What is the purpose of elections and do they guarantee a democracy?

However, the validity of this suggestion can be questioned. Both John Major of the UK and Silvio Berlisconi of Italy were elected under the first-past-the-post system.  General strikes and mass demonstrations brought down Berlisconi, and Major’s government is infamous for its divisions and fragility.  Similarly, the German governments, both West and Unified, have had coalition governments for decades but it is hard to imagine a more stable government and society.  These examples question the deterministic notion that first-past-the-post systems always produce strong, stable governments, whilst proportional representation fails to produce stability.

Proportional representation also helps to minimise the number of votes that are ‘wasted’.  An example of this can be taken from the UK’s 1992 General election, where the Liberal Democrats won 17.9% of the votes, but only 3.1% of the seats.  These voters were clearly under-represented in parliament.  The Conservative government of 1979-1997 also never won more than 40% of the vote, yet were the dominant political party in the UK for18 years.  Under the current first-past-the-post system in the UK, it is possible to win more votes but fewer seats, as exactly in 1951.

Nevertheless, except under a national list system of proportional representation, every vote would not necessarily count.  This is because few systems ensure precise proportionality due to divisions such as thresholds or different constituency boundaries.  It would be impossible though to use a pure national list system though, because if one political party took 3.7% of the vote, they can not be awarded with 3.7% of seats, as each seat is a whole number.  This is why it is almost impossible to ensure a pure democracy, as if they were awarded 3% of the seats they would still not be represented fully according to voting, but if they were awarded 4% they would be over-represented.  The only way to get around this is by using ‘top-up’ MPs, but this by its very nature is undemocratic – unelected representatives is a key feature of authoritarianism, not democracy.

To try and counter this problem there is a proportional representation system which ‘transfers’ votes so that unelected representatives do not have to be used. The “Single transferable vote” system is based on multi-member constituencies, and each voter ranks candidates (1,2,3 etc.) and is based on quotas.  In a five member constituency parties

This system, however, would penalise independent candidates who can not take 2 seats, as they stand alone.  As independents are the epitome of democracy – they can not be pulled into line by party whips and go against the interests of their constituents in favour of the party line – then this system is favourable against the whole ethos of democracy.  Even without independent candidates, some voters can actually cast more votes than others can.  If no one party reaches more than 50% of the vote, than the bottom placed party is eliminated and the votes re-distributed amongst the remaining parties.  This means that firstly, that voter has had effectively two votes, and more importantly, this system in fact produces representatives who are not in power because the voter wanted them to be, but is in fact in power as part of a ‘damage limitation’ attitude – its not the candidate that they want but is only preferred to another.  This system therefore increases the power of ‘protest voting’ and unfortunately legitimises ‘negative voting’, which, again, is surely contrary to the whole ethos of democracy.  In an attempt to make every vote count, single transferable voting unfortunately contradicts its own aim.

The first-past-the-post system also helps to maintain the MP/Constituency link.  When an MP is elected, he/she is supposed to represent all his/her constituents whether they voted for him/her or not.  In this way, individual and collective grievances can be taken directly to central government.  However, Plant argues that an individual MP can not seriously represent all his/her constituents.  Plant suggests that instead of an MP representing a geographical area, a proportional representation system that represents genuine shades of opinion, and the political topography (class, ethnic, gender, regional, national).  For Plant, “Parliament is representative when it reflects, in a proportionate way, wider society”.

However, although this direct link is more honoured in theory than real practice, it should not be dismissed so easily.  MPs, particularly independents and ‘backbenchers’ do still achieve representation for their constituents in Britain’s parliament.  A proportional representation system would lead to bigger constituencies and the direct link would be lost.

This essay has demonstrated the problems that there are in achieving ‘democracy’.  The concept of a totally ‘pure’, working democracy is erroneous. Therefore, each electoral system will produce its own variant of ‘democracy’.

The paradigm of the debate between the ‘fist-past-the-post’ system and the proportional representation system demonstrates this point perfectly. A proportional representation system creates a system where more votes count and less are wasted; a democracy that is fairer to third parties and political geography, and an increased likelihood of continuation of centrist politics, coupled with an increased continuity of policy, which is favourable to a nations economy.

First-past-the-post however, creates a stable democracy that is a well-practised working system, which maintains the MP-constituency link, and gives the elected party more room to fulfil its manifesto commitments.  It is therefore not that a polity has to decide how democratic it is going to attempt to be when deciding which electoral system to adopt, rather it must way up the costs and benefits of each different system, and choose whichever it attaches the most value to by the benefits presented by both/all the systems.

Bibliography

Clark, A. (1999) The Tories (Orion).

Denver, D. (1989) Elections and Voting Behaviour in Britain (Philip Allen).

Heath, A., Jowell, R. and Curtice, J. (1985) How Britain Votes (Oxford: Pergamon Press).

Heath A., Jowell, R. and Curtice, J. (1987) 'Trendless Fluctuations: A Reply to Crewe', Political Studies, Vol. 35.

Heath, A., Jowell, R., Curtice, J., Evans, G., Field, J. and Witherspoon, S. (1991) Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964-1987 (Oxford: Pergamon Press).

Platt, S. and Smyth, G. (1994) Bite the Ballot In New Statesman & Society (29 April 1994)

Roberts, D. (Ed.). (1995) British Politics in Focus (Causeway Press)