Yes, the FPT (or run-off) president, mayor, etc single person, can work balanced by a more representative institution.
Btw, one of the funnies USA->UK jokes (never heard it directly targeted at Canada) is that US at least manipulates, gerrry manders the single-seat (FPTP) districts to achieve an overall proportional representation.
(the voters, the dark masses are obviously not supposed to know nor understand)
Run-offs vs straight, instant FPTP: (when electing one single person)
To take the US system as an example, the overall extremely "pure" two-party system makes sure there is only two candidates in the actual election, ensuring that the elected will get something like a majority.
That is, the parties do their own "internal first elections" (primaries, internal bargaining, bullying, etc)
and then the regular voters can participate in the final.
However, one major problem:
most voters understand very little of the process, and the less they understand, the better it works (rule of the party-elite)
In a regular run-off system, usually some 4..5..9 candidates are running in the first election, all representing their view on solutions, etc,etc, and if nobody gets a 50% majority, the two with the most votes go to the final, which makes sure either one will get a 50% majority.
Compare the latest French Le-Pen-election, where the simple message was that the conservatives in France need to reorder their stuff, come up with better candidates, with absolutly no chance that Le-Pen would have won in the final.
That is, besides handling cases like that (France is still a kind of semi-undeveloped 2-block system, fairly close to a two-party-system, something they have been struggling with for many decades) the actual goal is to come up with a candidate which in the final run can be suported by maybe something like 60-70% of the population.
That is, besides that "majority support", the "strongly oppose that idiot" is even more important.
Ref a theoretical three-party system, evenly divided, 33-33-34%, with FPTP the 34% will "take-all", with 66% thinking the elected one is a real idiot. (happens in most US elections, result: the Wag-the-Dog war as soon as possible, or any kind of severe crises to win some 34+ support)
The key-word, said to be "goal of this centurry", is "center-based-consensus-system" (plus ability to adapt and change fairly quickly, but not in one single election, the key-word "continuity")
Ilmarinen
PS That is, US has decided to solve the dilemma by using a lot of mechanisms to ensure the "purest two-party-system" in history, the reason the total result is called a "catch-22", US cannot change anything without fear of total chaos.
UK will be funny to watch (when they, probably, implement something funny as "transferable votes", keeping the basic FPTP system, but nagging it just a little to allow for a third party) |
