No electoral system will please everyone

Re: “Voting reform choices are confusing,” letter, June 6. All electoral systems have their advantages and drawbacks. Human tendency is to notice the worst parts and forget the good parts.

Look at the first-past-the-post system, and we have lots of examples where it is not very fair on minorities. Look at proportional representation, and we can see that many countries have had problems with it.

However, I think it is a mistake to look at the voting system without looking at the cultural context. If you look at countries with adversarial, and even aggressive cultures, neither system works happily.

Britain’s wartime coalition government worked well because it had to, and there was a commonality of purpose. In postwar Italy and France, there was chaos because there was such a gulf between people’s beliefs.

On the other hand, Germany had many coalition governments that produced prosperity and a good social contracts.

Unfortunately, the recent huge influx of refugees created social divides that were not there before, and finding a coalition was difficult.

So beware. You will never find a system that will please everyone, so do not pretend that one or the other is superior. It is only different.

Ray Ferris Victoria