The perils of PR

Holland has had to wait more than six months after its election to get a new government and, even then, the ruling administration has a majority of just one. Moreover, that coalition contains the right-wing, anti-abortion Christian Union party – which received a mere 3.4% of the vote – but has no place for either the Green Left or the Socialists, which both got more than 9%. In Germany, voters are unlikely to know the composition of their new government before Christmas, since the second largest party, the SPD, ruled out a grand coalition with the Christian Democrats. New Zealand also has a hung parliament after an indecisive election in September, with the probability that the anti-immigration New Zealand First party will play a “kingmaker” role, despite attaining just 7% of the popular vote.

The common feature of these recent elections is that they are all based on complex systems of proportional representation (PR). Not only are these voters unclear – often for some considerable time – about who exactly will make up their governments, the governments often contain unrepresentative parties that garnered only a tiny number of seats.

Proponents of similar PR systems for this country ought to look overseas and take very careful note, otherwise situations such as the current government reliance on the DUP might become an ineluctable part of our electoral structure. Martin Freedman, London