From: poser@vxcrna.cern.ch (Till Poser   ZEUS Offline)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Majorities (Was Re: Emigration after the Tory win on April 9th)
Summary: Don't give me Your fptp bull*
Date: 16 Apr 92 18:28:33 GMT
Reply-To: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA

In article <jje6enk@zola.esd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon
Livesey) writes in soc.culture.british: 
> In article <tahonen.2@katk.Helsinki.FI>, tahonen@katk.Helsinki.FI
> (Timo Ahonen) writes:
> |> In article <jh6936c@zola.esd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com
> |> (Jon Livesey) writes: 
> |> 
> |> >OK, but so what?   Who was the last German Chancellor whose party
> |> >got an overall majority?   I think it was Adenauer.
> |> 
> |> Yes, the parties of the German Chancellors haven't had overall majorities 
> |> for decades now, but the *governments* of the German Chancellors have had 
> |> majorities both in Parliament and in popular vote: they've all been 
> |> coalition governments. So the German governments have had the
> |> support of the 
> |> majority of the voters, which is something the British one-party 
> |> governments haven't had.
> 
> You mean there was a line on the ballot paper that said "I vote for
> minority party X to join a coalition with majority party Y"?

> No, I don't think so.  I think what happened is that minority
> party X lost the election because not enough people voted for it,
> and party Y go more votes but not a simple majority.   Then the 
> leader of party Y invited the leader of party X to join a coalition.  
> The leader of party X agreed to do so, without a further election.

The German system might not what You find at home, but, in my not so
humble opinion, it beats the flinking daylights out of
first-past-the-post when it comes to the representation of minority
positions.

Point in fact: most of the time a, or in this case better the, smaller
party would announce its intent to form a coalition with a specified
other party before the ballot, provided the other party would not win an
absolute majority. Most of time the intent for a coalition is on the
ballot. What's more, the (German) voters _expect_ their parties to form
a solid coalition for a stable government _and_ they vote accordingly,
i.e. tactically. 

The fact that most of our Laender (10:6) and the Bund itself is being
governed by coalitions bears out this contention. There has been exactly
_one_ Federal Government which could boast of an absolute majority for
the ruling party.

There were only two times, when coalitions in the Bund changed
critically in midterm, i.e. in 1966 from Lib/Christion to
SocDem/Christian and in 1982 when the Liberals switched from the Social
Democrats to the Christian Democrats. In the first case it was a time of
crisis, when it was needful to have the most stable political basis
possible, in the latter case new elections were forced to legitimise the
new government.

So what's Your beef? There were 5 distictly different governments in 13
terms, starting in 1949. How stable can You get?

> In other words, the coalition was put together in a backroom deal
> between party leaders.

Prejudiced prattle, which betrays an apalling lack of insight in the
political systems so snidely classified. Would You be so kind as to
enumerate the major benefits of the fptp-system, apart from the
propensity for the ossification the political system? It can't be the
representation of political minorities, now can it?

> jon.

(Apologies for the somewhat non-British content, but some things must be
said.)

  Till Poser (F35/ZEUS OFFLINE)   Tel.: -49-40-8998-2004
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic