[EM] Electoral reform in Poland: do away with proportional representation

[Olli Salmi]

At 21:53 -0800 25.3.2003, Rob Lanphier wrote:
>>I didn't understand your comment about majoritarian rule amongst the elected
>>representatives.  No matter how you build a consensus on any issue, 
>>at the end of
>>the day it will require majority support in the Parliament if it is to become
>>accepted national policy.
>I was probably being too glib, but what I meant by this is that 
>there's a number of decisions (e.g. selection of a prime minister) 
>where the coalition building is made very difficult by the fact that 
>it's done using first-past-the-post (FPTP) rather than approval, 
>Condorcet, IRV, etc.

Where is it done so?

>Even things that are seemingly simple up/down votes often involve a 
>series of amendments and riders.  Moving to proportional 
>representation ensures that there's better representation on issues, 
>but in current practice relegates those representatives to use FPTP 
>for everything.

FPTP is to my knowledge not used in important elections in 
legislatures, certainly not in selecting prime ministers.

In Britain it's usually clear who will form the government. In other 
countries that have adopted parliamentary government it is usually 
the head of state that starts negotiating with the parties and 
decides who can attempt to form the government, if it's not obvious 
from the election result.

Here are descriptions from the Netherlands, where governments are 
usually stable despite the electoral threshold 1/150, smaller than in 
Israel.
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/an/Qdutch-vote-coalition.RoWr_DJN.html
http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/ned030205.html

Some theory
http://www.stanford.edu/group/SITE/Merlo.pdf

In Sweden the overall responsibility has been given to the speaker.
http://www.riksdagen.se/english/members/F03_regb_en.asp

In Finland we are using the new constitution for the first time now. 
The parties have agreed that the leader of the largest party will 
initiate the negotiations. She was also elected speaker, which other 
parties didn't quite like, but most parties voted for her, because 
the speaker is traditionally from the largest party. The speaker is 
also traditionally not from the same party as the prime minister, so 
it was thought that there was a conflict of interest.

http://www.om.fi/constitution/3340.htm
section 61
http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20030314IE11
http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20030328IE1

In the election of speaker we use a three-round election, where an 
absolute majority of those present and voting is needed in the first 
two rounds and a simple majority is enough in the third.

In Finland we do use FPTP in local government for appointments, 
except elections of town managers which use a runoff. With party 
cohesion the results are rather predictable and the parties negotiate 
about all posts, so FPTP is usually not a problem, or, perhaps more 
accurately, it's problems are remedied by negotiations. Committees 
and chairmen+deputies are elected by (nearly) unanimous consent or 
closed list PR.

In Germany the election of the chancellor requires an absolute 
majority. If it can't be found, a dissolution will follow.

>>That will apply no matter whether you have majority
>>government of one party or a coalition, or minority government.  Of 
>>course, you
>>can improve the stability of the Parliament (and of the government) 
>>by avoiding
>>the stupid rule that any successful vote against the government automatically
>>means that the government falls.
>>
>Indeed, that seems pretty awful.  Is that what Poland is doing?

I'm not sure what sounds awful, the Westminster model? In Britain it 
is normal that almost any vote against the government leads to new 
elections, which is an effective way of increasing the power of the 
Prime Minister. In some countries only an express vote of no 
confidence will lead to dissolution. One device is the French 
invention called interpellation.

It's the too easy votes of no confidence, not PR, which I think has 
lead to instability in some countries. As I've said, the Swiss 
solution avoids this. Israel has adopted a quasi-presidential type of 
government where the prime minister is elected directly by the 
voters, which means they use a single-winner method. It's not 
guaranteed that the winner is able to work with other parties so I'm 
not sure how much it will improve stability. I understand some 
countries in South America have proportional elections and a 
presidential form of government. Brazil?

The Polish constitution
http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/pl00000_.html
Articles 154 - 162

Olli Salmi