Why are voters so loyal?

Why are voters so loyal?
SydneyGuy	I find it hard to understand why some voters are so loyal to political parties. Especially when it's so obvious that the party they are loyal to is so indifferent to the people they claim to represent. I have to admit that I don't know much about Macedonian politics (nor do I want to know much), but I was in Macedonia during one of the country's presidential elections when Boris Trajkovski was elected. Now that was a very suspicious election result, as far as I'm concerned. I say this because Boris Trajkovski was clearly behind Tito Petkovski in the first round of voting. Somehow, by some divine intervention (or more likely by vote rigging) he managed to get more votes than his opponent did in the second round of voting when the other candidates were eliminated. Ever since that day, I've always become suspicious of VMRO-DPMNE. This doesn't mean that I'm a big fan of SDSM - far from it. In my view, that party has caused more harm to Macedonia's chances being accepted into the European Union than any other party has. They have totally mis-managed all the financial aid that Macedonia has received from the European Union. Clearly both of the major parties are hopeless at managing the Macedonian economy. So the question one can ask is what option does this leave people to vote for? The answer is not that hard: vote for some of the minor parties until these two parties get their act together. Why should I remain loyal to a political party who has not done a single positive thing to improve my life (economically or politically)? The answer is I don't have a reason to remain loyal and so I tend to vote for a different political party at every election. When the day comes when a political party can clearly give me a good enough reason to become loyal to them then I'll re-consider my stance. Until that day comes, no political party should expect to take my valuable vote for granted.
makedonec	The major problem in Macedonia is that there is no third stable political option consisted of minor partis which are not led by the their political past. The coalition of the minor parties might be a good solution to break the monothony of two leading political parties on the Macedonian political scene.
achtung_panzer	Well SydneyGuy, there are voters that attach to party politics much like they attach to certain soccer team; they give a shout to their favourite party much like they shout for their favourite team. Another, much more significant factor is the level of control that lower-to-mid-level party leaders have over members. Back in the days of a single-party system (namely the communist era), the most devoted members were rewarded in miriad of ways, from verbal recognition all the way to job promotion, housing priviledges, certain immunity from criminal persecution, favors from upper-rank members etc. The only thing that is changed now is the number of parties, methods remained about the same. People support certain political party even if it does poor job simply because their own financial well-being depends on the level of devotion manifested during hard times for that party. Instead of discouraging such a behaviour and support those that were bringing change, western governments readily took advantage of those well- rooted habits of macedonian politicians and literally installed their own proxies in Macedonia. And those proxies are very obidient and efficient in taking care of interests of their masters. What you are looking at now as main parties in Macedonia (namely VMRO and SDSM) they are nothing more than puppets that repeat or execute verbatim what is ordered from their master's HQ's in Brussels and Washington.