Primaries lowered my Political Freedom?

[Star Wattage]

I just encountered an issue about corruption within my political parties, and chose a somewhat middle-ground option, which required that political parties hold primaries for their nominees, but only registered members of the party could participate. This made sense for me (especially as an American where we have this system in more than a few states). It allows the people to chose their nominee, while prevent opposition parties from hijacking the nomination.

It dropped my political freedoms from average to below average. Thankfully I was able to rebound on another issue having to with free speech, but it still didn't make any sense to me. Before hand, we had lobbyists with big pockets buying the nominees (according to the issue), after, we held primaries. Shouldn't that have increased my political freedom?

[Tinhampton]

I just encountered an issue about corruption within my political parties, and chose a somewhat middle-ground option, which required that political parties hold primaries for their nominees, but only registered members of the party could participate. This made sense for me (especially as an American where we have this system in more than a few states). It allows the people to chose their nominee, while prevent opposition parties from hijacking the nomination.

It dropped my political freedoms from average to below average. Thankfully I was able to rebound on another issue having to with free speech, but it still didn't make any sense to me. Before hand, we had lobbyists with big pockets buying the nominees (according to the issue), after, we held primaries. Shouldn't that have increased my political freedom?

Both lobbyists having nominees in their pockets (i.e. corruption) and allowing other parties to "[hijack] the nomination" are political freedoms, as people (and companies!) have more involvement in, and a better ability to influence, your nation's politics. Primaries reduce these freedoms by preventing members of parties from voting for the candidates of other parties, and therefore giving them less choice in your nation's politics.

I'm assuming that you chose Option 2 to Issue #555 "It's An Honor Just To Be Nominated!", but correct me if I'm wrong. This is the text, as in Drasnia's list of issues **SPOILER ALERT**:

"That's a good start, but we have to make sure that voting is limited to members of our Party only," replies @@RANDOMNAME@@, a small town mayor who has jumped ship to national politics. "If we open things up to everyone, the Opposition could sneak in and plant their own candidates. Remember that blowhard nominee who turned out to be an East Lebatukese spy a few elections back? That was an embarrassment I think we'd all want to avoid again. It may mean losing the swing voters and independents, but we can't let anyone walk in and claim they uphold our values without being properly vetted."

You chose the option that opened primaries only to members of the political party holding them (thus reducing political freedoms). If you wanted to increase political freedom whilst holding primaries, you should have chose the first option (which allowed primaries to be open to all).