply rooted sense of national unity.