Installment No. 1,432,444 of politicians making questionable arguments came and went this week with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien saying proportional representation is bad because it has a tendency of producing “hung” Parliaments that demand parties form coalitions.
This is bad, the idea goes, because it makes it hard for politicians to “get things done.”
Now, there are good arguments to be made against proportional representation. It does make it easier for fringe and extremist parties to win seats with small slices of the vote, and our current first-past-the-post system does encourage parties to appeal to a wide swath of the populace.
It’s also arguable that while proportional representation might normally be worth considering, it might be better putting it on the side burner at this precise moment, with populist rhetoric ascendant in certain countries.
But arguments like Chrétien’s from former politicians like Chrétien deserve some scrutiny and skepticism.
If you’re a successful former politician, you might talk about the ability to “get things done,” but what you really prize is the ability to get your preferred things done. Coalitions can do things. But you need to compromise and water down your ideas and sacrifice some power. Given a choice, people with big plans usually like more power.
So, a politician who had that power, isn’t likely to reminisce on their time in office and wish they had less power to do the things they are proud of having accomplished. Even if the public on the whole may not be so happy with those self-defined “accomplishment.” That’s going to colour their thoughts on the matter when they speak in private to reporters, friends and party members, and when they talk to reporters
And here’s the other thing: reporters like me are more interested in what former successful politicians have to say about issues, rather than what never-been failed candidates have to say.
That doesn’t mean they should be ignored, or their views discounted. They are more familiar with the ins and outs of government than most. But it’s worth remembering that we consider these folks experts in large part because of the system they are defending.
On the other hand, politicians campaigning for proportional representation tend to belong to parties that have seen their success thwarted by first-past-the-post. Their arguments are often even-more-clearly self-motivated, so much so that they don’t get the column treatment here because I don’t need hundreds of words to explain why: A PR system gives them or their party a better shot at winning. Simple as that.
One other thing bears noting: Chrétien said this week that his friend, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, regretted his country had adopted proportional representation in the 1990s because it introduced instability.
Now, that’s interesting, right? Well, yes. But the thoughts of the people of New Zealand are worth even more consideration. And fortunately, we know just what they were thinking in 2011, 18 years after the adoption of proportional representation, because New Zealand held a referendum to decide whether to keep their current system, or change to another.
In 1993, 54 per cent of voters voted to change the system to a form of proportional representation called mixed member proportional, or MMP. In 2011, New Zealand went to the polls to decide whether to ditch their MMP system in favour of either first-past-the-post or another proportional system. The people, as a whole, turned out to be relatively satisfied with MMP, with 57 per cent voting to keep the system.
In other words, having voted and lived under a supposed unstable system for nearly two decades, the people of New Zealand basically said they were fine with how things were going.