Britain may like to find out about more our voting system in elections. Our system gives smaller political parties a chance to be part of the government. We have MMP which is one kind of proportional representation.
If a party gets a proportion of the votes, like 10%, they are represented in Parliament by the same proportion of MPs. In this way smaller parties can be represented. Today, we have two main parties but also four smaller parties in Parliament. Two of them have a part in the government. The old system of First Past the Post (FPP) can be unfair. In 1978 and 1981 Labour got more votes but National had more seats so National was the government. Listen to November 24th 2008 and September 8th 2009 for more about MMP.
The results of the elections in Britain last week gave the Tories 36% of the vote, Labour 29% and the Liberal Democrats 23%. Other parties got 12% of the vote. There are 649 seats in the British Parliament. Tories got 306 seats, Labour 258 seats and the Liberal Democrats only 57 seats. If they had proportional representation, the number of seats would be 234 for the Tories, 188 for Labour and 149 for the Liberal Democrats. It is easy to see why the Liberal Democrats are so disappointed.
The Tories need a minimum of 326 seats so they need the Liberal Democrat seats to form a government. However, the Liberal Democrats want a promise of proportional representation in the future or at least a referendum, which is a vote by the British people.
Questions to think about
The British Tories and the Labour party do not want proportional representation. Can you guess why?
What are the difficulties with a coalition government (where two parties have to work together)?
What are the benefits?
Numbers to listen for
Listen to all the numbers – years, percentages and number of seats. Can you get them right?
(Oh dear! Half of 649 plus 1 should be 325.)