51–60 of 66 posts
I'm from germany, but I'm not sure if I would elect them. In last months there were so many chances for them, but they missed every one. For example they organised demonstrations against ACTA, but I never heard anything directly from the pirate party.
If they are so incompetent, but still get 7.4% of the vote, then how will will they do once they get their act together?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…
> One serious flaw of the proportional system No such thing. There are lots of proportional systems, each of which have different proporties. > like Italy and Israel both have what you say is explicitly not true in Italy, where the biggest party/coalition is automatically given enough top-up seats to give them a majority. > is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits.…
Italy has fiddled with its election laws a lot in recent years, and is probably going to do so again, so what may be true right now may not have been true in year WXYZ.
What I say certainly has happened in the past: witness the downfall of the previous Prodi governments, where support from minority coalition partners tanked the government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Prodi#Olive_Tree_and_fir...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Prodi#2008_crisis_and_re...
Coalition governments built on many small parties are often weak.
> the party decides on the candidate
Often through relatively open primaries though. Witness the Republican race on right now. "The Party" likely wants Romney, because he's probably more electable than the others. A lot of people do not want him though, evidently.
Not to say any system is perfect, I agree with the poster who says that they all have problems. To think that one system is "the best" is a bit silly in my opinion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…
> For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... Or they simply look for someone on the other side. E.g. in Germany, SPD (social democrats) routinely ignore Left (socialists and communists) and instead deals with the conservative CDU. It's not like…
When they have the opportunity. In Italy, in recent years, the choice may have been between the communists and Berlusconi, which in my book is not a pleasant choice to have to make.
My point was that proportional systems can go wrong in certain ways, not that they necessarily will do so all the time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which electoral system is better is another discussion. Both have their flaws, but a pretty good discription of how elections work in Germany.
One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…
Copyright discussions played little role in the Pirate's successful campaign, however. The party instead focused on issues of social and political reform. Has anyone with real political influence (so, not them for now ;) addresses this issue? I suppose this was relevant before, but with more targeted parties like the Pirates, I think the faults in our election system seem more pronounced. The reality is that a party…
For example, anybody can get elected at the Pirate Party atm. Try that in the established parties: I think you have to join in kindergarden and toil for decades before you can make it big in an established party. If you feel strongly about some issue, could you join an established party and hope to get heard? It seems unlikely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One serious flaw of the proportional system No such thing. There are lots of proportional systems, each of which have different proporties. > like Italy and Israel both have what you say is explicitly not true in Italy, where the biggest party/coalition is automatically given enough top-up seats to give them a majority. > is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits.…
> what you say is explicitly not true in Italy, Italy has fiddled with its election laws a lot in recent years, and is probably going to do so again, so what may be true right now may not have been true in year WXYZ. What I say certainly has happened in the past: witness the downfall of the previous Prodi governments, where support from minority coalition partners tanked the government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…
If by weak you mean "cannot rule without support of representatives who collectively were voted for by most voters" then IMO that's a feature not a bug.
> Often through relatively open primaries though. Witness the Republican race on right now.
That's true. There's no reason why a party couldn't choose list candidates through an open process, however.
For the political hackers: note that these victories are made possible by Germany's proportional representation system, which guarantees seats in parliaments to any party which gets more than 5% of the popular vote across the state/city/whatever. Thus parties with broad but shallow support do get represented in government. The electoral systems in the UK-derived nations (geographic districts only, first past the post…
The Scottish Parliament actually has an element of PR, so we do get some minority parties with seats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament#2011_result It wouldn't surprise me if we have Pirate Party MSPs in a few years. [NB Scotland is still very much a part of the UK, at least for a couple of years or so!].
The Scottish parliament is one of the legislatures we're targetting -- it is good for us brecause it has a combination of (a) low threshold to get elected, and (b) low amount of money necessary to run an effective campaign.
Is it because Germany has an electoral system that allows it? [but other nations also allow it]
Or, that Germany is technically advanced, and so one of the first nations to have a sufficiently large constituent of web-centric citizens? (echoes of Martin Luther, opposing the establishment with new communications technology) [but other nations are advanced]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which electoral system is better is another discussion. Both have their flaws, but a pretty good discription of how elections work in Germany.
One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…