Do Elections guarantee Democracy?

Democracy is a complex practice and no system can actually guarantee perfect democracy. It involves the representation of people as a whole. Our democracy is said to be a liberal one. This involves individuals having the right to express their views about who should represent us. Our democracy is also described as being pluralistic. It is essential for a democracy to be plural. This involves the expression of many types of views in the democracy. Democracy is a government by people. The people who are part of the government are there by the consent of citizens in society who have voted for them. The consent can be withdrawn by people refusing to vote. In 1997, John Major’s consent to be our prime minister was withdrawn because the majority of us refused to vote for him.

Elections are a part and parcel of democracy. This is how we take part in a democracy. The elections give us the opportunity to vote for which person we think is the best to represent us. However, elections are not very fair and representative and don’t always represent everyone in a fair way. There are several different types of voting systems which are used to elections. There is the First Past The Post system and The Proportional Representation system. FPTP is a very simple system which is used in Westminster today. It retains traditional single member constituencies in which the candidate who gets most votes wins the election. This system is a very clear and easy way of electing someone and tends towards a stable one-party government. Proportional Representation involves systems such as Alternative Voting, Supplementary Vote, Additional Member System and Single Transferable Vote. Alternative Voting consists of single member constituencies, but voters list preferences among the candidates. If one person gets more than 50% of the votes then that person wins. If this is not the case, the subsequent preferences of candidates with fewest votes are distributed until someone does pass the 50% mark. The Supplementary Vote system was the system used to elect the London Mayor. Voters have two preferences, if no one wins in the first ballot , the second preference is then taken into account. Additional Member System consists of voters having two votes. One would be used to elect up to two-thirds of MPs in traditional way under FPTP. The other would be cast for the party and remaining MPs would be elected from party lists. The Single Transferable Vote involves large multi-member constituencies would each have 4 or 5 MPs. Voters list their candidates in order of preference and can pick between contenders in the same party as well as rival ones.

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FPTP has caused a lot of controversy about how fair and representative it is to the people in society as a whole. The 1997 General Election was a perfect example of how unrepresentative FPTP is. Tony Blair quoted when he won the election “I am the voice of the people”. Only 44% of those who had bothered to vote, voted for the Labour Party. How could Tony Blair say what he had said when in theory he is only representing 44% of those people who voted. So the other 56% of those who voted were not being represented. You don’t have to be a genius to work out that that is not being very democratic. The current FPTP system is insufficiently representative as it undermines the basic concept of human rights. The main objective of a representative government is to ensure that al sections of society have a say in the formation and conduct of the current government. Not all sections of society were represented in the 1997 General Election. Only a small proportion of the population had voted which meant that the majority of Britain were not being represented. The House of Commons also not very representative aswell. Tony Blair seems to be dominating with his massive majority of 180 seats. He seems to have 64% of the seats when he has only one 44% of the vote. That is not being very proportionately representative. FPTP results in a sort of “electoral dictatorship”, where the party who have won on a landslide get complete power in the House of Commons. This is what happened with Mr. Blair. Recently there has been an increasing concern that the British electoral system leads to an undemocratic government. The FPTP system exploits the lack of constraint that the British constitution allows. To allow a party who only won by a minority of voters the right to impose measures which the majority of the general public do not agree is not being very democratic. The Guardian once quoted in 1989 that “Britain seems to have the most powerful and least representative system of government in Western Europe”. The FPTP system also discriminate against smaller parties. A party can win many votes in an election but win very few seats in the House of Commons because their national support is spread very thinly. This was the case with the Liberal Democrats in the 1997 General Elections. They had won 17% of the votes but only got 7% of the seats because many of their voters were spread very thinly. In our current electoral system, small parties tend to struggle to win seats until they pass the threshold of one third of the poll. Once parties pass the threshold mark , they tend to win seats in very large numbers. This results in a “catch 22” situation. The only way to get out of being a small party is to get bigger!! The FPTP system also results in many wasted votes. The votes which do not directly contribute to the party who have won are just wasted. These wasted votes could have been used to reflect different opinions of people which is far more democratic.

The other problem about elections is that not all people get the information about each party’s objectives. It is widely acknowledged that certain groups such as the unemployed and ethnic minorities, are under represented on the register through the lack of information leading to their failure to complete the formal procedures. It is essential that al groups have the right to vote and be entitled to view any information they want. There is no point in having an election if not all sections of society are suitably informed.

The current electoral system shows that there is a lot of discrimination against women and ethnic groups. Over 50% of the population are female, yet less than 1 in 5 MPs are women. It is clearly not very democratic that mostly males represent our population. This also applies to ethnic minorities, they only gained representation in 1987, but there were only 4 MPs. In 1997 the figure had risen to 7. The ethnic minority play a huge role in London and in many other cities across Britain and deserve far more representation. The people to blame for this are the local party selection committee. They prefer to choose “safe” candidates who suit the criteria of being white, male and middle aged. Greater anticipation of women and ethnic minorities is essential so that more groups are represented.

The PR system is one which is preferred and used in many other European countries. A PR system is more representative than a FPTP system but it is still not perfect. The AV system retains a direct link between MPs and constituents and ensures that the winner has a majority of support at local level. This type of system is fairer to the smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green party. This is a reasonably proportionate system but can at times produce widely unproportional results. This is due to tactical voting. A PR system could lead to a coalition government with Labour and the Liberals. In the 1997 General Election most first choice Liberal Democrat voters put Labour as their second choice and vice versa. This will lead to the Tories diminishing as the result will clearly be a landslide victory for the Liberals or Labour. There is a chance in the future that a LibLab government could emerge. This type of system is not being very democratic as two parties gang up on one party which is very representative. The STV system is also reasonably proportionate. It gives the voter what he/she wants and results in no wasted votes. It also gives the voter the chance to vote for small parties as they have the chance to extend their choice of who to vote for in their choices. This is far more democratic than the FPTP system as it allows more representation of smaller parties and more choice for the voter. The 1999 British elections in the European Parliament showed voting patterns to suggest that the British electorate can adapt to PR. Smaller parties such as the Green party significantly achieved higher shares of the vote than in the previous European Parliament Election. Labour, Conservative and The Liberal Democrats only collected 76% of the votes compared to 88% which they achieved in 1994. This shows that under a PR system, greater parties do not dominate as much and smaller parties have more representation.

Elections and democracy all rely on participation. If people do not participate in politics then the whole democracy will falter. Elections need people to participate to ensure that they represent the whole of society. If not many people bother to vote then, they are not being represented and the result of the election will not be very democratic or representative. Only 71% of the population who were eligible to vote, voted. That resulted in 29% of the population not being represented. If a large proportion of the population is not being represented then that election was not very democratic. Without participation no election can be representative or democratic.

Electoral volatility is how voters behave in general. In Britain there is a high level of electoral volatility. The modern British electorate can be characterised as `dealigned’. This means that most voters are easily distracted by recent news or what the media says. In September 2000, the Oil Crises resulted in an increase in Tory votes in the opinion polls. But only in a matter of months this will be all forgotten about and the opinion polls will swing back to Tony Blair’s favour. Party choice in the 1950s and 1960 were very stable , but now we have to anticipate large swings in votes from election to election. This type of attitude results in a lot of persuasive propaganda in newspapers and on the news to persuade people to vote for their party. If people are influenced to vote because of what newspapers say, it is not very democratic. The decision to join the Euro is a perfect example of this. Many tabloid newspapers are all against the Euro and argue about all the cons of joining the Euro so that people can be persuaded to vote against it. If people are not informed about what they are voting for then there is no point in them voting.

There is also a need of greater direct democracy. This involves the use of referendums which are used by parties to gain permission from the public over a dispute. In the near future Tony Blair shall call a referendum on whether to join the Euro. This is where the public get asked whether they want to join the Euro or not. It is a simple “yes” or “no” answer. There are several arguments against referendums. The Tories believe that it undermines the basic concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty. Parliament should decide on what laws should be made and referendums are not needed. Referendums are not as democratic and representative as they seem. In most cases, the “yes” vote normally wins. Parties only carry out referendums unless they are sure that they are likely to win them. The leading party also gets money from the tax payer to fund their campaign. At present, the Labour Party are funded by the tax payer to advertise the advantages of joining the Euro but the Tories have to fund their campaign out of their own pocket. This means that Labour in theory have more of a chance to inform the public about their views and opinions about joining the Euro. This is not being very democratic as people will only be informed about one side of the argument.

Mandates are also a cause of concern about how we are represented. in 1992, there should have been a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty under the Major Government. John Major had mentioned in the Conservative Manifesto that we will not be signing the Maastricht Treaty and will therefore not join the Euro. So when he was in power he refused to hold a referendum because he claimed that the public had given him a mandate because they had voted for him and they were aware of his policies. The result of this election has lead to a type of dictatorship from Major and refusing to have a referendum is refusing to represent and listen to the views of the general public and what other parties have to say.

Elections do not guarantee total democracy. Total democracy can never be reached as not every single person in a country will be represented fairly. However, different types of electoral systems such as PR can guarantee a higher level of democracy than systems such as FPTP. The only times when elections have a great impact on democracy is when a greater proportion of the population who are eligible to vote actually make the effort. It is also vital that everyone is well informed and that the media behaves in a responsive manner so that people choose to vote on their own choice, not because newspapers have influenced them. Having achieved this, elections will be more representative and democratic. However, democracy will not be guaranteed but we will live in a far more equal and representative society.