Guidance from Jerusalem

No, this isn't a religious post.

It deals with minority governments and proportional representation.

Yesterday Israel had an election. It looks like Kadima won a razor-thin victory, gaining one more seat than right-wing rival Likud. The nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party came in third and the centre-left Labour party fell fourth with the Orthodox Shas party came in fifth.

So what you may ask?

Well, in Israel proportional representation ensures that Parties like Yisrael Beiteinu, which would have trouble winning more than a seat or two in a first past the post system, have a significant block of seats. It also means that the Party with the most seats cannot form a government without support from several other Parties, most of whom are very limited in focus, in Israel for example, on religious issues or concerns for immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The result is a radicalization of politics because the necessary support of smaller Parties comes with a price. They will give support in return for adoption of the smaller Parties pet projects. So, for example, despite a broad base of secular Jewish thinking in Israel, the definition of religious matters is left to Orthodox rabbis -- a price for support from Shas.

Again, so what?

Here's the point -- before Canada moves to proportional representation consider the impact. There are plenty of one issue groups who might scrape up five percent on the ballot. Should they hold the balance of power? We are already in a world of minority governments -- should we make it harder to get a broad based majority?


James Morton
1100 - 5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4