TOWARDS A ROBUST 'REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY'

The original Proportional Representation (PR) system of 1978, is despised by sections of the general public and academia due to the notion created by its political critics that it was brought in to sustain the then govt. in power which has since been proved wrong.

- By Bernard Fernando

In fact, by default, it aimed to abide by the tenet of recognising the maximum number of valid votes for the allocation of seats among parties, to a greater and more equitable extent than the old Westminster style 'First-Past the Post' (FPP) system which relied on the saying 'Winner takes it all'. Despite PR being an arithmetical device, it received a double whammy when critics leveled another unfair charge, when it's optional adjunct viz. 'Preference voting' mechanism opened the doors to selfish, power hungry party leaders, to select uneducated, black-moneyed village thugs to bolster their Vote banks.

Furthermore, the constitutional lawyers of the day, who were fond of using jargon and confusion, resorted to the use of complex terms such as 'Qualifying Number', 'Relevant number of Votes' and 'Resulting number'/ 'Constructive figure' etc. as stated in Articles 98 and 99 of the Constitution, when they could have simply referred to the percentage of votes garnered by Parties in keeping with the term 'Proportional Representation', to ensure 'Equal Ballot' sought under Articles 93 of the 1978 Constitution and the more specific Article 21 (3) of UN's 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights -1948' harping on both equal suffrage and genuine elections. It surely drove the simple voters away from calculating the seat allocations and lowered the desired level of transparency of the Electoral process, too.