ANDREW COYNE: ‘PR’ NOT PERFECT, BUT IT WORKS
Here is how some opponents of proportional representation think it works. After the votes are cast, each party receives a number of seats in strict accordance with its share of the total vote. Rather than running in constituencies, MPs are simply pulled off lists drafted by party leaders.
The parliament that results is a fragmented mess: dozens of parties, many of them of a fringe or extremist hue. Unable to command a majority on their own, mainstream parties are forced to negotiate with the fringe parties for power. The upshot: chaos, instability and, as often as not, financial ruin.
You’d be surprised how many otherwise well-informed people believe this. Here, for example, is Bill Tieleman, B.C. NDP strategist, writing in The Tyee: “How would you like an anti-immigrant, racist, antiabortion or fundamentalist religious political party holding the balance of power in Canada? … Welcome to the proportional representation electoral system, where extreme, minority and just plain bizarre views get to rule the roost.”
At the other ideological pole, here’s columnist Lorne Gunter, writing in The Sun newspapers: “PR breaks the local bond between constituents and MPs … In a strict PR system, party leaders at national headquarters select who their candidates will be, or at least in what order they will make it into Parliament …”
The question naturally arises: where are these dystopian hellholes? Is that really how proportional representation works, either in operation or result? Why, then, would anyone choose it?
Because the system described above does not remotely resemble proportional representation as it is practised in most countries at most times. Look at any list of the world’s most successful countries, by whatever metric you prefer — GDP per capita, say, or median incomes, or triple-A credit ratings, or if you find those too limiting, the UN’s Human Development In- dex — and you find the same names appearing.
Yes, you’ll see the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, all using the familiar “first past the post” system. But so, near the top of every list, are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, all of whose parliaments are wholly or partly elected by proportional representation.
Whether this is because of or in spite of their political system is another question. But we can at least describe accurately how their political system works, rather than rely on caricatures born of half-remembered newspaper clippings.
To be sure, the world is full of people, and parties, with unsettling views. But it’s too simple to ascribe these to particular electoral systems
How many parties, for starters, does one find in the typical PR-based legislature? There’s a range, depending (in part) on the size of the electoral districts from which they are elected. Remember: what distinguishes PR is the use of multi-member, rather than single-member, districts. The more members per district, the more closely you can match the number of seats a party gets to its proportion of the vote.
So at one end, you have countries such as Austria, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden, all with six to eight parties represented in their legislatures — or about one to three more than Canada’s, with five. At the other, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland, with 10 to 12.
Virtually all of these countries have some element of local representation: only the Netherlands, whose total area is less than that of some Canadian ridings, elects MPs at large. And none uses the “strict” form of PR Gunter describes, known as “closed list.” Rather, voters can generally choose which of a party’s candidates they prefer, so-called “open lists.”
How unstable are these systems? Since 1945, Canada has held 22 elections. In only one of the PR countries mentioned has there been more: Denmark, with 26. The average is 20. It is true that the governments that result are rarely, if ever, one-party majorities. But, as you may have noticed, that is not unknown here. Nine of Canada’s 22 federal elections since 1945 have resulted in minority parliaments.
Is there occasional postelection wrangling, while parties negotiate on the makeup of the coalition governments? Yes. But the notion that this inevitably makes the large parties hostage to the fringe is contrary to both logic and fact. The larger parties may agree to govern together, as Austria’s Social Democratic party and Austrian People’s party did in 2003, rather than accept the right-wing Austrian Freedom party as a partner. Or if they do decide to deal, they must be mindful of the voters’ wrath at the next election, as New Zealand’s National party discovered in 1999, after it was judged to have sold its soul to the anti-immigrant New Zealand First party.
So where did the caricature come from? Two words: Israel and Italy. Even here the picture is exaggerated: the Israeli parliament has 12 parties, Italy’s eight. By comparison, France, which uses a two-round system, has 14, while the United Kingdom — yes, Mother Britain — now has 11. More to the point, there are circumstances unique to each, not only in their parliamentary systems — Israel uses an extreme form of PR, while Italy’s, which has gone through several, defies description — but in their histories and political cultures.
To be sure, the world is full of people, and parties, with unsettling views. But it’s too simple to ascribe these to particular electoral systems.
Just now, the gravest extremist uprisings are to be found in the United States and the United Kingdom, where they threaten to devour the Republican and Labour parties, respectively.
Or as it has been said: if Israel and Italy are enough to make the case against PR, then we should as well avoid first past the post, as that’s the system in Zimbabwe.
WHERE DID THE NEGATIVE CARICATURE COME FROM?