I am trying to get to the bottom to my objections on the party list system of MMP as proposed in Ontario and I'm dragging you down with me. The whole point of this exercise is to determine if this is a deal breaker for me or not. Some days I am convinced I will vote in favour of electoral reform. Some days I'm against. My sense is that I'll be back and forth on this issue right up until election day.
Anyways, seems the discussion on lists in the comments are centred on the "what if" scenarios. What I am curious about is what actaully occurs in the Kiwi system, seeing as we are looking at their basic system and they are Commonwealth cousins.
Here are a couple of things I noticed this evening when reviewing the results of their 2005 election. The New Zealand Labour Party list (they were the incumbent) had its highest ranking non-MP at 27 (Shane Jones, if you must know). Whereas the previous 26 were Electorate MPs (ie elected in their riding) or List MPs. Of the List MPs selected there appears to be a few professional listers who do not stand for election but remain in Parliament due to their position on the list - including the high profile Michael Cullen (Minister of Finance), Margaret Wilson (Speaker of the House) and Ashraf Choudhary.
Even worse (in my opinion) is that leader (at the time) of the National Party of New Zealand, Don Brash, was a list candidate. Seems pretty crazy to me that the leader of a party would not stand for election in a riding - seems pretty gutless to me. He has since been replaced by John Key who is an Electorate MP (and, according to the latest polls, would defeat Labour and possibly win a majority being on 49%*, to use the Kiwi vernacular, though I assume a poll a year and a half from election is just as questionable in New Zealand as in Canada). But back to my point, did the electorate of New Zealand punish the National Party for having their leader be a list candidate? No, they gained 18% of the vote and 21 more seats.
* And it should be pointed out that New Zealand went to MMP due to frustration with their two mainline parties. Lastest poll - 48.5% National, 42% Labour - seems that everything old is new again.
Comments (3)
If you find yourself truly and deeply conflicted, with no prospect of reconciliation, you have to decide which is the better alternative: to be cautious, and to know that at worst you’ll be left with a system that works (even if it’s not the best of all possible worlds), or to take the risk of supporting a system that may become either ineffectual or politically dangerous (even if this is, admittedly, unlikely).
Posted by Saul | August 8, 2007 12:41 AM
Posted on August 8, 2007 00:41
I could see party leaders as list candidates becoming common. It has a few advantages:
1) the leader can focus on the province-wide campaign instead of being distracted locally
2) the leader is virtually guaranteed to win a seat as long as he’s first on the list (with the 3% minimum rule that means it would take 97% of the electorate to vote against his party for him to not get a seat)
3) it would further the trend of the premier/PM becoming quasi-presidential, that is rather than the leader getting their mandate from riding voters, they can claim to have the support of the whole province/country. This, IMO, will consolidate power withing the leaders office and weaken the independence of individual members.
Posted by Cool Blue | August 8, 2007 7:11 AM
Posted on August 8, 2007 07:11
This is a pony that has a lot of people worried. I have been looking into this issue as well, and from what I see it is not as bad as some of the scare stories would have you believe.
The majority of people (in Germany and New Zealand) end up running both on the list and in a riding. In some ways this is bad (it means that defeated candidates can get seats) but it puts to rest this idea of party hacks selecting their best friends.
Parties do have some influence over the list. They will put specialists on the top of the list (who will then serve as advisors for particular portfolios) and they will tend to rank riding candidates in vulnerable ridings higher.
Parties vary in how they select list candidates. The bigger parties give their party members a lot more say. In smaller NZ parties, the leaders tend to have most of the influence. There are some parties (the Conservatives in Scotland being one) that tie riding performance to list placement, and there are a few parties (the New Zealand Greens being an example) where the party membership has full power over electing candidates.
Posted by Paul Nijjar | August 9, 2007 1:17 AM
Posted on August 9, 2007 01:17