FPTP vs MMP

Colin McGregor colinmc151-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Sat Oct 6 22:57:57 UTC 2007


--- Jamon Camisso <jamon.camisso-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On October 6, 2007 03:47:34 pm Colin McGregor wrote:

[snip]

> > My key concern is (as with Christopher Browne) the
> > splintering of the legislature into umpteen
> different
> > political parties and you will have weird unstable
> > coalition governments almost all the time with the
> > tiny one note parties having WAY too much power.
> >
> > A secondary related (but still significant)
> concern is
> > that it takes power away from the people and gives
> it
> > to the political parties. Let us assume you have a
> Ms.
> > X who is seen by the VERY vast majority of people
> as a
> > total dirt bag. Let us also assume that Ms. X is
> loved
> > by the power brokers of party Y (ie: she knows
> where
> > ALL the political bodies are buried (she helped
> bury
> > many of them) and is an effective fund raiser).
> Well
> > under FPTP Ms. X is most unlikely to get to the
> > legislature, but under MMP, the party can put her
> into
> > office and the general public can not say boo
> about it
> > all.
> >
> > Currently, you do get some nasty folks running in
> > party stronghold ridings that get elected. Key
> point
> > that the dirt bag MPPs are always in the end
> > responsible and always answerable to some voters,
> NOT
> > to the political parties (i.e. the current system
> > isn't perfect but it is clearly better than what
> is on
> > offer with MMP).
> >
> > As stands with the FPTP system everything TENDS to
> > window down to two large more-or-less middle of
> the
> > road parties and one smaller balance-of-power
> party
> > that is a bit further from centre. Yes, you
> sometimes
> > get a party into power that takes a step off the
> deep
> > end into weird political waters. But current
> > arrangement USUALLY delivers more-or-less middle
> of
> > the road effective, responsible to the people
> > government, while MMP appears (based on
> experiences in
> > places like Italy/Israel) to deliver on extremist,
> > ineffective, responsible to the parties, not the
> > people government.
> >
> > I am willing to consider changes to the government
> of
> > Ontario, but those changes must deliver power to
> the
> > citizens and not the parties...
> 
> Do remember that it was a group of citizens that
> came up with the 
> proposal. That is, a group of our (the electorate)
> peers.

True, but irrelevant. If a group of Microsoft Canada
employees (and Canadian citizens) decided to come up
with an electoral reform that centered around everyone
needing Microsoft Windows Vista in order to be allowed
to vote, would it be a good idea? A group of our peers
(the electorate) can come up with some bad ideas, and
MMP is one of them.

> Also, I might point out a certain
> http://www.parlament.ch/e/homepage, 
> where proportional representation has served well
> for a few hundred 
> years...

For some values of well, with 14 parties currently
represented in the Swiss government, and since 1959
ruling being done by a four party coalition. In other
words effectively PERMANENT government gridlock. Put
another way, while not the total mess found in Italy
or Israel, the Swiss situation does not inspire
confidence in the MMP system. 

> Jamon

Colin McGregor

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists





More information about the Legacy mailing list