Winning just a few seats would mean Reform would qualify for ‘short money’ – public funding for its operations – and would no longer have to rely on its own small donations pool.
First past the post tends to deliver the winning party more seats in parliament than they’d get under a truly proportional voting system – but this year is off the charts.
The coalition is increasingly using parliamentary urgency, cutting the public service and fast-tracking legislation – all of which risks upsetting the equilibrium between government and the governed.
The March elections in the Netherlands, and the fact that a government still hasn’t been formed, illustrate both the benefits and problems with proportional representation.
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern and National leader Judith Collins meet in the first TV debate on September 22.
GettyImages
The success of Malawi’s democratic dispensation will be measured on the extent to which it delivers public goods – opportunities, development, accountability – for the people.
Lesotho’s former Prime Minister Tom Thabane, left, and his successor Moeketsi Majoro, at the latter’s swearing in ceremony at the Royal Palace in Maseru.
Molise Molise/AFP-GettyImages
Moeketsi Majoro’s installation as Prime Minister is welcome. But it does not guarantee much needed political stability in an era of complex coalition politics.
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)
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.
The newly elected President of Botswana Mokgweetsi Masisi.
JUSTIN LANE/EPA
Serious challenges lie ahead for Botswana’s governing party as it celebrates retaining power.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes his way to a news conference at in Ottawa on Oct. 23, 2019. What would the election results look like if Canada had proportional representation?
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
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
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.
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.