right to representation and participation english

8/9/2019 Right to Representation and Participation English

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THE RIGHT TO REPRESENTATION AND PARTICIPATION

Electoral systems determine the rules according to which the voters may express their political preferences and according to which is possible to convert voters into

parliamentary seats (in the case of legislative elections) or into government posts (or

executive positions) in the case of elections for the president.

Electoral systems influence voting behavior and election results. They shape political

representation and party systems. The effect of electoral system should not beunderestimated: Electoral systems play an important role in determining political

preferences and in the transfer of power (in the form of parliamentary seats or executivepositions).

Elections are the democratic methods of choosing representatives of the peoples through

their votes. Elections are a technique for forming representative bodies and/or fordelegating authority depends on the type of political system or the system of elections.

Elections constitute one of the forms of political representation towards participation.

Elections are considered as the best source of legitimacy for the democratic politicalsystem. A government which has been chosen by universal suffrage through free and fair

elections is recognized as legitimate and democratic. In the concept of liberal orrepresentative democracy, the governing political elites must be chosen by elections in a

free and fair manner.

Functions of Competitive Elections:Elections may be thought of as an act through which:

- the electorate expresses its trust in the persons elected;- a representative parliament or governing body is chosen, inclusive of parties,

ethnic or religious segments, sectors and levels;- the government of the day can be controlled, re-elected or defeated.

Such assumptions usually correspond to view as to what function elections should fulfill.

In countries characterized by social fragmentation, elections should fulfill the function ofeither giving fair political representation to the various ethnic, socio-cultural groups, or of

bridging the cleavages politically by bringing about parliamentary majorities. In a pluralsociety, elections should intend to lead to the representation of all ethnic-religious groups,

and at the same time, to the formation of a majority Government (like in Malaysia). Thisimplies that the competition between political parties must be limited with in the norms

of democracy.

The design of electoral systems is a vital component of these processes. It cannot beconsidered in isolation from the wider context of constitutional and institutional design,

and it can be critical for areas as diverse as conflict management, gender representationand the development of political party systems. Done well, electoral system design can

add to the momentum of political change, encourage popular participation, and enable theemergence of legitimate representatives who are capable of handling a wide range of


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needs and expectations, immediately and in the future. Done badly, it can derail progresstowards democracy or even political stability.

To be successful, electoral system design processes must build understanding and trust

not just among politicians and election administrators, but among civil society

organizations, among commentators, and above all among the citizens belong to bothmajority and minority communities of a country undergoing democratic crisis andlooking for reform. Electoral systems must be designed not only to work under current

situations but also to accommodate future changes in attitudes and behaviour as electoralincentives change. They can contribute to the development of stable democracy or they

can be a major stumbling block to it.

There are a large number of different electoral systems currently in use and manymore permutations on each form, but for the sake of simplicity, electoral systems is

categorized into three broad families: plurality/majority systems, proportional

systems, and mixed systems.

Within these there are nine sub-families: First Past The Post (FPTP), Block Vote (BV),

Party Block Vote (PBV), Alternative Vote (AV), and the Two-Round System (TRS) areall plurality/majority systems; List Proportional Representation (List PR) and the Single

Transferable Vote (STV) are both proportional systems; and Mixed Member Proportional(MMP) and Parallel systems are both examples of the mixed model. In addition, there are

other systems such as the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV), the Limited Vote (LV),and the Borda Count (BC) which do not fit neatly into any particular category and can be

regarded as three further sub-families. Refer to the attached document for detaildefinition of each system.

The Principles of Representation:

There are two basic principles for classifying electoral representation systems: majorityrepresentation or proportional representation. The two electoral systems can be defined

according to two criteria: The decision formula and the principle of representation.

In majority systems, winning a seat in parliament or any elected body, depends on acandidates or political parties ability to win the required majority votes. The respective

election laws usually read as the candidate who wins the majority of the votes cast shall be elected. In the proportional systems, the gaining of a seat usually depends of the

share of votes which the various candidates or political parties can attain. Candidates or parties who have been able to win a predetermined required number of votes will be

elected. A political party is allocated as many seats as this required number of votes fitswithin the total number of votes gained in the elections. Majority as a decision principle

means that the majority of the votes cast decide who wins the election. Proportionality asa decision principle means that the result of an election is decided according to the

proportion of votes cast that is obtained by each candidate or party.


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Political Effects of the majority formula:

The application of the majority formula means that only the votes cast for the winningcandidate count in political terms. Under the majority formula, different values and

success are attributed to the votes cast. Only those of the winning candidate lead to

success, those of the losing candidate(s) dont. There is a difference in the numeric andthe success value of the votes.

The following results of the Sri Lanka Parliamentary elections conducted under themajority formula explain the relations between the votes cast and the seats gained:

Parliamentary Election 1970

Party Votes Seats % Votes % Seats

United Front 2,440,476 116 49 77

UNP 1,895,341 17 38 11

Federal Party 345,727 13 5 9

Tamil

Congress

115,567 3 2 2

MEP 46,571 0 0.93 0

Parliamentary Election 1977

Party Votes Seats % Votes % Seats

UNP 3,175,991 140 51 83

SLFP 1,683,753 8 30 5

TULF 399,043 18 6 11

LSSP 227,548 0 4 0

CP 159,326 0 3 0

CWC 35,743 1 0.5 0.6


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Moreover, any votes that a candidate or party wins above the required majority do not

have any importance. The political consequence of this is that the application of themajority formula in constituencies which are dominated completely by one party

discourages the political opposition from contesting these constituencies. Single party

strongholds may therefore arise in some electoral constituencies, and lead to politicalapathy among the electorate and consequently, a reduction in voters interests or turnout.Further, it is difficult for thinly spread minorities or their parties to gain representation to

the elected bodies. The factor in favor of the majority formula is that it presents a clear-cut decision situation for the voters and a directly discernible relationship between the

votes cast and the result of the elections. Strengthening the relationship between thevoters and elected representatives and the accountability of the elected representatives to

the voter is greater in the majority formula that is conducted through the first past thepost.

Political consequences of the proportional formula:

In contrast to the majority formula, the political consequences of the proportionalityformula are manifested in elections results for which each party is taken into account

pursuant to the number of votes it has gained. Usually, the defeated parties also obtainseats in the elected bodies. The application of the proportionality formula leads to an

equality in the numeric and success values of the votes (to the extent that the equalitycab be ensured at all.) A much larger number of votes than under the majority formula,

can see their participation in the election crowned with success when their votes havecontributed to the winning of a seat by a political party. In the final settlement of

accounts, every vote will count, so that the parties find it worthwhile to fight for everyvote. This may consequently lead to a higher voter turn-out. Historically, it took almost a

hundred years to advance from the idea of proportionality in the late 18 th century toreasonable workable procedures for the calculation of votes at the end of the 19

thcentury.

Today, there is a large a number of procedures being practiced in the proportionalrepresentation systems. Some of these are very difficult indeed for a voter to understand

and create intense competition among the candidates with in the same party or with otherparties.

Advantages of majority and proportional representation systems:

Advantages of majority representation system:

1. Prevents party fragmentation: Small parties have fewer chances of obtaining

seats in parliament or elected authorities.

2. Promote party concentration, because of its inherent tendency towards theformation of a two-party system.

3. Promotes stable governments by bringing about single-party parliamentarymajorities.


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4. Promotes political moderation, as the major political parties strive to gain thesupport of the centre of the electorate and have to assume political responsibility

in the event of winning the lection. Hence, these parties must gear their politicstowards the moderate voters and restrict their programs towards incremental and

practical reforms.

5. Promotes alternation in government since a small awing in votes may cause bigchanges in the number of seats held by the major parties.

6. Enables voters to decide directly which political parity should form thegovernment instead of leaving this decision to coalition negotiations after theelection.

Advantages of proportional representation

1. Provides maximal representation of all opinions in parliament in relation to

the percentage of votes cast in their favor.

2. Prevents excessively artificial political majorities which do not correspond toany real majority in the electorate and which only represent the outcome of

institutional interferences with the process of forming political intent.

3. Promotes majorities by negotiation and compromise in which various socialforces and ethnic/religious groups take part.

4. Prevents extreme political convulsions caused by any distortion effect of theelectoral system (rather than by fundamental natural changes in the voterspolitical preferences).

5. Takes into account social changes and new political currents and translatesthose new forces into the parliamentary process.

6. Prevents emergence of a cartel of established parties or dominant partysystems in which the dominant party largely owes its position to the electoral

system and where a democratic alternation in government is either rendered moredifficult or completely frustrated.

Executive type: Presidentialism versus Parliamentarianism.

Most of the democratic countries are governed through one of the three systems inrelation to thee executive functions are concerned.

Parliamentary system: The legislature is the principal arena for both lawmaking and

(via majority decisions) for executive power.


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Presidential system: The executive and legislative branches are separated, withexecutive authority residing outside the legislature with the president and his/her cabinet.

Semi-Presidential System: Combines a parliamentary system a featuring a prime

minister and cabinet ministers appointed from the elected legislators who has some

executive powers, with a president who also has executive powers.

The debate over the merits of parliamentary versus presidential approached is not so

much a question of which is best, but rather of the most appropriate choice for a givensociety, considering its particular social structure, majority-minority relationship,

political culture and history.

Sri Lanka was a parliamentary democracy since the Independency till the enactment ofthe 1978 constitution. Executive presidential system with executive powers shared with

the cabinet of ministers appointed among the elected legislators was introduced. Thereare numerous debates in favor and against the continuation of the Executive Presidential

system. Since the executive president is elected by the entire country as an electorate, itwas envisaged that the presidential candidates will behave more sensitively and

responsively towards accommodating the aspirations of the minority communities as thesupport of minorities is inevitable for the winning candidates, at a time where the votes of

the majority is evenly divided. Others argue that the executive presidential system isnecessary in order to develop the country economically against the background of a

highly polarized parliament which will never practice consensual decision making bygoing away from its traditional inter-party adversarial attitudes.

The competing claims concerning the benefits of parliamentary and presidential systems

of government are confusing and sometimes even contradictory. However, it is possibleto glean several trends and tendencies.

Compromise, moderation and inclusion are keys to democratic stability. Firstly, both

sides of the debate argue that their preferred model is, under particular circumstances, thebest option for inducing compromise, moderation and inclusion. It is clear, therefore, that

these characteristics are seen as being the key to democratic stability in deeply dividedsocieties.

Size and distribution of competing (ethnic) groups are important factors in deciding

on executive type. Two variables would appear to be of particular importance whenchoosing an executive structure: thesize and distribution of the competing groups within

society. Presidencies may have difficulty being perceived as unifying offices where thereare three or four roughly equally sized groups, but likewise parliaments themselves have

sometimes been an instrument of majority domination in divided societies where onegroup forms an absolute majority of the population. When Sri Lanka changed from a

parliamentary to a presidential system of government in 1978, it did so partly becausethere was seen to be a need for a unifying national figure who could represent both the

dominant (75 per cent of total) Sinhalese population, but also the Tamils speakingminorities. They did this by designing the electoral system so that Tamils could still


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influence the choice of president. In Kenya, by contrast, former President Daniel ArapMoi was typically perceived as representing his own Kalinjini tribe against the majority

Kikuyu tribe, despite a distribution requirement which prescribed that to be electedpresident, a candidate has to receive at least 25 per cent of the vote in at least five out of

the eight provinces.

Much depends upon the way in which the various offices are elected. As with all ofthe mechanisms created for electing representatives, the competing benefits of

parliamentary and presidential models cannot be viewed in isolation. For example, thenature of the electoral system is key, as are the different checks and balances that can be

put in place to address specific fears and concerns. Many of the power-sharing virtuesadvocated by proponents of parliamentarism are premised on the assumption that

minorities as well as majorities will be represented in the legislature, and that coalitiongovernments rather than single-party rule will be the norm. For many countries, this

means that a proportional electoral system is crucial to the success of parliamentarydemocracy as an agent of conflict management.

Similarly, a presidents ability to encourage inter-ethnic moderation and compromise is

often dependent upon electoral arrangements that offer clear incentives for compromise.Some scholars of ethnic conflict have argued that electoral arrangements which require

some geographic distribution of the vote, or in which the second and third choices ofvoters are taken into account, offer the best models for investigation, as they encourage

the elected president to become a pan-ethnic figure. By contrast, presidential orparliamentary elections held under a first past the post system are more likely to produce

outcomes in which the victors support comes primarily from one geographic and/orethnic region.

There is considerable room for flexibility and opportunity for innovation to

maximize the advantages and disadvantages of each. It is worth remembering that allthree classifications parliamentarism, presidentialism and semi-presidentialism are

more ideal types than definitive models. There is considerable room for flexibility andopportunity for innovation to maximize the advantages and disadvantages of each. Some

parliamentary countries such as South Africa, for example, call their prime minister aPresident, thus maximizing the symbolic powers of the office while maintaining the

structural advantages of a parliamentary system. Israel recently introduced a hybridsystem in which the people nonetheless directly elect the parliamentary prime minister.

Finlands semi-presidential system allows the president to share power with the primeminister on a nearly equal basis, but with specific responsibility for certain areas such as

foreign policy. Creative constitutional engineering thus provides opportunities formaximizing desired characteristics while minimizing perceived disadvantages.


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Providing Representation

Representation may take at least four forms. First, geographical representation implies

that each region, be it a village or a city, a province or an electoral district, has membersof the legislature whom it chooses and who are ultimately accountable to their area.

Second, the ideological divisions within society may be represented in the legislature,

whether through representatives from political parties or independent representatives or acombination of both. Third, a legislature may be representative of the party-politicalsituation that exists within the country even if political parties do not have an ideological

base. If half the voters vote for one political party but that party wins no, or hardly any,seats in the legislature, then that system cannot be said to adequately represent the will of

the people. Fourth, the concept ofdescriptive representation considers that the legislatureshould be to some degree a mirror of the nation which should look, feel, think and act in

a way which reflects the people as a whole. An adequately descriptive legislature wouldinclude both men and women, the young and the old, the wealthy and the poor, and

reflect the different religious affiliations, linguistic communities and ethnic groups withina society.

Providing Incentives for Conciliation

Electoral systems can be seen not only as ways to constitute governing bodies but also asa tool of conflict management within a society. Some systems, in some circumstances,

will encourage parties to make inclusive appeals for electoral support outside their owncore vote base; for instance, even if a party draws its support primarily from the voters of

majority community, a particular electoral system may give it the incentive to appeal alsoto the minorities, or other, voters. Thus, the partys policy platform would become less

divisive and exclusionary, and more unifying and inclusive. Similar electoral systemincentives might make parties less ethnically, regionally, linguistically or ideologically

exclusive.

On the other side of the coin, electoral systems can encourage voters to look outside theirown group and think of voting for parties which traditionally have represented a different

group. Such voting behavior breeds accommodation and community building. Systemswhich give the voter more than one vote or allow the voter to order candidates

preferentially provide the space for voters to cut across preconceived social boundaries.At the 1998 Good Friday agreement election in Northern Ireland, for instance, vote

transfers under the STV system benefited pro-peace parties while still providingbroadly proportional outcomes. At the 2003 election, however, a shift in first-preference

votes towards hard-line parties tended to outweigh such effects.

Holding the Government Accountable

Accountability is one of the bedrocks of representative government. Its absence may

indeed lead to long-term instability. An accountable political system is one in which thegovernment is responsible to the voters to the highest degree possible. Voters should be

able to influence the shape of the government, either by altering the coalition of parties inpower or by throwing out of office a single party which has failed to deliver. Suitably

designed electoral systems facilitate this objective.


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The conventional wisdom in this area may be simplistic. Traditionally, plurality/ majoritysystems like FPTP were seen as leading to single parties taking office, while PR systems

were associated with multiparty coalitions. While the broad logic of this associationremains valid, there have been sufficient examples in recent years of FPTP elections

leading to multiparty cabinets (e.g. in India) or of PR elections leading to the election of a

strong single-party government (e.g. in South Africa) to raise doubts about the automaticassumption that one kind of electoral system will lead to particular governance outcomes.But clearly, electoral systems do have a major impact on broader issues of governance,

for both presidential and parliamentary systems.

Holding Individual Representatives Accountable

Accountability at the individual level is the ability of the electorate to effectively check

on those who, once elected, betray the promises they made during the campaign ordemonstrate incompetence or idleness in office and throw them out. Some systems

emphasize the role of locally popular candidates, rather than on candidates nominated bya strong central party on the choice of the leader.

Plurality/majority systems have traditionally been seen as maximizing the ability of

voters to throw out unsatisfactory individual representatives. Again, this sometimesremains valid. However, the connection becomes tenuous where voters identify primarily

with parties rather than candidates, as in the UK. At the same time, open and free listsystems and STV are designed to allow voters to exercise candidate choice in the context

of a proportional system.

Encouraging Political Parties

The weight of evidence from both established and new democracies suggests that longer-

term democratic consolidationthat is, the extent to which a democratic regime isinsulated from domestic challenges to the stability of the political orderrequires the

growth and maintenance of strong and effective political parties, and thus the electoralsystem should encourage this rather than entrench or promote party fragmentation.

Electoral systems can be framed specifically to exclude parties with a small or minimallevel of support. The development of the role of parties as a vehicle for individual

political leaders is another trend which can be facilitated or retarded by electoral systemdesign decisions.

Most experts also agree that the electoral system should encourage the development of

parties which are based on broad political values and ideologies as well as specific policyprogrammes, rather than narrow ethnic, racial or regional concerns. As well as lessening

the threat of societal conflict, parties which are based on these broad crosscuttingcleavages are more likely to reflect national opinion than those which are based

predominantly on sectarian or regional concerns.

Promoting Legislative Opposition and Oversight

Effective governance relies not only on those in power but, almost as much, on those who

oppose and oversee them. The electoral system should help ensure the presence of aviable opposition grouping which can critically assess legislation, question the


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performance of the executive, safeguard minority rights, and represent its constituentseffectively. Opposition groupings should have enough representatives to be effective

(assuming that their performance at the ballot box warrants it) and in a parliamentarysystem should be able to present a realistic alternative to the current government.

Obviously the strength of the opposition depends on many other factors besides the

choice of electoral system, but if the system itself makes the opposition impotent,democratic governance is inherently weakened. A major reason for the change to anMMP electoral system in New Zealand, for example, was the systematic under-

representation of smaller opposition parties under FPTP. At the same time, the electoralsystem should hinder the development of a winner takes all attitude which leaves rulers

blind to other views and the needs and desires of opposition voters, and sees bothelections and government itself as zero-sum contests.

In a presidential system, the president needs the reliable support of a substantial group of

legislators: however, the role of others in opposing and scrutinizing governmentlegislative proposals is equally important. The separation of powers between legislature

and executive effectively gives the task of executive oversight to all legislators, not onlythe opposition members. This makes it important to give particular thought to the

elements of the electoral system which concern the relative importance of political partiesand candidates, alongside the relationship between parties and their elected members.

Ov

Representation of Women

In Sri Lanka women constitute almost 52% of the total population. But theirrepresentation in the parliament is less than 5% and in the local authorities it is even less

than 2%. Womens participation at the political level is being debated for a long periodand several initiatives were taken even to draft a legislation to ensure quota system for

women in the parliament. Unfortunately, all these initiatives are confined to the level ofdiscourses.

The Report of the Select Committee of Parliament on Electoral Reforms of the 6 th

Parliament of Sri Lanka which addressed the issue of womens representation in politicsmerely recommended that political parties include provision in their policies to ensure

nomination of women candidates so that they gain representation in different levels ofelected office. But, the recent legislation on political parties and elections

ignored even

this recommendation and only recommended to include women in the decision makingbodies of the political parties.

International human rights norms and standards guarantee women the human rights tonon-discrimination in all aspects of political, economic, and social life, and to full and

equal participation in decision making and access to power at all levels. It is furtheremphasized that the realization of the full spectrum of human rights for women depends

on womens full and equal participation in decision making.


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Articles 7,8 and 14 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination Against Women, Article 8 of the International Declaration on the Right to

Development, Paras 181, 190 and 195 of the Beijing Platform for Action of the WorldConference on Women in Beijing in 1995, Para 13 of the Beijing Declaration, Part I,

para 18, and part II, para 43 of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action of the

world Conference on Human Rights in 1993 Commitments Nos. 4 and 5 of theCopenhagen Declaration of the World Conference on social Development in 1995 aresome of important international documents that the obligations and commitments of the

government are advocated.

There are many ways to enhance the representation of women. Proportional systems tendto result in the election of more women. Electoral systems which use reasonably large

district magnitudes encourage parties to nominate women on the basis that balancedtickets will increase their electoral chances. Some List PR countries require that women

make up a certain proportion of the candidates nominated by each party.

In addition to the choice of electoral system, there are also a number of other strategiesthat can be used to increase the number of women representatives.

a. First, there are reserved seats, where a certain number of seats are set aside for women

in the legislature. These seats are filled either by representatives from regions or bypolitical parties in direct proportion to their overall share of the national vote. Reserved

seats typically exist in plurality/majority electoral systems, and are often entrenched in acountrys constitution. This happens in a handful of countries, including Afghanistan

(two women for each of the 32 provinces or roughly 25 per cent of seats), Uganda (onewoman for each of the 56 districts, or roughly 18 per cent of seats) and Rwanda (24

women are elected by a womens-only ballot, accounting for 30 per cent of the seats). InIndia, seats on local authorities (Panchayat) in some states are divided into three groups:

at each election, only women may be nominated for one group of seats, therebyguaranteeing a minimum of one-third women elected, with the side effect of a two-term

limit for elected men.

b. Second, the electoral law can require political parties to field a certain number ofwomen candidates for election. This is most often done in PR electoral systems, for

example in Namibia (30 per cent of candidates at the local level) and Peru (30 per cent ofcandidates). It is also required in the List PR component of Bolivias MMP system (30

per cent of candidates). However, the laws do not always guarantee that the target will bemet unless there are strict placement mandate and enforcement mechanisms guaranteeing

that women are placed in electable positions on party lists. This is the case in Argentina(30 per cent in winnable positions), Belgium (the top two candidates must be one of each

sex) and Costa Rica (40 per cent of winnable positions).

c. Third, political parties may adopt their own internal quotas for women as legislativecandidates. This is the most common mechanism used to promote the participation of

women in political life, and has been used with varying degrees of success all over theworld: by the ANC in South Africa, the Peronist Party (PJ) and the Radical Civic Union


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(UCR) in Argentina, CONDEPA (the Conscience of the Fatherland) in Bolivia, the Partyof the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Mexico, and the Labour parties in Australia and

the UK, and throughout Scandinavia. The use of women-only candidate short-lists by theLabour Party at the 1997 UK elections almost doubled the number of female MPs, from

60 to 119.

In 2004, 14 countries had quotas entrenched in the constitution (including most recentlyAfghanistan), 32 countries had quotas provided for by legislation, and at least 125 parties

in 61 countries had adopted their own voluntary party quotas. In terms of electoral systemtype, 17 countries with plurality/majority systems have quotas, and there are 15 in mixed

electoral systems and 45 in PR systems. Two of the others Afghanistan and Jordanhave quotas.

Systems that guarantee women representation in the legislature vary where both their

success and their consequences are concerned. For example, reserved seats may helpguarantee that women make it into elected positions of office, but some women have

argued that quotas end up being a way to appease, and ultimately sideline, women. Beingelected to a legislature does not necessarily mean being given substantive decision

making power, and in some countries women legislators, particularly those elected fromreserved or special seats, are marginalized from real decision-making responsibility. Yet

in other countries women have used the position afforded to them by quotas to makesignificant contributions to policy making and influence traditional policy making. For

further details and data see the IDEA/Stockholm University Global Database of ElectoralQuotas for Women atwww.quotaproject.org.

Representation of Minorities

Representation and participation of minorities is Sri Lanka has been a crucial issue eversince the universal suffrage was introduced in 1931, and more importantly since the

independence of 1948. Sri Lanka adopted a Westminster type of majoritariangovernment. Minority safeguard advocated under article 29 - 2B of the first post

independent constitution was proved thoroughly inadequate. The manner that the Rightof citizenship of the Indian Origin Tamils were deprived as a result of the Ceylon

Citizenship Act of 1948, subsequent disenfranchisement of the Indian Origin Tamils in1949, the Official Language Act of 1956 advocating Sinhala as the official language of

the country denying the parity of status for the Tamil Language, continuous acts ofpolitical and economic exclusions led to the demand for regional autonomy and Federal

form government as a way forward to safeguard the equality and socio, economicdevelopment for the Tamils. The process of negotiations resulted the Bandaranaike (the

Prime Minister) Chelvanayagam (Leader of the Federal Party major political party ofthe Tamils) Agreement of 1957, Dudley Senanayake (Prime Minister) Chelvanayagam

Agreement in 1965, Indo-Lanka Agreement signed between the Prime Minister of Indianand the President of Sri Lanka in 1987. Unfortunately, all these efforts proved ineffective

to address the issues of political representation and equal participation of the minorities inSri Lanka. One of the common reasons for the failures of all these initiatives to address

the issues of the minorities was that all these attempts were made with the restrictionsimposed under the majoritarian rule where the realization of minority rights remains at


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the mercy of the majority. Although Sri Lankan State has accepted and ratified almost allthe declarations and conventions on ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. The state

has failed to enact state policies by incorporating the standards on minority rightsadvocated in these international laws for the benefit of the minority communities living in

Sri Lanka.

The first past the post electoral system adopted at the time of the independence allowedto elect 145 members to parliament and six members through nomination by the ruling

party totaling 151 members of the parliament. Seven members were elected from theIndian Origin Tamils in the constituencies based in the plantation areas.

Disenfranchisement of the Indian Origin Tamils in 1948 denied the opportunity to electeven a single member to the subsequent parliaments until 1977. Representatives of this

community were able to secure parliamentary representation through the nomination bythe successive governments under the facilities provided for nominated membership of

Parliament until 1972. The 2nd

Constitution enacted in 1972 removed the nominatedmembers to the parliament and a multi-member constituency (Nuwara Eliya Maskeliya

as the three member electorate) was created for a single member of the Indian OriginTamils to secure representation in the parliament. There were three other multi member

constituencies Colombo central, Beruwela and Batticaloa were also created to enablethe lection of minorities. Introduction of the proportional representation based on the

district list system introduced in the 1978 Constitution enabled all the minoritycommunities as well as small parties to increase their seats in the parliament. This

numerical increment of the elected representation of the minority communities had verylittle impact to promote equal participation at the decision making levels where the

minorities are not empowered to ensure political and economic inclusion.

There are also many ways to enhance the representation of minority ethnic groups.Again, electoral systems which use reasonably large district magnitudes encourage

parties to nominate candidates from minorities on the basis that balanced tickets willincrease their electoral chances. A very low threshold (cut off point), or the complete

elimination of a formal threshold, in PR systems can also facilitate the representation ofhitherto under-represented or unrepresented groups. In plurality/ majority systems in

particular, seats are sometimes set aside in the legislature for minorities and communalgroups.

Reserved seats can be used to ensure the representation of specific minority groups in the

legislature. Seats are reserved for identifiable ethnic or religious minorities in countries asdiverse as Colombia (black communities), Croatia (the Hungarian, Italian, Czech,

Slovak, Ruthenian, Ukrainian, German and Austrian minorities), India (the scheduledtribes and castes), Jordan (Christians and Circassians), Niger (Tuareg), New Zealand

(Maori), Pakistan (non-Muslim minorities), Palestine (Christians and Samaritans), Samoa(non-indigenous minorities), Slovenia (Hungarians and Italians) and Taiwan (the

aboriginal community).

Representatives from these reserved seats are usually elected in much the same manner asother representatives, but are sometimes elected only by members of the particular


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minority community designated in the electoral law. This requires a communal roll.While it is often deemed to be a normative good to represent small communities of

interest, it has been argued that it is a better strategy to design structures which give riseto a representative legislature without overt manipulation of the electoral law or legal

obligation, and that quota seats may breed resentment on the part of majority populations

and shore up mistrust between various cultural groups.

Instead of formally reserved seats, regions can be over-represented to facilitate the

increased representation of geographically concentrated groups. In the UK, Scotland andWales have more MPs in the British House of Commons than they would be entitled to if

population size alone were the only criterion. The same is true in the mountainousregions of Nepal. Another possibility is the best loser system currently used in

Mauritius, whereby some of the highest-polling losing candidates from a particular ethnicgroup are awarded seats in the legislature in order to balance overall ethnic

representation.

Electoral boundaries can also be manipulated to promote the representation of particulargroups. The Voting Rights Act in the United States has in the past allowed the

government to draw weirdly shaped districts with the sole purpose of creating majorityBlack, Latino or Asian-American districts; this might be called affirmative action.

However, the manipulation of any electoral system to promote or protect minorityrepresentation is rarely uncontroversial.

A number of ethnically heterogeneous societies have taken the concept of reserved seats

to its logical extension. Not only are seats divided on a communal basis, but the entiresystem of representation in the legislature is similarly based on communal considerations.

There is a separate electoral register for each defined community, which elects onlymembers of its own group to the legislature.

Some of the criteria that could be helpful to assess the electoral systems in

segmental, ethnically plural societies are:

Legitimacy: Is the electoral system accepted by the plural society as the properinstitutional means of establishing a representative government? Do losing minority

groups or parties accept the legitimacy of the electoral results?

Political Integration: Does the electoral system unite or divide the country? Does itincrease or reduce the polarization? Does it channel political conflict through procedures

leading to peaceful settlements or promote solutions by force of arms or repressions?

Political Parties: Can the electoral system help to overcome the politicization of ethnicdifferences, expressed in form of ethnic-based party system?

Representative Government: Can a government elected under a particular electoral

system be representative of the interests of different ethnic groups and especially ethnic


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minorities? Does the electoral system promote forms of consociational government, sothat minorities take part in the decision process?

Political Opposition: Does the electoral system avoid exaggerated majorities, so that the

political opposition can play an effective role in the political process? A Parliament be

effective visa-vis Executive dominance.

The Right to Participation:

Ensuring adequate representation through appropriate electoral systems alone will notensure equal participation. The decision making structures must ensure the equal right to

participation

The Sri Lankan and International standards on the Right to Participation:The human rights norms and standards guarantee women, men, youth and children the

human rights to non-discrimination in all aspects of political, economic, social andcultural life, and to full and equal participation in decision-making and access to power at

all levels.

Elections constitute one form of political participation. There are other forms ofconstitutionally institutionalized participation such as the referendum or constitutionally

constituted institutions created to prevent discriminations in the enjoyment o humanrights, violations of equal rights or discriminations in the allocations of resources or

opportunities.

The Sri Lankan constitution does not enforce any form of compulsory participation ingovernance in Sri Lanka, other than the election of representatives in the periodic

elections to all three levels of governance parliament, provincial councils and localgovernment authorities. But, the directive principles of state policy and fundamental

duties in Chapter IV of the constitution present a number of directive principles related toparticipation and against discriminations. Clause 4 of the Article 27 in the Chapter VI of

the Constitution, explicitly recognize the right to participation in every level in nationallife and in government.

The State shall strengthen and broaden the democratic structures of government and

the democratic rights of the People to decentralizing the administration and by

affording all possible opportunities to the People to participate at every level in

national life and in government

There are a number of directive principles advocate equality, equal opportunity and non-discrimination in governance. But, the last article No.29 in this chapter make these

directive principles of state and policy and fundamental duties unenforceable.

The provisions of this Chapter do not confer or impose legal rights or obligations, and

are not enforceable in any court or tribunal. No question of inconsistency with such

provisions shall be raised in any court or tribunals


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The unitarist majoritarian system of governance in all levels of governance only allow theruling parties exclusive power to take decisions and there are no other provisions in laws

or institutional arrangements advocate excluded peoples right to participate in decisionsaffecting their life.

Political ParticipationThis is the right of everyone to influence the decisions that affect them. It is of particularimportance to minorities living in the midst of deeply and ethnically divided political

situation. The essential issue of why minorities matter, apart from their distinct identities,is their lack of power. With lack of power comes a feeling of exclusion, which can easily

lead to violence being seen as the only option to attain their needs. Minorities have aright, like all people, to participate in the political and economic decisions that affect

them, but given their lack of power, particular care and measures are needed to ensurethat they can. While this is an issue for minority men and women, minority women tend

to have even less influence on decisions affecting their lives than minority men.

When minorities are denied a say in political affairs, conflict often results because apolitical voice is the key to the enjoyment of all other rights. For example, exclusion from

participating in decisions on opportunities and resources for social development such aseducation, employment opportunities and land rights can result, as minorities fail to

influence government policy and practice in order to prevent discriminations. Further, astrong signal is sent to minorities that the dominant community does not see them as

belonging in the nation. In the face of such exclusion, a minority may see secession as theonly route. This has been the experience in the post independent inter-ethnic relations in

Sri Lanka.

Mechanisms for minority participationMechanisms to promote minorities political participation can be set up at the national or

local level (the latter usually in the case of territorially concentrated groups). They can beformal (often enshrined in the Constitution) or informal, and have an executive or merely

consultative mandate.

Electoral systems and reserved seatsAt the national level, a common arrangement is to reserve quotas for minorities these

can be ministerial posts in government, and/or seats in parliament. In addition, certainelectoral arrangements, such as block votes, closed or open list proportional

representation, and transferable votes will not guarantee minority representationImportant issues here include the extent to which the minority representatives genuinely

represent their communities (in particular the full diversity of those communities,including minority women), and the influence they have in practice, being one voice

among many. In India, 22 per cent of seats in the legislature are reserved for minorities,and the record in terms of preventing conflict has been mixed. But it is hard to draw

conclusions about the precise impact of reserved seats in this case, due to the many anddisparate conflicts in the country which are affected by both local and national

conditions. However, the evidence from various research shows that while devolved powers are important for promoting minority rights and reducing tensions, it is also


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important for minorities to be represented at the national level to ensure majority-minority consensus in decisions affecting minorities, and reserved seats can be important

in this regard. In Kosovo, there has been good practice in that the approach has gone beyond simple representation in assemblies and attempted to ensure minority

representation in government. However, the elected minority representatives must fulfill

accountability to their electorates. By increasing the number of minority representativesin legislatures, reserved seats can strengthen the voice of minorities in political life.

Further, they signal goodwill on the part of the state and as such, can be important increating an inclusive environment where minorities can identify with and feel part of the

nation, thus reducing the likelihood of separatist or conflicting tendencies. However, aswith affirmative action measures in the economic domain, there is always the danger that

elements of the majority population will see them as unjustified and discriminatory,thus potentially increasing tensions. For this reason, states must take care when

introducing such measures, be aware of potential tensions and ensure that the measuresare transparent. States must also give clear explanations as to why such measures are

necessary and how they can benefit the state as a whole. States must not make use of thissituation to delay deny the realization of the rights of minorities for equality and

inclusion.

Changing boundaries to create minority-dominated electoral districts can also be seen asa form of affirmative action, designed to ensure that minorities are elected in certain

districts. However, the creation of ethnically concentrated constituencies means not onlymore minority-dominated constituencies, but also more constituencies in which majority-

group voters dominate and in which majority group candidates do not need to worryabout minority support or minority interests. Certain systems, under the right

circumstances, can strengthen minority representation in legislatures and governments,and improve chances of preventing a relapse into war in post-conflict scenarios States

faced with identify conflicts must refrain by promoting organized population transferswith the intension of weakening the demographic strength of the minorities in the areas

they dominate or to force assimilation.

Minority Participation in Electing the Executive President in the multi-ethnic

societies:

A second possibility is the preferential system used for presidential elections in Sri Lankaand for London mayoral elections, known as the Supplementary Vote. Voters are asked

to mark not only their first-choice candidate but also their second (and, in SriLanka, theirthird) choices. The way in which this is done differs: in Sri Lanka, voters are asked to

place the numbers 1, 2 and 3 next to the names of the candidates, in the samemanner as under AV and STV. Counting is the same in both cases: if a candidate gains an

absolute majority of first-preference votes, he or she is immediately declared elected.However, if no candidate gains an absolute majority, all candidates other than the top two

are eliminated and their second- (or, in Sri Lanka, second- and third-) choice votes are passed on to the two candidates received highest votes. The positive feature is that in

addition to ensuring that the president would be elected, whether outright or viapreferences, by an absolute majority of all voters, the system has the additional feature of


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encouraging candidates to look beyond their own party or ethnic group for second-preference support from other groups. All five elections conducted for the presidency in

Sri Lanka since 1982 and contrary to expectations, at each of these elections, the winningcandidate has achieved an absolute majority in the first round, and thus no preferences

have been counted.

Three countriesIndonesia, Kenya and Nigeriacombine their presidential electionswith a so-called distribution requirement, which requires candidates to gain a regional

spread of votes, in addition to an absolute majority, before they can be declared dulyelected. In Indonesia, which held its first direct presidential elections in 2004, a

successful presidential and vice-presidential candidate team needed to gain an absolutemajority of the national vote and at least 20 per cent of the vote in over half of all

provinces to avoid a second round of voting. This requirement was inspired by Nigeria,another large and regionally diverse country, where presidential candidates need not only

to win an absolute majority of the vote nationally but also to secure at least one-third ofthe vote in at least two-thirds of the countrys provinces. Distribution requirements do

have the benefit of encouraging presidential candidates to make appeals outside their ownregional or ethnic base, and if appropriately applied can work very well. However, the

specification of two requirements for victory always carries the possibility that nocandidate will fulfill both. It is important that designers note this possibility and include

provisions to resolve it, because a system which produces no winner and no method offinding a winner could create a vacuum of power fraught with the dangers of instability.

Electing an Upper House

Not all legislatures consist only of one chamber; particularly in larger countries, many arebicameral. Most second chambers (often called upper houses or senates) exist for one or

both of two reasons. The first is to provide a different type of representation or representdifferent interests, most often the regions or provinces of a country. The second is to act

as a house of review, to provide a brake or delay against impetuous decisions in a lowerchamber. The powers of upper houses are often less than those of lower chambers,

especially when they are chambers of review. Around the world, about two-thirds of allcountries have unicameral legislatures, while the remaining one-third have some kind of

second chamber. The structures of these vary widely, but in general the most commonuse of second chambers is in federal systems to represent the constituent units of the

federation. For example, the states in the USA and Australia, the Lnder in Germany andthe provinces in South Africa are all separately represented in an upper house. Typically,

this involves a weighting in favour of the smaller states or provinces, as there tends to bean assumption of equality of representation between them. In addition, many second

chambers feature staggered elections: half the chamber is elected every three years inAustralia and Japan; one-third of the chamber is elected every second year in the USA

and India, and so on.

A less common type of alternative representation is the deliberate use of the secondchamber to represent particular ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural groups. A second

chamber may also deliberately contain representatives of civil society. In Malawi, forinstance, the constitution provides for 32 of the 80 senators to be chosen by elected


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senators from a list of candidates nominated by social interest groups. These groups areidentified as womens organizations, the disabled, health and education groups, the

business and farming sectors, the trade unions, eminent members of society and religiousleaders. Similarly, second chambers in countries like Fiji and Botswana are used to

represent traditional chiefs

Because of these variations, many second chambers are partly elected, indirectly electedor unelected. Of those that are elected, most jurisdictions have chosen to reflect the

different roles of the two houses by using different electoral systems for the upper houseand the lower house. In Australia, for example, the lower house is elected by a

majoritarian system (AV) while the upper house, which represents the various states, iselected using a proportional system (STV). This has meant that minority interests which

would normally not be able to win election to the lower house still have a chance ofgaining election, in the context of state representation, in the upper house. In Indonesia,

the lower house is elected by List PR, while the upper house uses SNTV to elect fourrepresentatives from each province. In Colombia, while both houses are elected by PR,

the Senate is elected from one nationwide district, thus making it more likely that smallparties and minority interests will be represented in that chamber.

Autonomy and federalism

In countries where minorities are concentrated in specific areas, arrangements for political decision-making to be taken at the regional level may be set up. A common

mechanism is autonomy, where an agreed set of powers (often covering culture,economy, education and religion) is ceded by the central government to a local

government with jurisdiction over a specific territory (which may be inhabited by one ormore minority communities). In federalism, the entire country is divided up into

centralized units, each enjoying devolved powers. Federal/autonomy boundaries may ormay not be drawn based on the location of ethnic/religious communities. In the case of

autonomies it is more usual for this to be the case. Autonomy or decentralization cancreate new minorities (who may have been a part of majority previously) in the regions to

which power is decentralized. Where a minority is not concentrated in one place orgeographical area, non-territorial autonomy (also referred to as cultural or group

autonomy) is a possible arrangement. This involves granting decision-making powers to aminority community (often through a body such as a council) over specific areas which

concern them directly, for example, culture, education, personal laws and religion. Theautonomy body may have some tax-raising powers and/or receive subsidies from the

central government. Current examples can be found in Estonia, Hungary, the RussianFederation, Slovenia and the provisions for Muslim personal laws in India.

Whether autonomy is good or bad as a long-term peace-building mechanism seems very

much to depend on how it is implemented; however: carefully designed autonomy andself-governance regimes can provide the institutional structures that offer sufficient space

to non-dominant groups to experience genuine self-governance, while simultaneouslymaking dominant groups less insecure about the future existence of the overall state


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India offers an interesting contrast of a positive experience with autonomy that of TamilNadu with In Tamil Nadu, where Dravida Movement demands for a separate state dated

back to before independence: scrupulous observation of ethnic autonomy, adequaterepresentation at state and national level, inclusion of smaller minorities through ethnic

power-sharing and shared access to state benefits can turn a separatist movement into a

force for democracy and a willing part of the state

Complex power-sharing

Finally, some experts propose complex packages of arrangements to ensure broad-based participation. These are often instituted as part of a peace-building process in the

aftermath of a violent conflict. Two such packages are consociationalism and integrative power-sharing. Consociationalism, originally developed by Arend Lijphart A Dutch

Political Scientist), involves power-sharing among communities in the executive, oftenthrough reserved ministerial seats, and autonomy arrangements, which allow segments

of society (for example minority communities) to take key decisions on mattersconcerning them. These arrangements are backed up by proportional representation (for

example in public sector employment, funding, and/or political representation) and amutual veto for each community on key issues affecting them. Integrative power-sharing

is most commonly associated with the work of Donald Horowitz. Rather than setting upinstitutions that entrench powers for named communities, it favours electoral systems and

preferential policies that encourage cooperation and alliances across ethnic/religiousdivides. These may be backed up by a strong minority rights regime, including effective

anti-discrimination laws, and effective enforcement mechanisms.

A number of cases show that consociational power sharing arrangements may in the shortterm help a society to emerge from conflict; however, that this might be at the cost of

freezing ethnic identities. The most extreme example of this is in Bosnia andHarzagovina where voters are required to identify themselves as one of the three

constituent peoples. This rules out mixed identities, and violates the minority right to befree to identify or not as a minority, and not to suffer advantage or disadvantage as a

result of that choice. (For further discussion of how this arrangement, and others like it,work to counter cross-cutting identities and thus hinder integration, see the section on

identity). Moreover, where such systems reserve fixed numbers of seats for communities,the distribution of seats may become rapidly outdated as demographics change.

Conclusions and ways forward

Reforming electoral representation systems, power sharing systems or creating nationalmechanisms to recognize adequate and equal participation of all excluded segments,

sectors and communities rural or marginalized communities, women, minorities mustrecognize democratic rights of participation in accordance to the standards advocated by

the international instruments that the government is party to them.

When devising mechanisms for minority participation to prevent conflict, promoteequality or build peace, one of the main debates can be reductively described as

separation versus integration. Where there are entrenched historical grievances (oftenvery recent), separate mechanisms for different groups either at the regional level


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(autonomies) or national level (power-sharing mechanisms with a distribution of posts,seats etc according to community), are more common than more integrative solutions

focusing on incentives to politicians to reach out to all communities and guarantees ofequal participation, which include strong anti-discrimination measures. Analyses of peace

agreements indicate that consociational agreements may be needed in order to get parties

to agree to a transition.

Political systems based on separation do very little to bring about the integration of

different groups that is necessary for long-term peace between them. They do little toaddress the key underlying causes of violence, systematic discrimination and denial of

identity. The South African experience shows that it is possible to institute a mechanismwhereby an initial power-sharing arrangement is reviewed after a number of years and

replaced by a more integrative system (as proposed by the Lund recommendations, seeRelevant international instruments). It is hard to get community leaders to give up

mechanisms which cement their roles in place, but which are unlikely to be good for theintegration and inter-community understanding needed if peace is to be sustainable in the

long term. The only system that would appear to work in the long-term is one that doesnot create boxes which minority representatives have to fit themselves into, and which

enshrines minority rights in the Constitution; operates affirmative action, but not rigidquotas, where necessary to overcome entrenched historic discrimination; promotes

understanding and knowledge of all communities in society through the education systemand media; and guarantees a voice to all parts of society, including minority women. This

structure needs to be underpinned by strong anti-discrimination laws and enforcementmeasures, which make available effective and accessible channels to challenge

discrimination in all its aspects, including discrimination in political participation. Inaddition, mechanisms such as anti-discrimination or equal opportunity commissions, to

facilitate dialogue between communities and the government established at the nationallevel have often been instrumental in preventing conflict, and in dealing constructively

and in a structured way with issues affecting minorities that may contribute to increasedtensions. Such bodies can function effectively not only in decreasing tensions but also, in

the long term, as a tool to manage diversity in society in informal ways.


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Electoral Systems Around the World

There are countless electoral system variations, but essentially they can be split into nine main systems

which fall into three broad families. The most common way to look at electoral systems is to group them by

how closely they translate national votes won into parliamentary seats won; that is, how proportional they

are.

Most electoral system choices involve a trade-off: maximizing proportionality and inclusiveness of all

opinions, or maximizing government efficiency via single-party governments and accountability. Figure One

encapsulates the three main electoral system families of Plurality-Majority systems, Semi-Proportional

systems and Proportional Representation systems.

Plurality-Majority Systems

These comprise two plurality systems, First Past the Post and the Block Vote, and two majority systems, the

Alternative Vote and the Two-Round System.

1. First Past the Post (FPTP) is the worlds most commonly used system. Contests are held in single-

member districts, and the winner is the candidate with the most votes, but not necessarily an absolute

majority of the votes. FPTP is supported primarily on the grounds of simplicity, and its tendency to produce

representatives beholden to defined geographic areas. Countries that use this system include the United

Kingdom, the United States, India, Canada, and most countries that were once part of the British Empire.

2. The Block Vote (BV) is the application of FPTP in multi-rather than single-member districts. Voters have

as many votes as there are seats to be filled, and the highest-polling candidates fill the positions regardless

of the percentage of the vote they actually achieve. This system is used in some parts of Asia and the

Middle East. A variation is the Party Block, as used in Singapore and Mauritius: voters choose between

parties rather than candidates, and the highest-polling party wins all seats in the district.

3. In the Alternative Vote (AV) system, electors rank the candidates in order of choice, marking a 1 for

their favourite candidate, 2 for their second choice, 3 for their third choice, and so on. The system thus

enables voters to express their preferences between candidates, rather than simply their first choice. If no

candidate has over 50 per cent of first-preferences, lower order preference votes are transferred until a

majority winner emerges. This system is used in Australia and some other South Pacific countries.

4. The Two-Round System (TRS) has two rounds of voting, often a week or a fortnight apart. The firstround is the same as a normal FPTP election. If a candidate receives an absolute majority of the vote, then

he or she is elected outright, with no need for a second ballot. If, however, no candidate has received an

absolute majority, then a second round of voting is conducted, and the winner of this round is declared

elected. This system is widely used in France, former French colonies, and some parts of the former

Soviet Union.


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Semi-Proportional Systems

Semi-PR systems translate votes cast into seats won in a way that falls somewhere in between the

proportionality of PR systems and the majoritarianism of plurality-majority systems. The two Semi-PR

systems are the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV), and Parallel (or mixed) systems.

5. In SNTV systems, each elector has one vote but there are several seats in the district to be filled, and the

candidates with the highest number of votes fill these positions. This means that in a four-member district,

for example, one would on average need only just over 20 per cent of the vote to be elected. This system is

used today only in Jordan and Vanuatu, but is most often associated with Japan, which used SNTV until

1993.

6. Parallel systems use both PR lists and single-member districts running side-by-side (hence the term

parallel). Part of the parlia ment is elected by proportional representation, part by some type of plurality or

majority method. Parallel systems have been widely adopted by new democracies in the 1990s, perhaps

because, on the face of it, they appear to combine the benefits of PR lists with single member district

representation. However, depending upon the design of the system, Parallel systems can produce results as

disproportional as plurality-majority ones.

Proportional Representation Systems

All Proportional Representation (PR) systems aim to reduce the disparity between a partys share of national

votes and its share of parliamentary seats. For example, if a major party wins 40 per cent of the votes, it

should also win around 40 per cent of the seats, and a minor party with 10 per cent of the votes should

similarly gain 10 per cent of the seats. For many new democracies, particularly those that face deep

divisions, the inclusion of all significant groups in the parliament can be an important condition for

democratic consolidation. Outcomes based on consensus-building and power-sharing usually include a PR

system. Criticisms of PR are two-fold: that it gives rise to coalition governments, with disadvantages such asparty system fragmentation and government instability; and that PR produces a weak linkage between a

representative and her or his geographical electorate. And since voters are expected to vote for parties

rather than individuals or groups of individuals, it is a difficult system to operate in societies that have

embryonic or loose party structures.

7. List PR systems are the most common type of PR. Most forms of list PR are held in large, multi-member

districts that maximize proportionality. List PR requires each party to present a list of candidates to the

electorate. Electors vote for a party rather than a candidate; and parties receive seats in proportion to their

overall share of the national vote. Winning candidates are taken from the lists in order of their respective

position. This system is widely used in continental Europe, Latin America and southern Africa.

8. Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) systems, as used in Germany, New Zealand, Bolivia, Italy, Mexico,

Venezuela, and Hungary, attempt to combine the positive attributes of both majoritarian and PR electoral

systems. A proportion of the parliament (roughly half in the cases of Germany, New Zealand, Bolivia, and

Venezuela) is elected by plurality-majority methods, usually from single-member districts, while the

remainder is constituted by PR lists. The PR seats are used to compensate for any disproportionality


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produced by the district seat results. Single-member districts also ensure that voters have some

geographical representation.

9. The Single Transferable Vote (STV) uses multi-member districts, where voters rank candidates in order

of preference on the ballot paper in the same manner as Alternative Vote. After the total number of first

preference votes are tallied, a quota of votes is established, which a candidate must achieve to be elected.

Any candidate who has more first preferences than the quota is immediately elected. If no-one has achieved

the quota, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated, and their second

preferences are redistributed among remaining candidates. And the surplus votes of elected candidates

(i.e., those votes above the quota) are redistributed according to the second preferences on the ballot

papers until all seats for the constituency are filled. This system is well established in Ireland and Malta.

List PR

List PR is an essential component of the constitutional engineering package known as

consociationalism. Consociationalism entails a power-sharing agreement within government,

brokered between clearly defined segments of society divided by ethnicity, religion and language.

Consociational societies include Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. The idea has

four basic elements: (i) grand coalition (executive power sharing among the representatives of all

significant groups); (ii) segmental autonomy(a high degree of internal autonomy for groups that

ish to have it); (iii) proportionality(proportional representation and proportional allocation of civil

service positions and public funds); and (iv) mutual veto (a minority veto on the most vital issues).

These four basic elements ensure that government becomes an inclusive multi-ethnic coalition,

unlike the adversarial nature of a Westminster winner-take-all democracy.

Proponents of consociationalism favour list PR because it: 1) delivers highly proportional election

results; 2) is relatively invulnerable to gerrymandering; and 3) is simpler than many alternative

systems for both voters and electoral officials and thus will be less open to suspicion. The

successful use of list PR at South Africas transitional 1994 elections is often cited as a good

example of these qualities, and of the way list PR enables parties to place women or ethnic

minorities in winnable places on their party list. But there are also disadvantages. Because list PR

relies on large, multi-member electoral districts, it breaks the geographical link between voters

and their elected member. Geographically large multi-ethnic societies which have used list PR

successfully, such as South Africa and Indonesia, are now considering alternatives which would

build in some geographic accountability via single-member electorates. Secondly, the wider

argument for consociationalism rests on assumptions that may not always be viable in divided

societies, such as the expectation that ethnic leaders will be more moderate than their

supporters. Consociational structures may merely entrench ethnic politics, rather than work to


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encourage inter-ethnic alliances. So consociationalism may be a good strategy for deeply divided

societies in transition, but less appropriate for promoting subsequent democratic consolidation.

The experience of list PR in post-Dayton Bosnia is a good example of how proportionality alone

will not encourage accommodation. In Bosnia, groups are represented in parliament in proportionto their numbers in the community as a whole, but because parties can rely exclusively on the

votes of members of their own community for their electoral success, there is little incentive for

them to behave accommodatively on ethnic issues. In fact, the incentives work in the other

direction. As it is easy to mobilize support by playing the ethnic card, major parties in Bosnia

have every incentive to emphasize ethnic issues and sectarian appeals. Bosnias 1996 elections

were effectively an ethnic census, with electors voting along ethnic lines and each of the major

nationalist parties gaining support almost exclusively from their own ethnic group.

The Alternative Vote (AV)

An alternative approach to electoral system design is to choose a system which places less

emphasis on proportional results but more emphasis on the need to force different groups to work

together. The core of this approach is to offer electoral incentives to politicians to look for votes

among other groups rather than just relying on supporters from their own group. The Alternative

Vote (AV) enables voters to declare not only their first choice of candidate on a ballot, but also

their second, third and subsequent choices amongst all candidates standing. This feature

presents candidates with a strong incentive to try and attract the second preferences of voters

from other groups (assuming that the voters first preference will usually be a candidate from their

own group), as winners need to gain an absolute majority of the vote under AV rules. Candidates

who successfully pool their own first preferences and the second preferences of others will be

more successful than those who fail to attract any second-order support. To succeed, candidates

need to move to the centre on policy issues to attract floating voters, or to successfully

accommodate fringe issues into their broader policy. There is a long history of both types of

behaviour in Australian elections, the only established democracy to use AV, and in the ethnically

fragmented state of Papua New Guinea, which has also used AV.

The more groups competing in a constituency, the more likely it is that meaningful preference

swapping will take place. In many ethnically divided countries, however, members of the same

ethnic group tend to cluster together, which means that the relatively small, single-member

districts which are a feature of AV would, in these cases, result in constituencies which are

ethnically uniform. Where a candidate is confident of achieving an absolute majority of first

preferences due to the domination of his or her own ethnic group in an area, they need look no

further to win the seat. This means that the vote-pooling between different ethnic groups which


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is a precondition for the accommodative influences of AV would not, in fact, occur. So AV works

best either in cases of extreme ethnic fragmentation or, more commonly, where a few large ethnic

groups are widely dispersed and intermixed. The use of AV-like systems for presidential elections

in Sri Lanka and as part of the constitutional settlement in ethnically intermixed Fiji are both

examples of this.

The Single Transferable Vote (STV)

STV stands as something of a mid-point between the use of list PR, which maximizes

proportionality, and AV, which maximizes incentives for accommodation. Some scholars argue

that under STV, the twin benefits of proportionality and accommodation can both be emphasized.

As a PR system, STV produces largely proportional results, while its preferential ballot provides

some incentives towards the vote-pooling approach outlined above, thus encouraging party

appeals beyond defined ethnic boundaries. Segments of opinion can be represented

proportionately in the legislature, but there is also an incentive for political elites to appeal to the

members of other segments, given that second preferences are of prime importance. STV has

attracted many admirers, but its use for national parliamentary elections has been limited to a few

cases Ireland (since 1921), Malta (since 1947), the Australian Senate (since 1949), and at one-

off elections in Estonia and Northern Ireland.

As a mechanism for choosing representatives, STV is perhaps the most sophisticated of all

electoral systems, allowing for choice between parties and between candidates within parties.

The final results also retain a fair degree of proportionality, and since the multi-member districts

are usually relatively small, the geographical link between voter and representative is retained.

However, the system is often criticized because preference voting is unfamiliar in many societies,

and demands a minimal degree of literacy and numeracy. STV counts are also quite complex,

which can be a drawback. STV also carries the disadvantages of all parliaments elected by PR

methods, such as under certain circumstances exaggerating the power of small minority parties.

The use of STV in divided societies to date has been somewhat limited and inconclusive. Two

ethnically divided states have utilized STV in one-off national elections: Northern Ireland in 1973

and 1982, and Estonia in 1990. In both cases, little vote-pooling or accommodation on ethnic

issues took place, and the elected parliaments exhibited little in the way of inter-ethnic

accommodation. In contrast, however, STV has been used successfully in the Republic of Ireland

and in Malta, maximizing both proportionality and, by using small multi-member electoral districts,

an element of geographic accountability. STV was recently re-introduced to Northern Ireland as

part of the Irish peace settlement (see Case Study), where it formed part of a wider prescription

for power sharing between the Catholic and Protestant populations, and was successfully used


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there for the first post-settlement elections in 1998. Significant numbers of Catholics and

Protestants used their preferences to transfer votes across group lines for the first time.

Explicit recognition of communal groups

A different approach to elections and conflict management is to explicitly recognize the

overwhelming importance of group identity in the political process, and to mandate this in the

electoral law so that ethnic representation, and the ratio of different ethnic groups in the

parliament, is fixed. Four distinct approaches reflect this thinking:

Communal electoral rolls. The most straightforward way of explicitly recognizing the importance

of ethnicity is a system ofcommunal representation. Seats are not only divided on a communal

basis, but the entire system of parliamentary representation is similarly based on communal

considerations. This usually means that each defined community has its own electoral roll, and

elects only members of its own group to parliament. Today, only Fiji (see Case Study) continues

to use this system, and it remains as an optional choice for Maori voters in New Zealand.

Elsewhere communal systems were abandoned because communal electorates, while

guaranteeing group representation, often had the perverse effect of undermining accommodation,

as there were no incentives for political intermixing between communities. The issue of how to

define a member of a particular group, and how to distribute electorates fairly between them, was

also strewn with pitfalls.

Reserved seats for ethnic, linguistic or other minorities.An alternative approach is to reserve

some parliamentary seats for identifiable ethnic or religious minorities. Many countries reserve a

few seats for such groups: e.g., Jordan (Christians and Circassians), India (scheduled tribes and

castes), Pakistan (non-Muslim minorities), Colombia (black communities), Croatia (Hungarian,

Italian, Czech, Slovak, Ruthenian, Ukrainian, German and Austrian minorities), Slovenia

(Hungarians and Italians), Taiwan (Aboriginal community), Western Samoa (non-indigenous

minorities), Niger (Taurag), and the Palestinian Authority (Christians and Samaritans). But it is

often argued that a better strategy is to design structures that nurture a representative parliament

naturally, rather than to impose members who may be viewed as token parliamentarians with

representation but no genuine influence. Quota seats can also breed resentment among the

majority population and increase mistrust between minority groups.

Ethnically mandated lists under a block vote system. A third approach is to usepre-

determined ethnic lists with the party block vote. Party block works like the standard block vote

described earlier, except that electors vote for a party list of candidates rather than individuals.

The party that wins most votes takes allthe seats in the district, and its entire list of candidates is

duly elected. Some countries use this system to ensure balanced ethnic representation, as it


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enables parties to present ethnically diverse lists of candidates for election. In Lebanon, for

example, each party list must comprise a mix of candidates from different ethnic groups. Electors

thus choose on the basis of criteria other than ethnicity. Singapore uses a similar system to

increase the representation of its minority Malay and Indian community. But a critical flaw of the

party block is the possibility of supermajoritarian results, where one party can win almost all ofthe seats with a simple majority of the votes. In the Singaporean elections of 1991, for example, a

61 per cent vote for the ruling Peoples Action Party gave it 95 per cent of all seats in parliament,

while in 1982 and 1995 the Mauritian elections saw a parliament with no opposition at all. To

counter this possibility, the Lebanese constitution pre-determines the ethnic composition of the

entire parliament, and of key positions such as the president and the prime minister as well.

Best loser seats to balance ethnic representation in the legislature.

A final mechanism sometimes used in conjunction with the party block vote is to assign seats to

the best loserfrom a specified community. In Mauritius, for example, four best loser seats are

allocated to the highest polling candidates of under-represented ethnic groups in order to balance

ethnic representation. Recently, however, there has been a strong movement in

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