HEED GLOBAL LESSONS IN PROPORTIONAL VOTING
As legislation is prepared for B.C., other nations experience delays, headaches
The week began with reminders from beyond B.C. borders of the postelection scenarios that could become commonplace if the New Democrats and Greens succeed in their drive for proportional representation.
“New Zealanders to wait weeks for next leader after election,” was the headline in the Victoria Times Colonist after a Saturday election that left no party with a majority of seats.
Negotiations to assemble a governing coalition are expected to stretch to the middle of next month, all of it the backrooms. “We have to spend time on this out of the light of the media,” as National party leader Bill English put it in a moment of candour.
His party won the most seats, putting it first in line to continue in power. Just a few seats behind is a putative alliance between the Labour and Green parties.
Either National or the Labour- Greens could secure a majority with the support of New Zealand First, headed by Winston Peters, “a cantankerous, anti-immigration politician who prefers fishing to politics,” to quote the Guardian newspaper.
The populist Peters differs significantly with National on some issues, Labour on others. In the past he has partnered with a National government at one point, Labour at another.
This time Peters says he won’t begin talking to the other parties until the vote count is final on Oct. 7 and the negotiations are expected to be contentious.
“Anything can go,” reported the Financial Times, quoting a leading economist from Down Under about possible outcomes under the New Zealand system of mixed-member proportional representation. “The market is starting to get a little bit nervous now about what some of those options could look like.”
The Germans use a form of mixed-member proportional as well and when they voted on the weekend, the outcome was an even greater degree of uncertainty.
“We have considerable work ahead of us,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel on election night, putting it mildly. More to the point was Juliet Samuel, correspondent for the U.K.’s Telegraph: “It will be weeks, possibly months, before Germany has a government.”
Merkel, leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, hoped to continue governing in the grand coalition she had concluded with the centre-left Social Democrats in 2013.
But the SPD ruled out a repeat of that arrangement, leaving Merkel to try to assemble a coalition with the Greens on the left and the centrist Free Democrats.
Not an easy fit with the two potential partners at odds on taxes, defence and the environment for starters. Adding to the complications is the emergence of the far right Alternative for Germany, which cut into support for the established parties in some parts of the country.
Coalition talks in Germany can be a prolonged affair, involving point-by-point negotiations on lengthy power-sharing agreements. Last time out, Merkel needed three months to reach an understanding with the Social Democrats. With a multi-party alignment likely this time, some observers fret that the deal-making could stretch into winter, a concern reflected in reports about downward pressures on the euro and in German stocks.
Of course this year British Columbians had to wait for a new government to take office, after an election conducted on the not-proportional, first-past-the-post system.
Three weeks passed before The NDP-Green alliance concluded its power-sharing agreement. The B.C. Liberals used up another month with an ill-advised attempt to force another election.
By the time Premier John Horgan took the oath on July 18, 10 weeks had passed since B.C. voted.
But it was also the first time in 65 years and 18 provincial elections that the first-pastthe-post system had failed to produce a majority government in B.C.
Majorities are rarer in places that use the mixedmember system or other forms of proportional representation. Coalitions and other power-sharing accords are more common.
Those take time to negotiate. The world record, proudly held by the Belgians, is 541 days, stretching from June 2011 to December 2012. A few years earlier, the country racked up a 194-day interregnum.
The Belgian delays in forming governments are credited to a sharply polarized electorate and fractious political parties, neither of which is factor in B.C. politics, ha ha.
As in the examples above, power-sharing talks take place in party backrooms, well away from the news media and the public. The end product will often involve major trade-offs, some entailing the sacrifice of key promises in party platforms.
In the B.C. election, Green voters went with a party promising to kill Site C. NDP supporters voted for a platform that promised an immediate $175-million down payment on $10-a-day child care. The first was traded away in favour of a review of the project. The second was postponed because of budgetary pressures.
Sometimes the trade-offs are more crass.
When British Prime Minister Theresa May lost her majority last spring, the Democratic Unionist Party agreed to prolong her hold on power in exchange for a £1-billion top-up for government services in its Northern Ireland home base.
Meanwhile here in B.C., the New Democrats and Greens are preparing to bring in the enabling legislation for a fall 2018 referendum on some form of proportional representation. Both parties promise to campaign to make PR permanent, believing it is fairer and more inclusive.
But delays in forming governments, backroom tradeoffs among politicians and promise-breaking disguised as deal-making are also part of the process with proportional representation.
The Belgian delays in forming governments are credited to a sharply polarized electorate and fractious political parties.