The U.N., Voting and Iraq
Interesting story on one of the United Nations contributions to peace in Iraq.
Dale Franks at
QandO has the story:
bq.
The Contribution of the UN
You know what would be really cool? If, just once, you could invite the UN to help with something without having to worry that they'll
screw it all up. Unfortunately, competence, shall we say, is not butter for the UN's bread, if you know what I mean.
bq. Here's the problem. Iraq is a country made up of two major ethnic groups, the Kurds and Arabs. The Arabs are additionally divided up into two more major religious groups, the Sunni and Shia. They all dislike each other, intensely.
bq. Now, the grand idea that UN elections expert Carina Perelli came up with is proportional representation. So, instead of an electoral system on the American or British model, she's chosen the Italian model. Thus she has bequeathed on the Iraqis a system so stable that it's given Italy 54 different governments since the end of WWII.
He goes on a little bit to explain the difference between this and our constituency-based system.
bq. The U.S. and Britain have what's known as constituency-based democracy. That is, voters in neighborhoods or districts select a single person to represent them in Congress or Parliament based on whoever wins a plurality of the vote. This system has many virtues, producing stable and effective governments that can be held accountable by voters at the next election. When Prime Minister Tony Blair came to power, for example, the Tory defense and foreign ministers lost not just their cabinet posts but their seats in Parliament--an outcome almost unthinkable under a system of "proportional" representation.
bq. Yet the latter is precisely what Ms. Perelli proposed last week for Iraq. In this system, voters choose not among individual candidates but among parties that are awarded a share of legislative seats based on their percentage of the vote. Proponents say the system better allows all significant voices to be heard. But even in the best of cases--Italy over much of the past 50 years--proportional systems tend to produce unstable governments easily paralyzed by the little parties they have to cobble into a majority coalition. Would-be candidates are beholden to party bosses who determine their place on the electoral list and thus their chances of success.
The article goes on to describe the U.N.'s reason for this choice but it's a bad decision to implement this and in nations where this has been chosen, it is impossible to revert back to a constituency-based system due to entrenched politians...
Posted by DaveH at June 10, 2004 4:56 PM