Letters: We wouldn’t be in this mess with proportional representation
Letters: We wouldn’t be in this mess with proportional representation
'For the umpteenth time, drum roll please, this entire mess could easily have been avoided. If we had a democratic electoral system, i.e. proportional representation, this would not have happened.'
PR never benefits the current government, so implementing it is very unlikely to ever happen despite how much better it would be.
12That is a defeatist attitude by someone who is against electoral reform.
The powerful few cannot ignore a general strike in favour of PR to be passed without a referendum through multiparty support.
-1Three referendums on this in BC and failed ever time. There is not going to be a general strike or anything. Obviously the general population don’t care.
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Goodness no, things would be even worse!
Many PR systems end up having a variety of smaller single issue parties. Our system has flaws but it tends to produce majority governments to which it is easy to ascribe blame as well as praise.
In a coalition of 4 differenr parties as government, whom should be blamed for what gets really difficult.
For a practical demonstration, look at Israel which is conducting an unpopular war in part because Netenyahu is beholden to a small group of extreme right wing parties to maintain power.
-11Stop fearmongering about a fairer system that increases voter choice and accountability in politics.
Israel’s situation is very complicated and is a terrible comparison to make.
You’re forgetting about what is happened in Zimbabwe. First past the post still produces extremists parties such as the B.C. conservatives and US republicans.
People can easily tell if 4 political parties screw up in government. It is classist and quite insulting to be assuming the public cannot handle more than 3 political parties.
Denmark uses pr and they’re one of the strongest democracies in the world.
8Denmark does use PR and in a small, fairly homogeneous country it has basically worked.
But look at say, Germany which is now dealing with the rise of the AFD, or Italy which has been a mess for the last 20 years and recently elected a hard right Christian anti immigrant party, or the Netherlands where the parry of banning the Qur'an is now in charge of immigration policy, or Greece which has been so woefully run that it's required three bailouts from the IMF between 2010 and 2015.
Like, it's adorable to assume there would only be 4 parties but almost no PR system in the world keeps that few parties, there is a huge incentive to be a single issue party and try to play kingmaker.
And Zimbabwe? That's your comparison for BC? Really?
PR is one of those things that sounds nice until you really dig into the mechanics, which end up as consolidating power in political elites (they generally control the list of candidates) sketchy backroom deals and almost zero accountability.
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