From: Satinath Choudhary <satichou@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 6:08 AM
Subject: Congrats for Coimbatore Conference and some additional information
To
Dear Raj,
Hearty congratulations for a very successful conference in Coimbatore. I would very much like to draw your attention to a report in Newsweek of August 16, 2010 on "The World's Best Countries,"[1] ranking top 100 countries of the world (the links are given at the bottom of this article). It is very interesting. One can easily compare Education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism and political environment of any two countries, aside from overall how good various countries or groups of countries are.
One can try to correlate the surveys presented in and article in Newsweek magazine and at transparency.org [2] with electoral systems used by various countries shown collated by IDEA [3]. One will find that out of top 10 best countries as well as those possessing highest transparency, 8 use Proportional Representation (PR) or Semi-PR and only two use "plurality/majority" system of election. Approximately the same ratio holds even for top 50 countries in both category. These results confirm what we already know: that electoral method matters very much in how good and fair a country's governance is. PR beats plurality/majority type hands down (four to one)!
However, there is one question with which the opponents of PR try to stump us: stability factor! They claim that with the larger number of parties winning seats in the parliament, PR will contribute to instability of the government. They may point out to the difficulties that Nepal is having in the formation of their government. We must be able to handle this important question satisfactorily. In trying to answer this stability question, the following is what I have discovered.
Unfortunately, when it comes to electing the executive body, from our common legacy of monarchical governing bodies, most countries (including the countries that use PR for electing their MPs) have been choosing pyramidal governing structure headed by a single person in the form of a monarch. While electing a person to fill a single post of Prime Minister (PM) or President or Chancellor, plurality/majority type of election is the only option we have – we can't PR a single seat position! The PM or the President then goes on to fill ministerial slots with the people who helped him/her win that position in a manner that has to be called quid pro quo or horse trading – trading the positions of power, perks and high salaries for various ministries in lieu of enabling the PM to sit on the throne! This can be (and has to be) avoided by making all key positions of power (including that of the PM,) to be flat top collective positions (with equal power vested in all members of the collective). The Prime Ministerial Collective (PMC) should serve as a coordinating and supervisory body of the executive.
We could use the same list-PR system of election that was used for election of members of parliament (MPs), as the method of election of members of PMC. This would be close to what they do in Switzerland, where the parliament elects a 7-member Executive Committee (EC), with equal power vested among all of them [4]. The PMC could select collectives of suitable experts with impeccable reputations to head various governmental departments from a nationwide search and nominate them for collective positions at the heads of various departments to be finally approval by the parliament.
This would be in accord with the American system of constituting executive body. It would also lead to greater separation of the executive branch from the legislative branch. It would differ from the American system in the choice of flat type structures to head various departments rather than pyramidal type with hierarchies like Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Assistant Secretary, and so forth. In choosing collectives as heads of various departments the PMC could make sure to include the same kind of diversity (from the point of view of party allegiance as well as social groups) that they find among themselves in the PMC and in the population. Presence of members of diverse groups/parties at all key positions (as members with equal power) would ensure adherence of the collectives to law and justice, in accord with the policies and Acts adopted by the parliament. The presence of people from various parties in key positions of power is likely to add to integrity and transparency in all positions of power.
As for the formation of the PMC, one could use a sort of Proportional Representation (PR) election among the MPs. The smaller parties that would not be able to elect one of their own may form coalitions to be able to elect some of their own for positions in the PMC. MPs not associated with any of the parties or coalitions will be declared as independent. An MP would be free to cast as many votes as they like for any of the MPs to elect them to PMC, but each of the recipients will get a fraction of his/her single vote s/he is entitled to – a recipient's vote divided by the total number of votes cast by the voter (MP). For example, if an MP_0 is casting two votes for himself, one for MP_1, 3 for MP_2 and 1 for MP_3. MP_0 has cast a total of 8 votes and s/he is essentially casting 2/8th (=1/4) of a vote for himself, 1/8 vote for MP_1, 3/8 vote for MP_2, and 1/8 vote for MP_3. Votes in favor of each of the candidates (i.e., MPs) would be added to their affiliated parties. The number of seats in PMC won by various parties or coalitions would be determined in proportion to votes collected by them via their MPs. Highest vote getters of each party or coalition would fill the PMC-seats won by the parties or coalitions. If any of the independent candidates gets enough votes to win a seat, s/he would also become a part of PMC.
The method described above is also suitable for general election of the members of parliament. The grassroots voters may be asked to keep on collecting the fliers of the candidates they like, or have their names written on pieces of paper, which they can take to the polling booth on the election date. A voter may be supplied with an envelope by the presiding officer, which the former will stuff with the fliers or names of his/her favorite candidates. S/he can include more than one flier of the candidates s/he likes most. As for computation of actual fraction of votes going to various candidates (out of the single vote that each voter is entitled to), computations will be made as indicated earlier.
Even if it is decided that only a majority will form the executive (leaving a minority out side government as opposition), a flat-top PMC elected from within the majority as described above, with flat-top collective heads of various departments constituted from members outside the parliament, will go a long way in ushering integrity, transparency and democracy within the executive branch of the government. Current way of forming a pyramidal jumbo-executive on the basis of quid pro quo, with various governmental departments headed by insatiable politicians needing and collecting all the money they can get to fight the next election, is one of the most corrupting process one can think of. It must be abolished.
Best Regards,
Satinath (satichou@gmail.com)
URLs for various links mentioned above are:
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html
[2] http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table
[3] http://www.idea.int/esd/world.cfm
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Council
--
Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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