Partit Demokratiku today strongly called for adjustments of national proportional representation to this Act leading to parliamentary electoral democracy which genuinely represent and safeguard the ultimate interests of a democratic pluralistic society.
In a statement, PD referred to a debate in Parliament to amend the General Elections Act. The objectives are to simplify and to harmonise certain administrative processes. Partit Demokratiku notes that this Bill is missing the wood for the trees.
Here is a golden opportunity to rectify fundamental flaws in the electoral process which, by design, deprive the electorate of a proper democratic transition based on the voting rights of the people, PD said.
On determining of the electoral result, whereby the party with the absolute majority of first-count votes being guaranteed the majority of seats in parliament, an automatic adjustment process gets underway. In democratic terms this is flawed.
If a third party obtains more than the minimum threshold of first-count votes required to secure a seat in parliament but has amassed such votes over more than one district, these votes are discarded by the adjustment processes. The resulting composition of members of parliament is thus not truly representative of those votes cast by the electorate. The principle of proportional representation is not respected therefore. A hybrid and corrupted strain of 'proportional representation' takes effect which is discriminatory to third parties, but more fundamentally to the electorate as a whole. Democracy becomes a punching bag for the two-party Status Quo.
PD strongly calls for adjustments of national proportional representation to this Act leading to parliamentary electoral democracy which genuinely represent and safeguard the ultimate interests of a democratic pluralistic society. Therefore the total number of deputies elected should proportionally match the total votes cast to all grouped lists of candidates on a national level, even those who did not manage to elect a deputy in a constituency.
In addition, as things stand today, coalitions are not represented on the ballot paper even though parties are recognised by the stated legislation. This undermines democratic choice. Voters are therefore left in disarray with lack of clarity and lack of administrative transparency.
Every vote cast is representative of a pluralistic democratic society. This fundamental principle should be guaranteed. It is evident that both government and Opposition PN have an undisputed loyalty to party political power and this supersedes the core value of the people's pluralistic democratic representation.
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