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Electoral Systems
Finland
Finland uses the d'Hondt method of proportional representation. It is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. Other countries using this allocation system include: Belgium, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Hungary, Japan, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Turkey. It is also used for elections to the European Parliament.
Before 1954, voters had to choose between candidate lists (a list included a maximum of two candidates and one deputy); but later changes to the system mean that it is now possible to vote for one individual candidate only. This change transformed the Finnish electoral system into a rare type of list system, which obliges voting for individual candidates. The election of candidates from the party list is not predetermined, but depends entirely on the number of individual votes cast for each candidate. The voter picks the allotted number of his or her candidate and writes it down on the ballot. As a result, the election is not exclusively a competition between parties; it is also a competition between single candidates on the party list.
Finland has a multi-party system. Eight parties are currently represented in Parliament of which the three largest are the Finnish Centre Party (55 representatives), the Social Democratic Party (53) and the National Coalition Party (40). The Other parties are the Left Alliance (19), the Green League (14), the Swedish People’s Party of Finland (8), the Christian Democrats (7) and the True Finns (3). There is also one representative in Parliament from the semi-autonomous Åland Islands.
One feature of the multi-party situation is that no single party is likely to win an absolute majority in parliamentary elections, with the result that the country invariably has a coalition government that enjoys the confidence of Parliament. The government is usually headed by the leader of the largest parliamentary party, who serves as Prime Minister.
England
By law British General Elections have to take place every five years. Within this time it is up to the Prime Minister to decide when the next election will be held. Prime Ministers try to choose a time when they think that their political party is popular and the voters will vote for them. Since 1935 general elections have been held on Thursdays to avoid voters being influenced by ministers of the Free Church as they were mostly Liberals. Friday was also considered, but as it was payday, it was decided that many people would be too drunk to vote!
The voting system is known as ‘first past the post’ or ‘winner-takes-all’. In this voting system the country is divided into 646 constituencies and voters vote for candidates rather than political parties. The winning candidate is chosen in each constituency by having the most votes, regardless of whether or not he or she has a majority of votes. No party winning a parliamentary majority has won a majority of the popular vote since 1945. Variations of this system are used in 43 of the 191 countries in the United Nations for either local or national elections.
Which system is most democratic?
The d’Hondt formula of allocating seats favours large parties, specifically, those parties that are concentrated instead of those parties whose support is more even in different parts of the country. Therefore, in Finland small parties usually take the opportunity of forming an electoral alliance with one or more parties.
In the British election of 1983, the Liberal-Social Democrat Alliance received 25.4% of the popular vote nationwide while the Labour Party pulled in 27.6% of the vote. However, the Liberal-Social Democrat Alliance won only 3.5% of the seats in Parliament, while Labour won 32.3% of the seats – a difference of 186 seats with a difference in share of the vote of only 2.2% (which translates to a difference of only 15 seats under the Finnish system!).
At her most popular, Margaret Thatcher had a parliamentary majority of 43.9% from a voter turnout of 72%. Similarly, in the General Election of 2005, the Labour government won a majority of the seats with less than 36% of the national vote.
The writer of this article is in no doubt that proportional representation is the most democratic. But, because this involves power sharing in the form of a Coalition government the British, Conservative and Labour parties are not likely to change the current system.
Mike Bangle is the owner of Talking English language consultancy and can be contacted at mike.bangle(at)phnet.fi
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