I keep forgetting to post this. This is straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. From http://www.yourbigdecision.ca/ comes this gem:
"The political party with the largest number of seats in the legislature, including ‘Local Members’ and ‘List Members’, is asked to form a government."
Oh dear. The problem is that coalition governments are often led (as is the case in Sweden today) by parties who did not receive the most votes. The assumption is that people voted for the coalition and not the parties. However, with this kind of language in the official explanation a King-Byng style showdown may be inevitable. If this statement is executed to the letter, you can throw the idea of stable coalitions out the window. This education campaign is getting off to a great start, don't you think?
Cherniak has our official press release on his site and our website is now up and running. Oh, and by the way, our communications director is in Toronto, not London, England as has been erroneously reported elsewhere.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
His facebook addrss says he's in England. It was corrected by him. It was said erroneously without malice.
Thank you for stating by the way what probably the real reason for established parties to oppose MMP is - they dont want to lose the ability to impose their "majority government" views on the majority of the population that didnt vote for them in the first place, as FPTP does for a large majority of its usage.
There are many in the established parties who cringe at the prospect I dont doubt of actually having to compromise with other parties, but that's no excuse to maintain majoritarian governments and a disproportionate unfair electoral system.
Yes Aaron, that is the parliamentary convention.
But, it "asking" a party to form a government does not necessarily make it so. (For example, take the David Peterson government supported by Bob Rae. The Liberals and NDP were the 2nd and 3rd placed parties in this case.)
If parties start campaigning as parts of coalitions, maybe the parliamentary "formality" should be changed to giving the leading coalition first crack at forming the governments.
Post a Comment