Minority Governments can work: Do we really need an election now? Focus on electoral systems and how minority governments work in other countries

The Conservatives have made it clear that they will be toppling the government soon (unless something is done to change their minds and the Bloc Quebecois mind).

Personally i think this is a huge waste of time (and money). But not for the general reasons that people give (at least in my experience and thought).

I'm a large supporter of PR (proportional representation). Why? Well there are actually a number of reasons.

The first is that the way people vote is reflected in parliament. And that goes for parties i like and parties i don't' like. Consider this: The NDP got about the same proportion of the vote as the Conservative Party did in the last vote. But the number of seats is drastically different? Or the election when the PC's dropped to two seats. They had about 20% of the vote---it was just too spread out (like the NDP's and the Green's).

While you can never provide a perfect democracy it seems to me that having an electoral system that distorts the vote as much as ours does is not very democratic. But actually it was designed to work that way in England, the idea being that the government would be better able to rule. And only developed countries that use it are from England (more or less if you look at the US). Right now only Canada, the US and Great Britain use only a first past the post system in voting (where whoever gets the most votes in an area gets the seat and nobody else does even if they have 49% of the vote).

Australia elects its Senate by Proportional Representation and its House of Commons by First Past the Post (what we use in Canada) . Germany uses both systems in a rather complicated way that results in smaller parties getting seats, but not enough to have a large impact. Still their presence makes a big difference. For example they have Green Party seats because the Greens get a large enough proportion of the vote even though they don't win any first past the post systems. And your vote doesn't need to be strategic. If you want you vote for the Greens and there will be some representation of that. I don't like the German system much because it still generally ends up with governments that are formed similar to first past the post systems. But at least you do get some seats for smaller parties that get votes.

Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland use systems of PR that are similar to each other. Proportional representation is not used in France but there is a runoff for President. This means they have an election and then the top two winners run against each other (i believe if one person has 50% of the vote they don't have one. I'm not sure and it hasn't happened yet). Switzerland has a weird system almost no one understands but it is closest to PR.

Every country that has members in the EU elects their EU members using proportional representation.

None of these systems are perfect (most of the countries have different ways of using proportional representation--some with very slight differences some with huge differences from neighbouring countries).

Now the first argument i usually hear about PR is that it leads to minority governments. This is true. However you need to understand that if you are working in a system that will always elect minority governments that the parties find a way of creating alliances. Otherwise all they will be doing is perpetual elections and people don't like that. Even the famed Italy didn't have elections near as often as people think. What gets quoted is the number of governments. But in most cases this is where different parties decide to work with each other---they don't have an election every time they change governments. They are using partly a first past the post system now i believe but i think some of it is still proportional representation. In any case they are the general exception.

So the parties learn to make alliances (publicly with rules or not) and they get along to writing legislation. The elections may be somewhat more frequent but not that much more, and people in the countries generally like the way it elects their governments. Because every vote does count!

The other usual example against proportional representation is that Hitler was elected under proportional representation. Actually it isn't that simple. Regardless most systems changed (or were created) to require a party to get 5% of the vote to get any seats and this gets rid of the problem of having very lowly supported fringe parties getting seats (this was mostly done because of how Hitler came to power). Another good example of what happens if you have a low threshold is Israel. They recently changed from a 1% threshold to a 2% threshold. Either a threshold of 5% of the vote or a way of having electoral districts with more than one person per party (so that you split those proptionally) works much better and tends to keep fringe radical parties out. Of course that depends on how you define fringe radical and in recent years there have been some small distasteful people elected (Communist Parties almost always get some seats but ones that are possible to work with. Europeans don't have our allergy to Communist no matter what kind). The real parties have been extreme right or extreme left. They often only get no seats or a very low proportion of the seats but it is embarrassing to some countries.

Regardless i think these countries have a better way of electing their representatives. My vote, your vote, the proportion of the vote matters a lot more. In a way our funding system of parties now works that way. Each party gets $1.75 a year for each vote it got in the last election as long as they got 2% of the vote (and the Green Party is now getting some funding as a result--which i think is good even if i'm not a Green Party member).

With Canada being Canada there would probably need to be a regional component. Most proportional representation systems involve a regional component to larger or smaller degrees. It could be like in Australia where one house is elected by first past the post and the Senate is elected by proportional representation or one where you put several districts together but its still regional in nature (if you put 10 ridings together an elected by PR you would get a much different result then we currently do).

As to the wonders of majority governments. Proportional representation governments are generally stable (as mentioned above). Regardless though, as happens in Canada with first past the post systems is it really all that much of a democracy if a party with 40% of the vote is almost certain to have a large majority of the seats? It can even be done with less than that percentage--it depends. But 40% is usually almost a guarantee. 45% is certain.

Also we need to realize that our governments have changed. 15 years ago Canada was considered a two party country or a two and a half party depending on who you asked (the NDP at the time being the half). At the moment we have 4 parties and we have had 5 parties up until quite recently.

As there are more parties the proportion of the vote left over in first past the vote systems becomes more important. All of this business of strategic voting personally drives me up the wall. People shouldn't have to vote stragically. They should vote and have their vote counted as long as 5% in the area (defining area will change on how you work the system) of the vote is required. We might have some of the smaller parties getting seats as people no longer feel they need to vote strategically. In all likelihood the NDP, Green, Communist and some right wing party will likely get seats they didn't used to. But is the world going to end if the Communist Party of Canada picks up a seat or two? It hasn't ended in Sweden, in fact its really not an issue. They have several Communist Parties (we have two in Canada). They don't hold a lot of power but in a multi party coalition they may get some say. If 5% of the population voted for them i don't see why they shouldn't. A very right wing party got one or two seats in Sweden or Denmark a few years ago. People sat down and thought about what it meant, and it was somewhat of a national embarrassment. But their system didn't end either.

If you want to keep ridings then you use a system where you effectively increase the size of the riding and put more seats in it or just put more seats in. This also allows for regional representation. Or you can have both by following Australia's lead. First Past the Post for the House of Commons and PR for the Senate. And their Senate has more powers that ours which i believe was part of the change.

As far as i can see another election before the Gomery report is out is really a waste of time. The largest likelihood would be a Conservative minority government. We would loose some good legislation that is on the floor such as same sex marriage (and i think this is part of why they want to call an election...the talk came pretty quickly after their civil union amendment didn't pass).

While this government has been slowed down by being a minority if you look at the details i think it is more democratic. The NDP and Bloc are getting more seats on committees where the legislation is really hashed out---in some cases enough to make it hard to pass a bill neither agrees with (and with Conservative support for sure). Both of these parties get a good proportion of the vote. The BQ generally has more seats because it is regional and the first past the post system favours a regional party. But if 17% of people vote NDP or PC should they not have close to 17% of the say. The Conservatives got more seats than the NDP because their support was more regional (its not just the Bloc that gets an advantage, and depending on the era it can be the Liberal Party getting a regional advantage. And if 6% of the people in British Columbia voted Green (they did) why should they not have a seat in the House of Commons. Or more than one!

My prediction would be that we are likely looking at minority governments for a while because of regional voting and general voting. Does it then make any sense to call another election? It seems to me that another election without Gomery is a waste of time. And really there doesn't necessarily need to be another election right then either depending. But a election in less than a year is a waste of everybody's time and money. We should wait it out and look for the positives of minority governments---not just the negatives. P

Islamic Feminists Stir The Pot In Far East: On how interpretations of Holy Books can differ and why its important to keep that in mind

My comment comes after the article this time.

Islamic feminists stir the pot in Far East

Haroon Siddiqui speaks to religious scholar who blames Muslims, not Islam, for gender inequity

HAROON SIDDIQUI
JAKARTA
Toronto Star
Apr. 10, 2005. 01:00 AM

She wears the hijab but says it's not Islamically mandatory, a position augmented by a big majority of Muslim women in Indonesia, indeed around the world, who don't don it and feel no less Muslim.

She wants polygamy banned, and also "contract marriages," which give a religious patina to short-term relationships that, inevitably, involve poor women.

She says men needn't be the legal guardians of women over 21.

She wants the marriageable age of women to be on par with men — in the case of Indonesia, 19, rather than 16, for girls.

She challenges the rule against women marrying non-Muslims.

Musdah Mulia is no Westernized secular feminist. She is an Islamic scholar, with a PhD from the Institute of Islamic Studies here.

She teaches there part-time but her day job is director of research at the ministry of religious affairs, from where she needles the government. When her bosses issued a white paper last year updating religious laws, she wrote a 170-page critique that annoyed them and the conservatives.

But, this being Indonesia, she still has her job and is in increasing demand as a speaker.

Another feminist creating waves is a man. Husein Muhammad Nuruzzaman's just-released, 344-page book, in Bahasa language, argues for gender equity, based on classical texts.

There has been no fatwa against him. If there is one, he doesn't care. Nor do, seemingly, most people in the world's largest Muslim nation, which has already had a woman president.

I interviewed him and Mulia separately, along with others, including former president Abdurrahman Wahid, a pioneer in questioning patriarchy.

Mulia, a granddaughter of a cleric, went to an Islamic boarding school and grew up in a strict environment: "I could not laugh hard. My parents did not allow me to befriend non-Muslims. If I did, they ordered me to shower afterwards," she has said.

But then she travelled abroad — to other Muslim nations. "I saw that Islam had many faces. It opened my eyes. Some of what my grandfather and the ulema (clerics) had taught me was right but the rest was myth."

The more she studied Islam, the more she found it modern and radical. It had liberated women 1,400 years ago, well ahead of the West.

Her arguments, as those of Nuruzzaman, echo Muslim feminists elsewhere: Gender inequity emanates not from Islam but from Muslims and their cultural traditions and interpretations.

Beyond the basics of faith, Mulia says, most laws affecting women are man-made. "None of it came as a fax from heaven."

Her campaign against polygamy, for example, is based on the very Quranic verse that permits it but also adds, "If you fear that you will not do justice between them, then marry only one," (4:2-3), and also another, "You have not in your power to do justice between the wives, even though you may wish it." (4.129)

Most Muslims obviously agree, she says, for perhaps as many as 99 per cent are monogamous. "It's often the rich and the powerful" who aren't.

Mulia wants marriages registered — 9 out of 10 are not in this nation, she says — so that rights of women and children can be protected in case of separation.[politicagrll's note: there is a lot about women's rights if they are divorced in the Qu'ran, but you would likely need a registered marriage for it to apply as well]

Nuruzzaman parses traditional texts to argue that most anti-women strictures violate the spirit and, in some cases, the words of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. "Many rules run counter to the moral message of our religion."

Debate is spreading.

Last year public pressure forced the federal government to make domestic violence a criminal offence. A group of Islamic scholars argued that abortion be legalized in cases of rape.

Former president Wahid has set up three think-tanks to advance women's rights. The head of one, Maria Anshor, called contract marriages "religiously sanctioned prostitution."

Other civil society organizations are debating on websites and in publications. There's no consensus on controversial topics. But the dialogue is well underway, on Islamic terms, and no longer confined to English-speaking elites.

I came across this article in the Toronto Star and it brought home a point that i believed in but hadn't addressed yet in the blog (everything takes time!). So i thought i would address it here.

First off i've read 1/3 of the Qu'ran. And it's a properly translated Qur'an. By that i mean its not just the local book you pick up in a cheap translation. I went and visited an Imman who gave it to me after talking with me for a bit (curious about my curiosity) I've read the Holy Books of different folks and i think it always makes the best sense to get a translation that the community recognizes (if you want then to go look at other versions and compare do so, but start with an authorized version).

I started reading the Qur'an for several reasons. Islam was being treated as if it supported terrorism and it was "generally known" that Judaism and Islam were incompatible. Most people will discuss that when they talk of the problems in Israel. Or that it is the reason there can not (or will not) be peace in Israel.

My curiosity came from several spots. First i knew that Jews were treated much better in Islamic countries up until (at least) the enlightenment than in Christian countries. So one had to wonder where this idea that Judaism and Islam were incompatible came up.

Also I've never come across a Holy Book that says that people should go around killing each other. I may not have been through all of the Holy Books (there are way to many) but so far that has turned out to be correct. Yet everyone was talking (especially US press) about Islam and terrorism. But if its big in the US it gets fed to everyone to some extent or another.

So i got my copy of the Qur'an. It might interest you to know that it does seem to have good people translating it (not that it needs my permission but i like it when how something is translated agrees with me) Its translated by a Husband and Wife team. The wife's first language was English and she converted to Islam ad the Husband's was Arabic. A good combination to work on an English translation i would think.

An interesting point (and worth keeping in mind if you are looking for a good translation) is that be Islamic law (as it was explained to me and the Qu'ran says) is the Qu'ran can only be in Arabic (the original language). 1/4 of my page was the Arabic text because religiously it couldn't be called a Qu'ran without the Arabic text. And it serves as a good reminder that translations are translations be it a translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha or the New Testament. If you always go back to the original (and not the last translation) there is less likely to be error. Judaism follows the same law with Translations. From what i understand sometimes Christians do and sometimes they don't. There texts do seem to have been more politically influenced if you look from certain translations to others. (I've got several translations of the Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible and it seems to me there is more movement between translations in Christian Bibles although that is my opinion).

While i didn't finish the Qu'ran, reading 1/3 of it is a larger percentage than I've read of the New Testament or the Jewish Bible if you put them all together. So it got as much of a read as from other Holy Books I've been reading (I've read the Torah in full, but that is only part of the Jewish Bible).

The first pages or reading brought forward my belief about respect of other religions. The Qur'an is specific that those who are monotheistic all have a chance to go to heaven and should be treated properly. Later the Qu'ran talks of how Jews and Christians should both be treated with respect. The idea generally towards most other folks is that God will see what they will do and will make the decision of where they will go in the last days.

And there are rights there for women before they were around in the Christian countries and while they were still being developed within Judaism. I found the Qu'ran different in that it doesn't focus on Jewish Bible or Christian Bible much but interesting in that it dealt with not just religion but how that religion should be used in everyday life. How it applies. More time is spent on its application than in the other holy books in a way that can still be understood and applied. Marriages, divorces, how to lead a good religious life in detail.

So when i came across this article about interpretation of the Qu'ran, Islam an Muslims i thought i would put part of the story and the link in. And my personal experiences from having read Holy Books. Its not that the Jewish bible or the Christian bible seem worse (although i have more problems with New Testament than Islam I found out from reading although that is partly my bias. I think that people don't keep in mind that the New Testament was written to say that the Messiah had come and the "Old Testament" answered, if you study it in this way it works much better for me in how it talks). Its mostly that people talk about them differently in society as if one causes misdoings and wrongs. A lot of wrongs were committed against Jews because of interpretations of Christians (including Judas being Jewish which is the stupidest thing I've ever read, because all of Christ's disciple's were Jewish so a betrayer in the group had to be Jewish).

It seemed to me it was unlikely that Islam was very much different. And it wasn't and in fact i found it very interesting and in some ways forward thinking. Certainly no more likely to cause terrorism or problems with Jewish people or Christians. But it doesn't seem to be mentioned or looked at in depth enough. People often seem willing to assume too much from what others say about Holy Books.

Perhaps this doesn't make any sense to you or you disagree with me. Fine. I would suggest however that people that are caught thinking as a result of this article try and throw out ideas about what an actual text says unless they've read at least a part of it in a good translation (supported by some part of the religion at a minimum ie Christian translations of the Old Testament are not the same Jewish Translation of the Jewish Bible). Often an interpretation is what has been heard and the text is quite different. And this applies to New Testament and Jewish Bible as well. Just food for thought in how you read the news that you read when it comes to religion. We can't all read all the books of every group. But until you have at least read some from the group that uses that text it doesn't make sense to follow other interpretations too much in our decisions. Even then its good to have the book to look up the part being interpreted for yourself.

If nothing else you may find it interesting. I've found reading part of the New Testament and the Qur'an has taught me more about what the religion says than how it is interpreted. And often the text seems different. Of course anyone interested in doing this will do so in their own time. In between keep in mind that views on what is said can differ and be open to listening to folks who say there are misinterpretations, not just assmuing they are wrong.

Maybe this seems strange to be on a political blog page. But there is nothing less political than how different religious texts are used for different uses.P