Politicians tend to learn slowly, the hard way, as the New Zealanders found recently when they switched to proportional representation. After being corrected by the voters a few times, they change their ways. It's a bit like the legendary farmer with his Missouri mule and two-by-four. You have to get their attention.
It's noticeable right now in Canada that the two leading parties are eager to get out of the current minority government siutation and back to single party majority government, as soon as they think they can win an election under our current first-past-the-post electoral system. I notice also in Ireland and New Zealand under proportional representation that the ruling parties don't mind a stable minority government in preference to a coalition. Before the last elections in New Zealand and the Irish Republic, polls showed that *the voters* did not want a single-party majority government but preferred a coalition. In Ireland this even extended to the supporters of the biggest party (Fianna Fail) which has formed single-party majority governments in the past. I have been told of a similar poll result in Germany. It looks as if the voters dislike "friendly dictatorships." In most European countries it sems that the politicians have learned to co-operate enough to get along in a coalition government. It might not be all that hard in the U.S. One can imagine that more centrist presidents would be produced by say an electoral college elected by PR-STV and electing the President by IRV, plus two houses of Congress elected by PR-STV. Sometimes Congress acts like it was composed of four or five parties now. Doug Woodard St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, Michael Redler wrote: > One side note: I wonder what would happen if we had a coalition government, > required to "play nice" with six or eight political parties and forced to > negotiate our differences. As it is, we have difficulty with only two. :-) > > Mike > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > With apologies for nitpicking, herewith some extracts from > "Political Switzerland", a small book by Oswald Sigg (Zurich: Pro > Helvetia, 1997): > > "The Swiss Government is called the Federal Council. It consists of seven > members and is headed for a period of one year by a president elected from > among the Federal Council members." [snip] _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
