Sweden to abandon PR?
Johan Norberg suggests that Sweden may move away from a proportional system to a single representative system to counter the increased popularity of the nationalist Swedish Democrats. The Social Democrats would be attracted to this as it would also enable them to stop relying on Green and Left Party support for their governments.
This would be an act of political cowardice with the major parties preferring to try and silence elements they dislike rather than opposing them with debate as well as to shore up their power.
Of course, PR opponents will attempt to use this as a demonstration of the failures of PR. If it were to occur it would not be that, it would be a failure of the politicians to adapt to new threats and their desire to increase their own power.
Sweden uses a modified Sainte-Laguë method. Something which I know nothing of (I’m sure there’s enough electoral systems geeks out there who can explain it), but it is not the same as STV, the method prefered by most UK electoral reform advocates. It appears to be a party list system, something which I hope the Liberal Democrats would oppose for use in the UK (any more than it already is…).
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May 1st, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Yes, modified St Laguë refers to the “divisors” used in a list system. Your standard ones are:
d’Hondt: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc
St Laguë: 1, 3, 5, 7, etc
modified St Laguë: 1.4, 3, 5, 7, etc
The ‘modified’ seems to serve to make it more like d’Hondt at the low end, which begs the question why not just use d’Hondt.
St Laguë is on the face of it more proportional – seat shares are closer to vote shares – but at the expense of some justice to larger parties which often need more votes per seat.
This is because D’Hondt guarantees that if party A with x votes gets 1 seat then any party with 3x votes will get 3 seats, with St Laguë 3x votes guarantess only 2 seats (because 3 is the third not the second divisor).
STV ha ha. No, although arguably there is a parallel between the d’Hondt divisor and the Droop quote, as opposed to the St Laguë divisor and the Hare quota.
Does that answer your question sufficiently?
May 1st, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Thanks, Joe. That’s crystal clear, now!
May 10th, 2007 at 11:44 am
You know before I joined the Lib Dems, I had the impression that most Lib Dems knew all this stuff like the backs of their hands.
But I made one passing reference to Meek and Weighted Inclusive Gregory in the pub and all I got was blank looks. I was gutted.