The Pros And Cons Of The Electoral System

The decision was made by the voters of New Zealand, and made official through a series of binding referenda that concluded around the time of the 1993 General Election, for the nation's former electoral system known as first-past-the-post (FPP) to be replaced by a new way of doing things that, as far as everyone knew, would serve to be a great deal more representative. As a result MMP, or mixed member proportional -- our current electoral system -- was introduced, with the first election taking place under it in 1996. MMP was perceived to be a breath of fresh air by many of those who had voted for it in the referenda. Its introduction of the party vote, which brought the total number of votes that a single voter is able to cast to two -- "one for a party, and one for a person [electorate candidate]" -- greatly decreased wastage.

Under FPP, virtually every electorate vote that was cast in favour of a candidate that did not make it into Parliament was effectively a "wasted" one. The MMP system essentially makes it so that the only "wasted" votes are those given to parties that fall underneath the five per cent threshold required to gain seats in Parliament -- and even then, if one of such a minor party's electorate candidates manages to secure an electorate seat, then the party votes will count despite the fact that they amount to less than five per cent of the vote. This is what happened in the case of Rodney Hide and the ACT Party this election. It was crucial to the party that Rodney gained that seat, because if he didn't ACT would have been out of Parliament altogether for this term.

During the time that it was in use as New Zealand's electoral system, FPP was criticised in some circles for being misrepresentative, as it failed to make room for minority voices in the guise of "left-field" MPs (in other words, candidates who did not either hail from the National Party or the Labour Party). Due to the horse race nature of the system, as reflected in the name "first-past-the-post," it was very difficult for small parties to gain seats in Parliament, because in order to be elected a candidate would require a large concentration of support in a given electorate. In the case of parties such as Social Credit, essentially the ancestors of today's Greens, they had such a narrow national support base that it was unlikely there were going to be enough supporters in any specific electorate to ensure one of their candidates a seat. Like the Greens, Social Credit's support was thinly spread across the country and this meant that they were greatly disadvantaged under FPP. Thirty per cent of the country's votes could well have gone to Social Credit, but if they didn't win an electorate then they would have zero representation in Parliament. This is just one example of how FPP failed to be representative.

It is interesting also to consider what the parliamentary make-up would look like if FPP were in place at the present time. United Future would have only Peter Dunne representing them in Parliament, ACT would have only Rodney, the Greens and New Zealand First would not even be present in the House despite the fact that they both could have gained more of the nationwide vote than United Future and ACT -- and most interestingly of all, Don Brash would not even have a seat. In recognition of these facts it can be said with reasonable justification that MMP has performed its task of being far more representative than FPP ever had the scope to be. When one looks at things on an even deeper level, it could be perceived that under FPP, Rodney would actually not be in Parliament, because he was essentially voted in by his Epsom electorate to ensure that party votes for the right-wing ACT would count -- under FPP there is no such thing as a party vote, so there would be no need for such tactical voting. Thus, realistically, it could even be said that under FPP, the present Parliament would consist solely of Labour and National MPs, along with the four Maori Party electorate candidates who succeeded in securing seats, and Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne who made it through via the Wigram and Ohariu-Belmont seats respectively. Votes for candidates from other parties would have been completely put to waste.

Regardless of FPP's extensive shortcomings, the four elections that have taken place under MMP have yielded questionably representative outcomes in themselves. Indeed, over the years MMP has provided much-warranted representation to a significant number of parties including New Zealand First, ACT, the Alliance, the Green Party, United Future and Jim Anderton's Progressives. However in a number of circumstances it has imbued particular politicians and parties with vast amounts of governmental swaying power, outrageously disproportionate to the share of the vote that said entities secured in those cases. The first example of this was in the 1996 election where New Zealand First received an admittedly significant thirteen per cent of the party vote. The Alliance also gained ten per cent, and ACT took out a further six per cent . Judging by the large proportion of the vote that was distributed to the minor parties in this circumstance, it is clear that New Zealanders were happy to take advantage of the MMP system at this stage and use it as a means to get minor parties, in correlation with their respective views, represented in Parliament.

It was to emerge that the post-election period would be riddled with complications. The fact that the minor parties had taken out such a large proportion of the vote, of course meant that the two major parties had fallen significantly short of the sixty-one seats that they each required should they wish to form a government on their own. As such the cruciality of the coalition negotiations was brought to the fore. Similar to the case of this most recent election, New Zealand First essentially held the balance of power -- whether they took up Labour's or National's coalition offer would determine who would be the next leaders of the government. Also in the vein of what happened this year, Winston used this to great advantage, wheeling and dealing as much as was necessary to put his party in a highly influential position. The negotiations following the 1996 election continued for an even longer duration than the ones which have concluded in recent days. In the end, New Zealand First entered into a coalition with the National Party that was destined to be unstable. A lot of New Zealand First's votes had been received from conservatives dissatisfied with National's policies on economic reform, essentially meaning that in many cases they would have been expressions of protest. As such many New Zealand First voters did not welcome their party of choice's coalition with National -- they felt betrayed. For a significant proportion of voters this was seen as a rather harsh first experience with MMP, as Winston's power of selection as to who would be the next government was highly disproportionate to the share of the vote that New Zealand First had secured. MMP had not proven itself in the first instance to be truly representative. The party has never made up the ground that it lost after it suddenly committed to prop up a National government after over a month of tedious post-election negotiations.

Come the next election in 1999, with National's leader Jim Bolger having been replaced by New Zealand's first female prime minister, Jenny Shipley, the government was a decidedly shaky one, not helped by Winston's actions of withdrawing New Zealand First from the coalition. This lead to the virtual inevitability of an election result that was more in Labour's favour than National's. However, Helen Clark, seeking to "make MMP work" and also to avoid a repeat of the previous election's coalition negotiations that had so frustrated voters, made a concerted effort to pull a coalition together remarkably quickly. The left-wing Alliance party did not even have to provide Labour with a policy statement in order to be invited into a coalition -- Helen was desperate to get a government formed and as such it appears that she was willing to take potential risks. The Green Party, having entered Parliament for the first time as an independent entity -- it was once a part of the Alliance -- provided the additional seats required to solidify the Labour-led government. It was to turn out that the Alliance was going to go through significant inner turbulence throughout the parliamentary term, which ultimately led to the party's electoral downfall. The Alliance's constituency, along with many individuals within the party organisation, were sceptical as to their party's compatibility with Labour -- it was apparently perceived that the Alliance was becoming subservient to its much larger coalition partner. MMP had again yielded a questionably stable and questionably favourable election result. Had the schism within the Alliance occurred much earlier on in the parliamentary term, the fact that the government was so dependent on its support could have produced a very ugly situation. There are certainly risks that exist in a hastily-assembled coalition government. Of course, one cannot blame Helen for wanting to avoid a repeat of the events of 1996. She was determined to make MMP work, and another negative experience could have been detrimental to its future success. Unfortunately, the slight wobble that the coalition experienced towards the end was enough to convince many people that maybe MMP wasn't such a good idea after all. There had essentially been two far-from-tidy coalitions consecutively.

As the term was reaching its end, Helen called an early election for July 2002. One presumable reason for this happenstance was that it was obvious that the Alliance's inner turbulence was likely to disrupt the fabric of the coalition. Shortly before the election, Jim Anderton vacated his position as a member of the Alliance and formed the Progressive Coalition Party. He subsequently achieved greater success in the 2002 election than the Alliance party. Less than five per cent of the party vote went to the Alliance, and they also did not gain an electorate seat. As such they were out of Parliament altogether and it was effectively electoral oblivion for the party. The Progressive Coalition did not receive more than five per cent of the vote, however Jim Anderton successfully defended his Wigram seat under the new party's banner, thus bringing the Progressives into Parliament. The Alliance's downfall had been largely due to conflict within the organisation as to its subservience to its larger coalition partner, the Labour Party.

2002's election result and the coalition that formed thereafter went reasonably smoothly compared to the previous two occasions in 1996 and 1999. Now, in comparing it with the all the other MMP elections including 2005, it can be rather confidently said that 2002 is the "least messy" MMP election yet to have occurred. This was helped, no doubt, by National suffering the most brutal defeat in its electoral history. Helen was not under great pressure to put a coalition together quickly -- however, Labour had received such a significant amount of the vote, that it was quite simply a case of forming an agreement with the Progressives and United Future, both parties being relatively centrist in comparison to the Alliance. Thus a government was formed reasonably quickly and effectively, and proved itself to be probably the most stable coalition yielded by MMP since the first election under the system took place in 1996.

However, the 2005 election has again highlighted the potential cumbersome and flawed nature that exists in MMP, with a scenario similar to -- but perhaps even more complicated than -- that of 1996 emerging. A revitalised National Party under Don Brash bled the minor conservative and right-wing parties of their votes. ACT, New Zealand First, and United Future all found themselves in relatively precarious positions. ACT and United Future only made it through due to their respective leaders winning electorate seats. New Zealand First received a marginal portion of the party vote, but enough to put them over the five per cent threshold. This is good luck for the party because with Winston having lost his Tauranga electorate seat, New Zealand First would have been out of Parliament had they not reached the five per cent threshold in the party vote. The Green party vote also suffered due to National's comeback. Left-wing voters, unnerved by the prospect of New Zealand ending up with a National-led government, shifted their votes in large numbers over to Labour.

In effect, the make-up of Parliament has essentially been reduced almost back to the old two-party fare, as was virtually the constant case under the old system of FPP. The fact that neither of the two major parties received a majority, though, and also that the minor parties had been so badly mutilated in the election, meant that a coalition was hard to piece together. New Zealand First found themselves in a position where they could exert tremendous amounts of power over who would be the next party to lead the government. This power was greatly disproportionate to the party vote that they achieved. It is not right that, especially under a supposedly truly representative system such as MMP, such a minor party could effectively hold Parliament and the nation's voters to ransom whilst it engaged in blackmail to secure a position of optimum influence.

It's blatantly evident that MMP bears a significant number of glaring flaws that have rendered it as not quite the system that the voters thought they voted for last decade. True, representation for the minor parties had been sought, and that has been delivered. Were it not for MMP there would be a far narrower range of views being expressed in Parliament today -- no Greens, New Zealand First or ACT. United Future would have only one MP. However, the sheer importance that potentially-far-leaning-to-one-side minor parties play in the propping up of coalitions could be seen to be somewhat dangerous, particularly after what happened in the terms beginning 1996 and 1999. Also, as illustrated by the 1996 and 2005 elections where on both occasions Winston has been imbued with the power to essentially choose the government, it is unrepresentative to a highly significant level.

FPP could not be argued to be much better in regards to the representation stakes. There is, it could be perceived, a somewhat pleasing "direct democracy" element that lies in the fact that, under FPP, all MPs gained entry into Parliament via an electorate seat. This likely increased the level of local involvement that people were inevitably going to have with the politician that correlated with their electorate. It could also have meant that MPs were democratically elected on the basis of their individual merit, as opposed to that of their party. Under MMP, a large number of the politicians that make it into Parliament do so because of being on the party list and making it through as a result of the party vote. In such cases the MPs have effectively not, on the individually specific level, been given a mandate to represent any community of New Zealanders in Parliament. In this particular sense it could be argued that FPP was, to a degree, a more democratic system. The reason that Labour's John Tamihere is no longer a member of Parliament is because he insisted to run for Parliament solely as an electorate candidate, citing the personal ethical reason that he wished to be chosen by a constituency to represent them in Parliament, as opposed to just being drafted in via the party vote.

Looking at it from most angles, though, FPP would appear to be relatively unrepresentative on the national level. As I mentioned earlier, minor parties were greatly disadvantaged under the old system. The fact that their size tended to mean that their votes were thinly spread across the country and not concentrated in a single electorate meant that it was extremely hard for them to gain seats in Parliament. Indeed, under FPP the elections were essentially a two-horse race on an electorate-by-electorate basis. Also contributing to the system's unrepresentativeness was that often a scenario would occur where, for example, Labour gained more votes nationwide but National gained more electorate seats. This particular occurrence would inevitably result in a National government coming to power, despite the fact that more people in the country had pledged support to the Labour Party.

It is obvious that for all its shortcomings, MMP is a significant degree better than what was in place once before. However, it's proven itself not to be good enough. The only way from here is up. There is no way that there could be a return to FPP as so many major party supporters are asking for. Thorough consideration of alternatives to MMP needs to take place. Perhaps New Zealand could even formulate its own electoral system suited to its specific needs, as a political climate exists here that is unique to anywhere else in the world. Doing such a thing would remove the risks of taking up the already-proven-less-than-perfect electoral system of a country on the other side of the world.