Changing to a mixed electoral system

by Janaka Ratnasiri

The recent article on the present electoral system written by Sunil Bastian which appeared in Daily News of 11th and 13th August prompted me to write this article. Bastian has analyzed the social and political implications of the former and the present systems, and stopped there.

He has not suggested any alternative system to remedy their shortcomings. In this article, I plan to do this, though, previously people may have made suggestions towards this, and what I am trying to say may have been said before. If there are any overlaps, it is purely coincidental.

Wastage on campaigns

Most people undoubtedly agree that the present electoral system needs changing. If not for anything else, it is necessary to do so at least to eliminate the waste and unnecessary expenditure that could open room for corruption among those who come into office subsequently.

Under the proportional representation (PR) system, every candidate has to launch his campaign within the electoral district covering several electorates or polling divisions as these are called today. The expenditure that a candidate has to incur on such a district-wide campaign is many folds of what he would have to incur had the campaign is limited to only one electorate.

The amount of money spent on posters, cut-outs, meetings and propaganda on electronic as well as print media is enormous. This is certainly beyond the means of any average citizen. Whoever pays for it, it is an absolute waste of material, resources and human time.

The other undesirable aspect of this uncontrolled propaganda is the damage done to the environment. Every road sign, road-side wall and object is defaced with posters. After every public meeting, the area is littered with plastic material and banners with no one responsible to remove them.

Despite the heavy expenditure, every candidate goes through this exercise before an election, raising the necessary money through whatever means.

Thereafter, when he comes into office, it is most likely that his first priority would be to earn enough to pay back his loans and help those who helped him to win. It is only human if he resorts to any unethical practices in doing so, because it would be an impossible task to raise such huge sums of money through visible, ethical means during his term of office.

The public expects persons coming into office as MPs or ministers to take decisions for the welfare of the nation and its people. If, instead, they are compelled to take decisions for their own benefit, it is a sad situation indeed. The irony is that the present electoral system promotes such practices, and this should be eliminated at any cost.

The only way to put a stop to these practices is to limit the campaign expenses incurred by any individual candidate to a reasonable and affordable amount. The easiest way of achieving this is to change the system into one whereby the candidates have to seek votes only from within one electorate.

This not only reduces expenditure on election campaigns, but also avoids the unpleasant task of having candidates in the same party campaigning against one another for preferential votes. As a matter of fact, candidates target their campaigns and spend most of their resources to obtain higher preferential votes which will ensure them a seat in the Parliament.

FPP system - pros and cons

The electoral system that prevailed up to the time of adopting the 1978 Constitution was the first-past-the-post (FPP) system. Here, representatives to the Parliament were elected separately for each electorate or constituency.

Several candidates, either nominated from a party or self-nominated as independent candidates, contested for a given electorate and the candidate who secured the highest number of votes was returned to the Parliament as a member representing that electorate. The system also provided for a few multi-member constituencies to represent minority communities within the constituency.

This system had several advantages: the campaign was limited to within one constituency, cutting down the campaign expenditure to an affordable and reasonable level; the candidate represented only one constituency with a commitment to its people; he could establish a closer rapport with its voters; he could concentrate on the development of only his constituency. The system also had the added advantage that, in most instances, one or the other party received a clear majority resulting in the establishment of a stable government.

However, it also had its disadvantages: one party may receive a landslide victory merely by some candidates gaining a few votes above the opponents', denying even the main opposition party any substantial number of seats; the small parties representing either ethnic minorities or political philosophies do not have any chance of securing even a single seat, although they may receive a substantial number of votes on a national scale.

The best examples were the 1956 and 1977 elections, when the UNP and the SLFP, the two respective incumbent governing parties suffered humiliating defeats, each wining only 8 seats. When the UNP came into office with a landslide victory in 1977, it won 140 seats out of 168 or 83 %.

The SLFP was left with only 8 seats, losing even the opportunity to lead the opposition to TULF who won 18 seats. However, out of the total votes polled, UNP received 50.9 % votes, while the SLFP received 29.7 %, which is a substantial amount. Yet, within the Parliament, the opinion of these nearly 30 % of the voters was not heard. Apart from these 2 parties, only the CWC and one independent candidate could secure one seat each at this election.

Proportional representation (PR) system

Going by the past experience, the UNP leadership at that time knew that in a later election, they were very likely to suffer a similar fate themselves. Hence, it was quite logical that President Jayewardene took steps to prevent such a calamity befalling on his party at a subsequent election. With no one to oppose him, he introduced the PR system to elect representatives to the Parliament on a district basis, doing away with the FPP system altogether.

The new system also had the provision to appoint members to the Parliament from a national list, again selected in proportion to the total number of votes received by each party. The PR system eliminated the main disadvantages of the previous FPP system of one party getting a landslide victory.

This is exemplified in the 3 general elections held in 2000, 2001 and 2004. Had these 3 elections were held under the FPP system, the PA/UNP seats would have been 109/36, 32/108 and 106/33, respectively, as shown in Tables 1-3, respectively. The results shown under the column FPP are based on the majority votes the parties received in each polling division. It also assumes that the voter behavior remained the same whether he voted for a party or for a candidate.

The swinging of voter preference from one party to the other between two successive elections, as demonstrated in these three elections, has been the case even in previous elections held under the FPP system, except for a very few.

In several districts, there has been over 90% change of winning electorates from one party to the other at these three elections.

On the other hand, the PR system modifies the above figures to 107/89, 77/109 and 105/82, respectively.

While the number of seats of the winning party (or alliance) remained more or less the same, the loosing party had its numbers increased from thirties to seventies or eighties. With each major party having a fixed voter-base, under the PR system, these two parties were guaranteed a certain minimum number of seats.

The other advantage was that a small party, who may not have had the capacity to win even a single seat under the FPP system, could secure a significant number of seats based on the total number of votes received within a district. However, one of the main disadvantages of the PR system was that it did not give the winning party or the alliance a simple majority to form a government.

As the above figures show, they fell 4-8 seats short of a clear majority to form a government on their own at these three elections, and were compelled to seek the support of small parties.

In addition to the wastage and possible corruption mentioned at the beginning, the other most important justification for doing away with the PR system is to avoid the above situation whereby the small parties, whether founded on ethnic basis or otherwise, becoming the king-makers.

This has been the case when neither of the two major parties receives a clear majority, which is a characteristic of the PR system. When this happens, the major parties are compelled to woo the small parties to get the numbers on their side increased. Some of the tactics that are resorted to, as reported in the media, to achieve this target are unbelievable and go beyond the norms of any civilized society.

They may offer portfolios, diplomatic positions and even corporation chairmanships to win over the small parties. They might even coax members to switch parties. Here, it is the small parties who call the shots. It is regretted that the major parties succumb to their demands compromising the interests of the country.

They would forget their policies given in their mandates to accommodate the demands of the small parties and get into office somehow or other, rather than pursue what is good for the country. This again is something to be eliminated at any cost.

International Scenario

There are several electoral systems practiced in democratic countries world over. In addition to the FPP and PR systems discussed above, the other prevailing systems include the majority system (MS) and the semi-proportional representation systems (SPR). In the majority system, the candidate should receive a simple majority vote to be elected, either in the first voting or a second voting.

The SPR is a combination of FPP and PR or parallel systems. Within this system is the mixed-member proportional (MMP) system where a fraction, generally around 50%, is elected on FPP system and the balance on PR system.Out of about 200 democracies in the world, around 60 practice the FPP system including USA, Canada, UK, India and most commonwealth countries; about 10 practice other forms of plurality systems; about 74 have the PR system; 22 countries have some sort of SPR systems and about 32 have the majority vote system Ref: http://worldpolicy.org.

Within each of these categories, there are many deviations across the individual countries. Out of the SPR systems, 7 countries viz. Germany, New Zealand, Italy, Hungary, Mexico, Venezuela and Bolivia, practice the MMP system.

There is a wide range of literature published on models and theories of electoral systems and on the need for their reforms in some countries. But, none would capture the situation in Sri Lanka, where violence and corruption determine to a large extent the outcome of the elections.

Mixed system as a solution As a solution, it is obvious that a system capturing the advantages of both FPP and PR systems should be adopted in Sri Lanka too, and the best would be the MMP system.

With the existing provision to appoint members from a national list in addition to the voted members, this is not too difficult. The present Parliament has a total of 225 members, out of which 196 members are returned out of the candidates contesting the election.

They are returned on the basis of votes polled within 160 polling divisions distributed in 22 electoral districts. The number apportioned to each district is determined in proportion to the number of electors in each district.

The number of seats assigned to each district is apportioned among the different parties on the basis of votes received by each party within the district.

An additional bonus seat is given to the party getting the highest number of votes in the district. In addition, 29 members are appointed from the national lists submitted by the parties, with the number apportioned to each party determined proportionate to the votes received by each party at national level. I propose that, to make the change-over fast and simple, we adopt the MMP system maintaining the same number of electorates or polling divisions and their coverage as at present and the same total number of seats.

The number of members elected under the FPP system will then be 160, and the number nominated from national lists would then be 65. The ills of both systems could be eliminated by adopting this mixed system.For the election of 160 seats, candidates could be nominated separately for each electorate either as nominees of the political parties or as independent candidates as done in the past. The voters would cast their votes to the candidate of their preference, rather than to the party.

The candidate going past the post first would get elected. The advantage is that candidates could then launch their campaigns only within one electorate, thus minimizing wastage, expenditure and corruption that is likely to follow. Each electorate will have its own representative, unlike now. Furthermore, it would keep the contest to among candidates of different parties rather than among those within the same party.

The 65 seats could be distributed among the different political parties in proportion to the total number of votes received by each party nationally, using the same criteria and methodologies as used at present.

National list members

Once the number of seats entitled to each party from the national lists is determined, the responsibility of nominating the right person falls on the party leadership. Should it be a candidate who failed to go past the post first? Or, should it be a person whom the people could look up to as somebody who would contribute meaningfully to deliberations in the House, particularly in a situation where expertise knowledge is demanded?

Obviously, it should be the latter, though exceptions may be made as long as the candidate satisfies the above criterion. It is important that these nominations are done with due consideration to professional, geographical, gender, ethnic, and religious representations.

These persons should be in a position to sacrifice their time and personal earnings for the cause of the nation building. They should be people of 100% integrity, easily accessible to people, excelled in some area or the other, and with wide knowledge in national, regional and international affairs. They should above all have the highest human qualities.

The elected members have a commitment to serve their constituencies. Hence, one would expect them to spend most of their time attending various functions in their constituencies and looking after their welfare. On the other hand, the national list members have no such responsibilities.

Hence, they could devote much of their time addressing policy issues within their specialty areas and assisting the relevant ministries in carrying out national development activities. They should build up a close rapport with professional, scientific and technical bodies seeking their views as and when necessary, in formulating national policies.

Advantages of a mixed system

In order to see how this mixed system works, it can be applied to the votes received by different parties at the general elections held under in 2000, 2001 and 2004. The FPP column gives the number of electorates won by each party, had the elections were held under this system.

In all these three elections, one party or the other would have obtained almost an absolute majority in the number of electorates won.

However, there was not even a simple majority in the seats assigned to parties under the PR system, as shown in the PR column. The NL column shows the distribution of the 65 national list seats among different parties using the proportional system.

In the MMP column, the seats obtained by parties after adding the national list seats to the electoral seats, are given. Under this system, one or the other party would receive a comfortable majority, around 60%, in each of these 3 elections.

The main opposition party would also have received a substantial number of seats, around 25 - 27%, which was not the case under the FPP system. The small parties too would receive a few seats each, sufficient to express their opinion and take action on important issues. The main advantage is that none of the parties would receive an absolute majority. The other advantage is that one major party will receive a simple majority making the small parities powerless as king-makers.

In view of the many advantages of a mixed electoral system as shown above, it is important that the two major parties move in fast jointly to get the necessary changes in law passed by the Parliament during their current term of office. It will be necessary to amend the Constitution, particularly the Chapter XIV on The Franchise and Elections. This chapter has already been amended a few times to accommodate changes in various criteria.

In the past, there have been instances, when the Constitution has been amended on a fast track. This will not be a difficult task, if the two major parties get together and focus only on this issue.

If this task could be achieved, it will enable the new system as proposed (or something similar) implemented at the next general election. Otherwise, it will be a repetition of wastage and unnecessary expenditure, and providing opportunities for king-makers to have their day, at the next election as well.