The Sound Proportional Electoral System

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Debate rages in many countries over which electoral system best represents the people, with ideas multiplying and interacting until they settle on a solution that may not satisfy everyone, but that is at least capable of ensuring the electoral process runs properly. Some states that believe in freedom adopt a proportional electoral system, others adopt a constituency-based system, others adopt a plurality system, while still others adopt a majority system. Nor is amending the electoral system a rare thing among states; a number of them return again and again to open new deliberations in order to draft a new electoral system.

There are basic points that must be taken into account in any electoral system, namely:

There are individuals who have the desire or ambition to run in elections;

There are parties that want to contest elections on the strength of programs prepared in advance;

There are those who want to elect a specific individual;

There are those who seek to elect a specific program.

The goal of an electoral system is to achieve the greatest possible degree of representation for the public, and it is important that it take into account the various criteria that serve this goal.

Debate has raged on the Palestinian scene over the electoral system: a constituency-based system was adopted in 1996, and it was amended in 2005 to become a hybrid of constituencies and proportional representation. Now, there is talk of converting the system entirely to proportional representation. But the question remains: which electoral system can actually satisfy the criteria set out above? The proportional system prevailing in most countries of the world does not properly satisfy the requirements of free choice; it is biased toward parties, and it imposes on people, through party lists, individuals who may well be unwanted. I offer the following proposal, which preserves proportionality while also preserving the right of individuals unaffiliated with any party to run in presidential and legislative elections:

We have the option of dividing the electoral territory into constituencies equal in number to the seats of the Legislative Council, with each constituency electing a single seat; or we may keep the current division as it stands;

Candidates run for election in their personal capacity or in their organizational capacity, according to their own choice;

If an independent candidate receives the highest number of votes in a constituency, he wins that seat; and if the division remains as it was in the 2006 elections, an independent wins if he receives enough votes to place within the number of seats allotted to that constituency. That is, if a constituency has seven seats, and an independent candidate ranks fourth by vote count, he wins a seat;

This requires a statistical formula for aggregating votes, since the votes received by candidates of the same party are not expected to be equal.

The seats won by independent candidates are then subtracted from the Council’s total number of seats, leaving the remaining seats to be divided among the parties according to each one’s share of the vote;

Parties that fail to clear the threshold are eliminated;

Each party’s list in the Legislative Council is then formed according to the highest vote shares achieved by its candidates in the constituencies.

Example: if the Legislative Council has 132 seats, and five independent candidates win, the parties then compete for the remaining 127 seats. If we have parties S, Ṣ, ‘A, and D, then the total each party receives is the sum of the votes obtained by its representatives across the constituencies. Each party then receives a share of the remaining 127 seats according to its proportion of the total votes across all electoral constituencies. For the sake of arithmetic precision, it is best for each constituency to consist of a single seat; otherwise, the statistical formula becomes necessary;

A party does not submit to the elections committee a list that predetermines the order of priority for membership in the Legislative Council, but only a list of its candidates in the constituencies. The names of a party’s winning candidates are then ranked according to their electoral percentages in their respective constituencies. That is, a candidate who won 75% of the votes in his constituency takes priority for entering the Legislative Council over one who won 60%, and so on. If a given party wins enough votes to qualify for seven seats, those seats are filled by its representatives who achieved the highest percentages in their constituencies, among all of that party’s candidates across the entire electoral territory.

With this system, we are able to satisfy the various criteria for good representation of citizens. Another benefit of this system is that parties avoid the pressure of those whose only chance lies in pre-arranged lists, and no one will be able to hide within a party list.

If we are seeking even more precise representation, we can adopt a runoff system between the top two competitors in a constituency whenever no candidate achieves a majority (that is, 50%+). In that case, the single-seat constituency system is to be preferred.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “النظام الانتخابي النسبي السليم” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.