Von-Mally's Choice Reveals Why Party Lists Shrink Democracies

Lists to Party

Check the party lists for the ongoing Rodrigues Regional Assembly (RRA) elections and you will find the Leader of the Mouvement Rodriguais (MR) sitting at the top of his. That could be a lot safer for him than contesting one of the 12 FPTP seats especially if the MR doesn't grab too many of them. Which makes it more difficult for voters to dump Mr. Von-Mally. See you needed at least 48.19% of the local region votes in the riding of Port-Mathurin to get into the Regional Assembly back in 2012. A tad more than in 2006. Whereas all you need to qualify for a PR seat is that your party gets at least 10% of the island region votes and it doesn't get enough FPTP candidates elected. There's also another way Von-Mally could get in: his party grabs a majority of the FPTP seats but that majority gets neutralised by the PR seats. He would then go in on the first of the 3 extra seats that guarantee that the winner of the FPTP competitions forms the regional government.

Dumping Made Harder

So how can voters dump Mr. Von-Mally? By casting less than 10% of the island region votes in favour of the MR -- so that party doesn't qualify for any PR seats -- and not granting them a majority of the FPTP seats -- so they can't benefit from any of those extra 3 seats. This would mean dumping all the candidates that are on the party list of the MR and not electing enough of their FPTP candidates. Which is kind of difficult for voters to do as these are events they don't directly control. Plus nobody is saying they actually want to wipe out a whole party. They might just want to get rid of its Leader. Maybe because he's been around for way too long. Mind you, I have nothing against Mr. Von-Mally and his party might well be the best option for our fellow countrypeople in Rodrigues. Just making a point here. But the way the electoral rules are currently set do not allow them to toss him out surgically. And that shrinks the regional democracy as they take an important and efficient electoral weapon away from voters. The Economist warned us about this kind of risk four years ago when it reported how party lists have undermined accountability in South Africa. That of course was before the appearance of one new species: the Minister-Slave.

FPTP Means Healthier Voter Choice

Naturally we have a lot more choice with the pure FPTP system like the one we have in Mauritius. The good kind of choice. We can choose who goes to Parliament and who doesn't. Like in 2014 we decided to send Ms. Boygah but not Mr. Boolell. Mr. Ramkaun but not Mr. Ramgoolam. We also don't want party lists for another reason and that's because, as we've shown recently, voters pick unsuccessful candiates wisely. About the only reason we would want to tweak our FPTP system is to have an opposition of a minimum size when we end up with 60-0s or similar outcomes.

And Double Candidacies Toxic Politicians

We certainly don't want double candidacies -- something which Mr. Von-Mally proposed to the Duval committee on electoral reform and which the latter recommended -- for obvious reasons. Unless if we want to transform Mauritius into a mortician hub. Nope, we should instead consider endowing our electoral setup with recall elections to discipline our MPs. And that should deepen our democracy.