I am new to the list, and glad to discover that its so active. I am a political scientist currently based at Leuven, Belgium, though originally coming from Lithuania.
I have been asked by the working group of the Lithuanian Parliament to produce an expert opinion about possible changes to the electoral system of local (municipal) councils in Lithuania. As myself I am not sure which option is the best, I just though I would give you a chance to contribute to the development of a new democracy by asking for your opinions, which would finally help me formulating mine.
Current system: PR, one municipality-one constituency, 21 to 51 members elected from each (depending on the number of inhabitants). Vote for a party list, plus an optional preference vote for (up to three) candidates on the chosen list; the party votes determine the number of seats for each party (Hare quota); the preference votes determine the final list order.
Perceived problems:
- no scope for voting for independents (desirable at the municipal level; in society, there is very strong anti-party disposition in general);
- high fragmentation, shaky coalitions;
- proliferation of extremist parties; a leaders popularity tends to attract votes for his party, and facilitates the election of additional candidates from the same list, who are often neither popular (as seen from preferential votes) nor very educated;
- a bit strange to have open-list PR at the municipal level and a mixed system at the national one; on the other hand, most European countries employ some sort of PR at the municipal level. PR could strengthen parties at grass-roots; however, in Lithuania this seems to have facilitated forming cliques and cartels unaccountable to the public;
- no territorial representation with such large districts (desirable at the municipal level).
Possible solutions:
- forming smaller districts (but this would be costly, so I would presume the parliament may wish to retain the current ones). In your opinion, judging from the above, would this be a strong necessity?
- Replacing PR with SNTV or some kind of Approval Voting. But can Approval Voting be recommended in such large districts? Any countries employing this system for local elections?
- STV would sound good as well but again, can it be applied in such large districts? Would it be worse than the current open-list PR?
I would appreciate your opinions very much (if possible, by this weekend).
Many thanks,
Robertas
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