It's how municipal governments in Ontario work, and the focus in the media really is on the individuals and their actions. Obviously, sometimes it's obvious which party a candidate would belong to if there were parties[1], but that doesn't really matter.

Since there are no parties, there can be a larger variety of candidates with different viewpoints that can overlap, rather than just two extremes. And of course, councillors vote individually, which means the mayor has much less power than a party leader (each councillor is free to vote against the mayor at any time).

I really like this system, and am curious how it would work on a larger scale.

[1]: For example, Toronto mayor John Tory was leader of the Progressive Conservative party in the Ontario legislature from 2005-2007, so it's obvious he'd be a Tory.

But they end up voting in left or right blocks. Since the amount of has been reduced by half you see it more often. John Tory appoints people to positions with higher status and perks (like head of the ttc). To get these positions you agree to support Tory's plan. The few who cross him will get no plum roles if any.

It doesn't work, because parties offer an advantage, and you can't truly ban them without banning freedom of association. At best, you can ban overt expression of affiliation, so all candidates are nominally independent - but it'll still be obvious who's who.

The idea is not to ban any alliances of any sort (which is what happens when independents team up) but rather to strongly avoid groupthink and the not-people-beneficial-but-default actions that a stronger bloc always takes.

When independents team up for long enough, because they have enough in common, you get a party as well, with all the attendant features. Groupthink doesn't stem from formal affiliation - after all, most people in US who fall into it are not formally members of either party.