Hello Am Benjamin, thanks for your thoughts. No credible viewpoint on this subject has ever said that PR elections doesn't elect conservatives and occasionally even the far right. I mention other examples of that in my article. The broader and more important perspective, for me, is whether or not the electoral system produces ACCURATE results, in terms of "votes to seats", that actually reflects the "will of the voters". If the voters select certain political parties that win a certain percentage of the votes, do those parties then also win approximately the same percentage of seats? That is the fairest standard for any electoral system.
In the case of Sweden, the electoral system worked accurately and effectively. Voters selected the center-right coalition which eked out a bare majority of three seats. While the center-left coalition, led by the Social Democrats (which actually had the most votes and seats of any party), is only a handful of seats behind, it also nearly had enough seats to form its own majority govt. It was a very close election and the results show that. The center-right has won the right to try and form a government, which it is doing (though if you read the various news reports, most are predicting that the center-right government will be unstable and may not last very long because the various parties in the coalition don't agree on many important issues).
The Sweden situation is far different from what happened in Italy, however. In Italy, because they don't use a more proportional representation system, instead use a "parallel" system that grafts onto the PR system a bunch of winner take all district seats, that led to an enormous distortion in the "votes to seats" standard. If Italy had used a more proportional system, the center-right coalition with 44% of the vote may not have been able to form a government. But because that center-right coalition won 82% of the winner take all district seats, it means that overall the center-right has 59% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies even though it is only supported by 44% of Italians.
This distortion, as a result of the winner take all districts, actually is a vindication of the PR method. It is the fairest method because it gives the most accurate reflection of the will of the voters. And sometimes, yes, the will of the voters is supportive of conservative parties. I am not troubled by that, democracy means that the will of the voters should prevail and the give and take between the right and left is a vibrant part of representative democracy. It's when the electoral system results in the will of the voters being frustrated and even overturned that I find the most problematic, because that undermines representative democracy itself. Thanks for your thoughts.
Sweden does not have SMD or winner-takes-all, but the far right won a majority. So doesn't that make the case that PR can still be problematic?
Hello Am Benjamin, thanks for your thoughts. No credible viewpoint on this subject has ever said that PR elections doesn't elect conservatives and occasionally even the far right. I mention other examples of that in my article. The broader and more important perspective, for me, is whether or not the electoral system produces ACCURATE results, in terms of "votes to seats", that actually reflects the "will of the voters". If the voters select certain political parties that win a certain percentage of the votes, do those parties then also win approximately the same percentage of seats? That is the fairest standard for any electoral system.
In the case of Sweden, the electoral system worked accurately and effectively. Voters selected the center-right coalition which eked out a bare majority of three seats. While the center-left coalition, led by the Social Democrats (which actually had the most votes and seats of any party), is only a handful of seats behind, it also nearly had enough seats to form its own majority govt. It was a very close election and the results show that. The center-right has won the right to try and form a government, which it is doing (though if you read the various news reports, most are predicting that the center-right government will be unstable and may not last very long because the various parties in the coalition don't agree on many important issues).
The Sweden situation is far different from what happened in Italy, however. In Italy, because they don't use a more proportional representation system, instead use a "parallel" system that grafts onto the PR system a bunch of winner take all district seats, that led to an enormous distortion in the "votes to seats" standard. If Italy had used a more proportional system, the center-right coalition with 44% of the vote may not have been able to form a government. But because that center-right coalition won 82% of the winner take all district seats, it means that overall the center-right has 59% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies even though it is only supported by 44% of Italians.
This distortion, as a result of the winner take all districts, actually is a vindication of the PR method. It is the fairest method because it gives the most accurate reflection of the will of the voters. And sometimes, yes, the will of the voters is supportive of conservative parties. I am not troubled by that, democracy means that the will of the voters should prevail and the give and take between the right and left is a vibrant part of representative democracy. It's when the electoral system results in the will of the voters being frustrated and even overturned that I find the most problematic, because that undermines representative democracy itself. Thanks for your thoughts.
Thank you for the great explanation. Italy is brought up often as a reason to avoid PR and I've never fully understood what happens in their system.