The ability to have hung elections is a *good thing*
I happen to
believe that, too. But it is purely a belief
thing.
It's less than clear
whether there is evidence to support
it.
As evidence against the assertion,
I present Italy. The
question there is - Is the country's ungovernability a
result of them having something like one new government per
year since WW2, or
is it simply that their national culture
means that ANY democratic system would
fail. As evidence for
that assertion, I present Mussolini and "the trains
running
on time".
Here in the UK, a hung election for the first time in
generations led to rushed negotiations over the coalition
agreement. This
meant that a very poorly-thought-out option
for a change in the voting system
was presented to the
electorate. That, and scare stories over the effects of
electoral reform, meant that "the opportunity of a
generation" was lost. Or
maybe not, if the proposed
constituency boundary changes don't go through, as
seems
likely. The fact that half of one party to the coalition
thinks that the
agreement shouldn't have been made in the
first place doesn't help either. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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