CDC proposes to combine two voting systems

New method likely to favour small, medium-sized parties, writes Mongkol Bangprapa

The latest voting system proposed by the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) is likely to favour medium-sized political parties, giving them more bargaining power to join a government.

It blends the mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) and the mixed-member apportionment (MMA) electoral system.

While Meechai Ruchupan, chairman of the CDC, has insisted on the principle of making every vote count, including ballots cast for losing MP candidates, the panel has recently decided to combine the two systems after its proposed MMA system was severely criticised.

Under the original MMA system, all votes cast for the losing constituency candidates would be used to calculate the proportion of party-list seats for each party, rather than being thrown away under the old first-past-the-post system.

Politicians criticised the method as being unfair because the method only shifts the failed candidates’ votes to the party — not the winning candidates’ votes — which is tantamount to throwing away the winner’s votes.

Under this system, the more constituency seats a party wins, the fewer partylist seats it would have. The method was also criticised for favouring medium-sized and small parties, increasing the number of parties in the House, which would in turn lead to a coalition government, according to political observers.

In its latest move, the CDC has decided to blend its MMA system with some aspects of the MMP proposed by the previous CDC led by Borwornsak Uwanno.

The Meechai-led panel still wants to allocate a single ballot for both constituency and party-list MPs.

Under Mr Meechai, the CDC caps the total number of MPs at 500, 350 of which are elected from the constituencies and 150 from the party list.

All votes each party receives in all constituencies nationwide will be combined to determine the percentage of seats for each party, based on the total number of 500 House seats.

If party A is calculated to gain 20% of all the votes, this means it is entitled to obtain 100 seats (20% of the 500 seats).

So, if the party wins 85 seats in the constituency system, the party will be entitled to another 15 seats for the party list.

The panel still wants to allocate a single ballot for both constituency and party-list MPs.

But in the event the party wins 105 constituency seats, which exceeds its 20% share, it will not receive any for the party list.

Under Mr Borwornsak’s MMP system, voters were to be allowed two votes: one for a constituency MP in a single-seat electoral constituency, and one for a party list.

The number of party-list MPs would be flexible depending on a proportional calculation.

Mr Meechai’s CDC has capped the number of party list MPs at 150.

However, the Meechai-led panel has also come up with a formula to solve problems that may arise if the number of party-list MPs exceeds the proposed threshold of 150.

For example, if Party A wins 80 seats, Party B — 40, Parties C and D — 20 each, and Party E — 10, this would mean the total number of seats is 170 — 20 more than the threshold.

A formula will then be applied to multiply the number of seats of each party by 150 (the threshold) and then divided by 170 (the total number of seats).

The new results would be as follows: Party A — 70.59, Party B — 35.29, Party C and Party D — 17.65 each, and Party E — 8.82.

They would then round down the figures and add up the results. In this case, adding 70, 35, 17, 17 and 8 equals 147 — three short of the 150-seat threshold.

To make the figure add up to 150, the difference would be allocated to those political parties with the highest decimal numbers from the original results.

This means Party C and D (both with 17.65) and Party E (with 8.82) would each get one of the three seats.

Parties C and D would then have 18 seats each, while Party E would have 9 seats. The new total number of seats would equal 150.

Under the CDC’s latest proposal, major political parties, particularly Pheu Thai which won the majority of House seats in previous elections, is likely to be forced to give up any excess seats to other rival parties, according to political observers.

As for medium-sized parties such as Chartthaipattana and Chart Pattana, they have the capacity to field constituency candidates nationwide and they can benefit from the “excess seats” that would be allocated under the latest proposed voting system, observers said.