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Loic · Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:04 am Post subject:

I know, Benjamin. It's the same system here. The ruling party gets 68% of the popular vote but sweeps all the seats in parliament save for 2.

It's like running a race. What if the first runner-up is just a split second slower than the first? You can't argue that he get a special first medal because he was awfully close to being the first as well. Life doesn't work in this way.

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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

André in Zuid-Afrika · Site Admin Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 1846

Coalition governments as a result of a PR election in which no party has a majority can work very well. We have an example of that in SA at the moment. After the local government elections last year, no party had a majority in the City of Cape Town (metropolitan) council. A coalition of seven parties, with an overall majority of three seats, was then formed (led by the Democratic Alliance, and excluding the ANC). Since then there has been seven attempts to topple the city government. In the latest attempt, the ANC managed to lure away one of the small parties in the coalition, robbing the govt of its tiny majority. In a surprise move, the Independent Democrats, previously exluded from the govt, decided to join the coalition, finally giving it a strong majority.

The point is that despite all the attempts to topple the govt, the coalition was doing an extremely good job. Decisions are based on concensus, and with the current make-up of the coalition, it directly represents more that 60% of the electorate. If a direct system like the Westminster system was used, the Democratic Alliance would have won a clear majority in the council, thus ruling alone, despite representing only about 42% of the voters.
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Fredrik · Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject:

loic:
Your point is an old one and to a certain degree a reasonable one. I would have loved to have strong majority governments all the time, but not at the expence of fair representation. My solution to the problem is to make the party system less strict. Too often people are hindered from fruitful co-operation because of party affiliation. If all the representatives knew they had to form a government and didn't have to care too much about party affiliation, wondrous things could happen.
But that would perhaps just have transferred the problem of a minority government with weak parliamentarian support to a broad, characterless coalition government with large support? Hmmm.....but there's gotta be some kind of solution? Norway is no good source of inspiration, because here parliamentarism and party politics entered the stage simultaneously (1884). Before that we had the American system, just with a king instead of a president.
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Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Loic · Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:42 pm Post subject:

True, coalition governments can work well. But they often do not work well especially if parties in the coalition all have disparate philosophies and are more interested in advancing their own agenda rather than working towards the common good of their electorate.

Also, many coalition governments spend too much time trying to work together effectively when they should concentrate all their energy and resources into running the country. In today's fast changing world, time is money and decisions need to be made sometimes without resorting to lengthy negociations. Do you think Jack Welch was namby-pamby enough to discuss every minor detail with his board? If he had done so, GE would not be such a highly rated company today.
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

Benjamin [inactive] · Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:07 pm Post subject:

The Scottish Parliament actually combines both first-past-the-post and proportional representation. Basically, there are two votes on the ballot paper: the first is for the first-past-the-post vote, where they vote for an individual candidate, whilst the second is for the proportional representation vote, where they vote for a party. In 2003, this resulted in a coalition government between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with a broadly centrist and anti-independence agenda (less so from the Liberal Democrats, who support federalism). The SNP is the official opposition party, which is broadly centre-left and emphatically supports independence. Then the Conservatives are another significant opposition party who are broadly centre-right to right-wing and are opposed to independence. Finally, there are also the Greens and the Socialists, who tend to stick together and promote their more decidedly left-wing pro-independence views — together, they are almost as significant as the Conservatives, but they wouldn't have any representation in the parliament at all if the system were based only on first-past-the-post voting.

However, this would be the composition of the Scottish Parliament if only the first-past-the-post votes were taken into account:

46 — Scottish Labour Party
13 — Scottish Liberal Democrats
_9 — Scottish National Party
_3 — Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party
_2 — others

Thus, there would be one very dominant party, with other parties having very little influence. On the other hand, the percentage of the votes in the proportional representation vote were as follows in 2003:

29.3% — Scottish Labour Party
20.8% — Scottish National Party
15.5% — Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party
11.8% — Scottish Liberal Democrats
_6.9% — Scottish Green Party
_6.7% — Scottish Socialist Party
_8.9% — others

They then do something magic with this to work out how many seats each party can send.

Akoni · Expert Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 169 Location: Nederland

The new Dutch coalition:

CDA (Christen Democratisch Appèl) = (Christian Democratic Appeal)
PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid) = (Party of Labour)
CU (ChristenUnie) = (Christian Union)

Not my favorite coalition.

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Joanne · Moderator Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 488

Loic · Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:25 pm Post subject:

I feel that whether Hiliary Clinton can return to the White House depends a lot now on the strength of the Republican candidate.

In my opinion, the best chance of not giving the Democrats a stranglehold on the three branches of government would be the endorsement of Rudi Guiliani. It doesn't matter that he is not as socially conservative as the religious right would like him to be - he can always revise his positions. This is what we call a politician.
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

Joanne · Moderator Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 488

Uriel · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 5:43 am Post subject:

If the Democrats are smart, they won't pick Hillary Clinton as their final choice. When the primaries come to town, I know I won't vote for her. I have nothing against her, but the sad fact is that she's the equivalent of box office poison. Too many people just hate her guts. We need a candidate with strong appeal to the party faithful, who doesn't simultaneously generate equally strong negative reactions in the party non-faithful, the independent voters, and the fencesitters on the other side.

You know, somebody with universal appeal!

(Good luck....)

Clinton will only win the support of democrats who are going to vote democrat no matter what. (Moi, however grudgingly....) She doesn't have any other wide appeal, and to win an election, any candidate needs to pick up votes from beyond that core group. (No matter which party they're running for.)

I think that was the problem with John Kerry -- the man was fatally uninspiring -- even democrats couldn't get too excited over him -- it was only the disappointment with Bush that allowed him to pick up enough votes to come as close to winning as he did. On his own, he certainly didn't have what it took.
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Loic · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:17 am Post subject:

Rudi Guiliani is tough on crime and this would please the conservative base. He is also widely perceived as the hero of 11th September who promptly rushed down to the disaster scene while the Administration dithered. This, once again, is a plus to the conservative base.

If he is endorsed, I think he would probably do some backpeddling in public as far as his views on the contentious issues such as abortion, guns right, etc are concerned. Anyway, his pro-choice credentials are not as bad as James Dobson and other religious conservatives would portray them to be. As a Catholic, he would probably have immense respect for the sancticity of life.

Uriel, I want to say that the best chance of Rudi Guiliani being elected President also rests upon Hiliary Clinton as his adversary in the campaign. That way, her very presence alone would rile up the conservative base and provoke them into voting for Guiliani. Guiliani would also be able to pick up protest votes from the moderate centre who might have otherwise voted Democratic, given the GOP's absymal track record in the past two years.

The South is the bedrock of GOP support and I hope that if Guiliani is chosen, he would not proceed to take them for granted.
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

KSa · Langcaffeine Addict Joined: 27 Aug 2006 Posts: 562

RUDI GIULIANI IS MY NUMBER ONE

In fact he has always been... or at least since he started restoring normality i.e. no tolerance for criminals.
He proved that severity of punishment can deter criminals although liberals state otherwise.

Joanne · Moderator Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 488

From your lips (fingertips?) to God's ear, KSa.

Especially now that on the other side, Clinton and Obama are in a fistfight of sorts for "Top Dog" position...
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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx

Loic · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:36 am Post subject:

I still think John McCain remains a formidable challenger for the Republican nomination.

Anyway, do you the fall of the fall guy in Scooter Libby would adversely affect the Republican chances come 2008?
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

Joanne · Moderator Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 488

The people supporting McCain and Giuliani are the ones who are heartily sick of these Scooter-type shenanigans of the past few years. The two campaigns won't be affected very much by the Libby verdict, in my opinion, as long as they keep distancing themselves from the current administration the way they are now. (Actually, McCain is not doing too well with the whole distancing thing. He and Mitt Romney are in a footrace to see how many Christian fundamentalist asses they can kiss before the 2008 primaries.

Politicians suck, which is the real reason why we keep the Second Amendment around.)

About Libby, if the verdict doesn't get turned over on appeal, I think Bush will probably pardon him... on January 20, 2009.
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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx

Loic · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:49 am Post subject:

I think John McCain is mending bridges with the conservative base. Actually, I also hugely admire the fact that he openly supports the surge in Iraq despite mounting opposition towards the idea in the country.

But it is an extraordinarily huge gamble and one that may reap windfall dividends if the surge manages to pacify Iraq.

What I am worried about Rudi Guiliani is his inability to carry the South. The bedrock of the GOP's powerbase is in the South and it is imperative that they continue shutting the Democrats out from the region.
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

Loic · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:51 am Post subject:

For those with the remotest of interest in Malaysia, the results of the General Elections have dealt a bloody nose to the incumbent Government. The opposition has captured 5 state governments; Malaysia is made up of 12 states and a federal administrative territory encompassing the administrative capital of Kuala Lumpur and the judicial capital of Putrajaya.

Unfortunately, it looks as if 3 of the states that have fallen into opposition hands would now be ruled by the islamic-based party PAS (Parti Islam SeMalaysia). Doesn't bring a lot of cheer to me when I go up north. Not that I've ever set foot into a PAS-ruled state before, who knows what the future portents for me.
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

André in Zuid-Afrika · Site Admin Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 1846

Fascinating results in the local council elections in England and Wales, as well as the London mayoral election, all held on Thursday. The Conservatives now seem set to win the next general election. The most astonishing perhaps is Labour slipping to third place behind the Liberal Democrats.
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Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.

Loic · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 9:21 am Post subject:

Add the recent Conservative triumph in the byelection at the Labour stronghold of Crewe and Nantwich. It is such a pity that Benjamin is not here anymore; I'd have loved to needle him about the poor showing of his (probable) favoured candidate in the Lib Dems who ran a distant third.

I like to think that the recent victory was not a vote against Gordon Brown's inept handling of the 10p tax reform, but rather a strong vindication of the kind of modern, compassionate Conservatism which David Cameron has espoused. The Tories have managed to ingeniously portray themselves as the "Champion of the Poor" in this election - and I think it is very heartening that many blue collar workers who have otherwise derided Edward Timpson as a "Tory toff". If there is anything which I find revolting among socialists, it is this sickening sense of inverted class snobbery which they have wholeheartedly accepted as a cornerstone of their identity: to be a Socialist is to stand in opposition to everything that is genteel, cultured and posh.

As for Boris Johnson, I even joined a facebook group which paid tribute and homage to him. Yes, he does seem like a bumbling idiot, a bit of a Bertie Wooster at first sight. But while Bertie Wooster is intellectually non existent, Mr Johnson could claim to have at least gone to Eton (where he was a King's scholar) and Oxford (where he was elected President of the prestigious Oxford Union). He graduated with a laudable 2:1 and to say that London has elected a foolish man is a very mischevious statement to make.
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Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.

André in Zuid-Afrika · Site Admin Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 1846

I agree (also on Johnson)

For the first time there are signs that voters are not just protesting Labour policies, and in fact supporting Tory policies, as confirmed by this article in the Telegraph.