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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrive at the Commonwealth Heads of Government 2018 meeting in Windsor, England, in April 2018. New Zealand moved from the first-past-the-post electoral system in 1993 to a system that helped put Ardern in power. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

What Canada can learn from New Zealand on electoral reform

Unlike Canada’s newly elected House of Commons, New Zealand’s parliament reflects the will of voters. So do other proportional representation systems. Canada has plenty of choice.
Lesotho voters wait patiently to cast their ballot. EPA/Kim Ludbrook

Why Lesotho’s in such a mess and what can be done about it

Politics in Lesotho can look incredibly complicated, with a mish-mash of competing political parties and repeated military interventions. It’s a mess, but it’s not that hard to unravel.
Malawi faces the biggest overhaul in its electoral system since the 1990s. Shutterstock

Malawi’s plans for major electoral reform are way overdue

The proposed change to Malawi’s electoral system is straightforward and makes logical sense. Yet it’s more complex and if adopted would revolutionise local politics.
Ed Miliband’s Labour Party gained a swing twice as big as the Conservatives did but lost seats, leading him to resign. EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga

Voting system gives Tories a result most UK voters didn’t want

Labour, UKIP and the Greens all gained much bigger swings than the Conservatives, but were election losers. The first-past-the-post system let the Tories pick up a swag of seats with a 0.8% swing.
The UK general election could go either way. The one certainty is that the numbers of seats won won’t match the votes for each party. AAP/Newzulu/Stephen Chung

UK election prediction: this week’s result won’t reflect the voters’ will

This week the “mother of parliaments” faces a general election in the UK. The ‘first past the post’ electoral system means we can’t predict the result with certainty, nor expect it to match the vote.

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