Fair voting system and successful government (UK)

Prime Minister David Cameron,




You have shown little concern for the fairness of the electoral system of the United Kingdom, as shown by the support for the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system in the Conservative Election Manifesto (page 67).

Even if it looks as if your position would be motivated by electoral greed, the skewed results and wasted votes of FPTP have usually been defended by the need for stable government.



In order to secure a majority in Parliament, you have now, grudgingly, accepted a referendum on moving to the Alternative Vote system, without actually engaging yourself to achieve greater fairness.



If the greater fairness of proportional representation does not sway you, how about spending some time contemplating the ”national interest” of stable – and even more to the point – successful government?



Competitiveness


At least some aspects of Britain’s competitiveness seem to be a major concern for the Conservative Party.



The World Economic Forum has just published its final ranking of the competitiveness of member states of the European Union according to the criteria of the Lisbon Strategy, with the top ten positions going to:



1. Sweden
2. Finland
3. Denmark
4. The Netherlands
5. Luxembourg
6. Germany
7. Austria
8. France
9. The United Kingdom
10. Belgium


If fairness is of little concern to you, how about outcomes?


You may notice that the top five rankings go to countries ─ Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg ─ with proportional voting systems.

Only after Germany, with a mixed member proportional system, and Austria with a proportional electoral system, come two countries with single candidates being elected from each constituency: France with two-round runoff voting and the United Kingdom with first-past-the-post.

The competitiveness ranking almost exactly mirrors the proportionality and fairness of the system.

Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?

If you want to move from mere party leader into the ranks of statesmen, you might actually opt for more than you have promised this far.





Ralf Grahn

My two cents worth on the UK general election

When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with an antiquated Constitution, an unfair electoral system based on a duopoly of greed and unbalanced outcomes for the subjects (called citizens elsewhere) … they should vote for change.



(Hat tip John Hancock et al)

The general election on 6 May 2010 will set the political course for Britain for the next five years, but it has European implications as well.




Ralf Grahn

European elections: A snapshot of gender equality and democratic choice

The European Parliament has not yet published the 2009 gender distribution of the elected MEPs. After the 2004 European elections 31 per cent of MEPs were women.

The election result in Finland will shift the balance to a degree: eight women (about 61%) and five men were elected out of a total of 13 MEPs.

If there is anything remarkable about the result, it is the fact that it is based on the individual choices of voters. Each citizen votes for an individual candidate, on a party list. The lists function as teams, being awarded proportional representation according to their total number of votes. Within the list the order of the candidates is determined by their individual votes.

This means that the outcome is not based on quotas, or closed lists manipulated in a politically correct manner. They reflect the choices of the individual electors.

Besides, the electoral system allows the voter to assess all the qualities of a candidate, of which gender is but one.

In Finland, with a population of 5.3 million, the whole country was one electoral district, so each voter was able to select among all the available candidates (241 representing 13 parties).

Elections are democratic, but some systems are more democratic than others.


Ralf Grahn