Cyprus-Forum.com

[erolz]

Vaguely interesting piece here on bbc online site

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ ... 456269.stm

[cannedmoose]

I think a lot of the apathy comes as a result of not feeling listened to by our politicians. They get elected with great promises of making things better, and then largely go back on most of them. Plus, trying to get action from some local MPs is like getting blood from a stone.

In addition, even though I will vote and always do, it's the realisation for me that unless I live in a marginal (closely-contested) constituency, my vote doesn't really make much difference. For example, in my constituency, Labour current has a 14.4% majority over the Conservatives (49.7% to 35.3%), with the Lib Dems way back on 12.8%. I personally favour Lib-Dem policies and will therefore be voting for them, in effect wasting my vote since they have no hope of winning my seat. Analysts have worked out that it's essentially the votes of 800,000 people across the country in close seats that determine the make-up of parliament. Thus, until we have a system of proportional representation in the UK, the seats in Parliament will never accurately reflect the desires of the people of the country and I personally will continue to feel disenfranchised.

P.S. My prediction, Labour majority of 70 seats.

[turkcyp]

I actually like the British or USA system where there is one MPs from each district. This system has many advantages over the system you are proposing.
- you know who your MP is and you can hold him/her acountable to the decisions affecting your communuity
- increases the sensitivity of local issues
- make politicians more acceiable and also more sensitive to constituents.

The problem with these systems is what you have mentioned. There can be two things done to clear the. Require that whoever is elected gets at least 50% of vote. In order to do that you have to have an election system where people actually rank their choices instead of choosing only one.

The other thing that can be done is to desigante certain amount of MPS in the parliament to what is called national Mp. These would be decided on the basis of general vote in the country, and the rest as above.

[cannedmoose]

I agree that in principle the 'first past the post' system should result in greater attachment of MPs to their constituency and in some cases this does work, but it depends on the character of the MP. Some of them get elected and head off to London with barely a thought for the real concerns of their constituents, as exampled by the Blairite MPs who are somewhat akin to AKEL-ite sheep in their voting practices and their sycophantic questions at PMQs.

I think the solution you proposed is a fair one, but it's difficult enough to get people to vote in this country anyway, even with such a simple 'one cross in one box' voting system. If people had to stand there for an extra minute ranking people, you'd see even lower turnout. As for the national MP idea, again it's valid, but it's over-complicating the system as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not a Liberal-Democrat by inclination (I would be a Tory voter but I can't possibly vote for an anti-European party, nor could I ever vote for Michael 'Slimebag' Howard), but I do believe that proportional representation, whilst slightly delinking constituents from their representatives, is the only fair way to go. In the devolved parliament in Scotland, the PR system is used and it immediately forced the Labour party into coalition with the Lib-Dems, with a number of positive consequences as a result.

[devil]

There cannot be a democracy where you have political parties. With a democracy, you vote for what an individual stands for without his having to toe a party line. If Blair or Howard or Bush or Sharon or Chirac or Schroeder or Papadopolous or whoever says snap your fingers, everyone snaps their fingers, no matter what the issues are (we saw that here a year ago ).

Also, true democrats representing the people would be a LOT more intelligent than those who do not think but just blindly follow the party line, mainly because the latter are incapable of thinking. I'm convinced that over 90% of the elected must have an IQ below the average, starting with Bush. So today's "democracy" is really an oligarchy of the mentally near-retarded. In fact, if they were more intelligent, the candidates would not even stand for election.

The nearest you can find to a democracy in the developed world today is in Switzerland, but even that has flaws. Firstly, the politicians and, above all, the sovereign people are sufficiently intelligent that they have consistently refused to join the EU. Secondly, there is a three tier system of government, communal, cantonal and federal. The most power goes to the commune (which also raises the most taxes), so that everything that it is possible to rule at a communal level is done so. The elected therefore are in touch with the people and meet them in the bistrot every night. The cantonal authorities are weaker and mainly supervise the uniformity of the communes; e.g., to make sure all the communal schools follow the same curriculum, within laid-down limits. The federal is there only for things that cannot be regulated at a lower level, such as money, foreign affairs, customs, military etc, and they receive only a small part of the taxes. A communal politician is therefore more useful than a federal one who is there only for the ego-trip. Some smaller cantons still do their cantonal and communal voting by a show of hands of the whole population (in other words, they have only an Executive body but no legislative body other than the whole adult population meeting in a Landsgemeinde) -- THAT is near-democracy.

[cannedmoose]

Devil, I agree that our modern versions of democracy have their flaws, but I don't see how your panacea of 'Athenian-style democracy' (which was a misnomer in itself, since women and non-citizens were excluded) could possibly work, albeit with some exceptions in the case of micro-states. It would be virtually impossible to govern modern, large states by such methods, hence why we delegate our direct representation to MPs, Senators etc.

I think the main problem is the party system of government, where MPs are required to toe the line. I often despair at how many times during House of Commons debates, you hear the phrase, 'the whip is in effect' - meaning that MPs are told by the party leadership how to vote and threatened with certain consequences if they don't. I think this is anathema to a truly representative system and largely comes from the adversarial style of politics that operates in the UK. I've been looking into the way AKEL operates in Cyprus lately as well and I'm truly shocked by the hardline way in which this party functions, no dissent is tolerated and all members must abide by the decisions of the majority. That's not so much a democracy as a dictatorship. I'm amazed that it still retains 1/3rd of the people's votes...

[devil]

CM

I didn't say that Athenian-style was the best, or the Landsgemeinde, which is limited to small cantons, with populations of a few tens of thousands. The Swiss system is very complex with two legislative bodies and an executive body at all levels in most cantons (some smaller communes may work with one legislative body). There are typically about half-a-dozen parties in most places, but no whips and great use of coalitions. The Federal Council (cabinet) is the top executive and consists of 7 members, the President being one in yearly rotation. There are usually 4 or 5 parties on the FC and all meetings and decisions are held in secret with a collegial majority vote. If, for example, the extreme right UDC, with two seats, suggests an Ordinance for kicking out all foreigners from the country, and a vote is taken, the other 5 members would vote against, and the UDC members would support the collegial decision. Of course, the Council of States (Senate) and the National Council (Representatives) meet in public, like everywhere else.

However, the big difference is that, at all levels, a small number of citizens can contest any decision and force a referendum or can propose a popular initiative for a new legislation. This means that both the legislative bodies and parties know that if they go too far in their rule-making, they will be defeated by the people which prevents extremism. Constitutional changes, at all levels, must undergo a mandatory referendum. Typically, each citizen will be asked to pronounce on about 6 or 7 referendums/initiatives per year, grouped together once in the Spring and once in the Autumn. This can produce some surprising results; for example, an initiative proposing an increase of VAT with the extra proceeds going towards more foreign aid passed with an overwhelming majority, even though all the right wing parties recommended rejecting it, the centre parties making no noise. Only the socialists and greens (minority) were officially for it. When the people can cock a snook like that at the parties, then we are a step closer to democracy.

As far as I'm aware, this is the best example I know of democracy working for the benefit of the people. Singapore is somewhat more totalitarian but its system is founded on similar principles of minimal power at a national level and maximum in the communities.

I won't coment on what I think of democracy in this country.

[turkcyp]

Democracy as it is implemented today has many flaws, especially many arising from the election systems. The current ‘representative democracies’ work on the principle that elected representatives work for their constituents and should be accountable to them reflecting their views in the parliament.

However as we all know due to many reasons the system does not work at its best, because there are huge broken links between constituents and elected representatives. MPs care about the party leaders more than their constituents. There are many reasons for these and those are the reasons that have to be fixed. (in the long run we are moving toward Athenian style direct democracy anyway with the advancement in communication technologies).

How can we fix those problems. Trust me seeing many countries with proportional representation system, I come to believe that it is easier to fix UK and USA type single district single MP system than proportional system. HOW.

- Single district single MP system with requirement of %50 of the vote.
- Distort the money machine that rules the politics by requiring single district commissions manage money spent on campaigns and requiring that money spent on one campaign only comes from that district. (commissions should be apolitical meaning formed by independent judges.)
- Force national parties to accept each districts MP choices before election as a candidate rather than appointing by the party leaders and/or big national party machine. (May be ask the MP to be from that region.)
- Put term limits on MPs. Say that an MP can not be elected more than 2 or 3 times, and say that an MP can not run from the same party more than once. The next time they run they have to run independent. (and because campaign money is strictly controlled by district commissions this should not be a deterring factor in being elected.)
- Make voting as ranking. Not exclusive but only top three candidate ranking should be enough in more than 95% of the cases.
- If still not satisfied set 25% of the parliament to be chosen by proportional representation and the rest as above. So that no voice is left behind.

Voter apathy is a serious problem in all developed countries. Number one reason for this is that people’s wealth level is high enough and they have necessary security nets, and also they have less to gain economically from government than in developing countries where a huge portion economic life and therefore wealth is controlled and influenced by the state.

But there is no way around it. I do not believe that you should force people to vote. ( I believe not voting is a way of voting) but I believe governments can give incentives for people to vote. In some places in USA there were proposals that for example tries to establish a lottery system for people who had voted. Anybody that votes are entered into lottery. This may seen very cheap way, but for example state can say that anybody who had voted in last elections can deduct extra $xxx from their next income taxes.

Or other incentives like these reduce voter apathy, and coupled with the feelings that your vote matters by changing the system as described above definitely helps. For example statistics shows that in places where there are close elections voter turnout is always higher, meaning the minute you think that your vote counts you start voting more.