system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars] What sorts of political parties existed in the Republic prior to the events of the movies? What were their aims and platforms?
gpt
Yes there were political parties, but they were not as regimented as the parliamentary or congressional parties you may be familiar with, as the Republic was a collection of sovereign systems instead of a government with direct rulership over various territories. Because of this various blocs of systems with similar goals and ideals would form for a period of time with shifting "members".

For instance long before the events of TPM several systems who's entire economy was based on singular segments of industry or trade were able to band together and demand representation. This led to the formation of the Trade Federation and the Banking Clan and the TechnoUnion. 

Later on, a large portion of dissatisfied systems banded together to form a party that became the Confederacy of Independent Systems. They didn't start out as Separatists, but rather a group of like-minded systems that wanted reform in the Republic governance.

Even after the Empire Era and into the New Republic there were unofficial parties that cropped up. While officially each system was independent, generally speaking many were organized along 2 ideological lines, the Populists, who wanted a more libertarian approach to how the Republic was run, and the Centrists, who wanted a more centralized, stronger government over the systems. However, even those general party lines were not exactly united in their thinking.  For instance, the Populists had a sub division of an extreme right and left wing, with one wanting open voting to the general population and the other wanting to abolish the Senate and the Republic altogether.