"PR, Nick"

"PR, Nick"

Demonstrators Urge King-Maker

To Insist on Election Reform

Saturday, 8th May

Hundreds of demonstrators are gathered outside LibDem HQ in London as I am blogging this, shouting "PR, Nick", demanding that Nick Clegg should stick to his promises of reforming the political system in the UK. "PR" or "proportional representation" in its simplest form, is an election system which distributes the seats of a parliament amongst political parties according to the "popular vote", i.e., the number of votes, each Party gets. Nick Clegg, leader of UK's LibDems, is currently the king-maker of UK's power struggle after the general election came with an inconclusive results and a "hung Parliament", something that the UK has not seen since 1974.

Having to form a coalition to gain Parliamentary majority is a common practice in the political scene of many countries in Europe and beyond and even in local governments in Wales and Scotland, inside the UK itself. But to the British people, a "hung Parliament" on the national level still seems unusual and risky.

Mr. Clegg rightly and honorably said that he will first consider a deal with the "Tories", the Conservative Party of the World's oldest democracy, to acknowledge that this is the Party which got most of the votes and seats. David Cameron, is currently the leader of the party which managed to get the largest number of seats (306), 20 seats short of the clear majority of the House. Cameron had made it clear before that PR (Proportional Representation) was not on the Tories menu. Why should it be? This is a party which can govern the country with 40 something percent of votes in a system where the winner takes it all. Regardless of the number of votes a party gets on the national level, the candidate with the largest number of votes on the constituency level gets the seat. As a result of this system, if your party enjoys a consistent popularity throughout the country of, say 20%, you can theoretically end up with not a single one of the 650 seats of the House of Commons!

This is more or less what happened to Mr. Clegg's Party, UK's Liberal Democrats. Lib Dems got 23% of the votes of the British people, yet, they won only less than 9% of the seats !! And this is exactly what the demonstration outside Nick's office is all about. They want to see the will of the British Voter translated into political power, an ability to shape UK politics.

What the demonstrators fear is that Mr. Clegg, under the pressure of having to quickly form a government that can send comforting signals to the markets amidst bad economic times and intensifying deficit and debt problems in the UK, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, he (Mr. Clegg) will be rushed by Mr. Cameron into a deal that falls short of the reforms promised by Mr. Clegg during his campaign.

This is a unique opportunity, as the demonstrators and indeed many British people see it, where LibDems have a chance to really shape the political system and thus help bring about historical reform which will potentially reward them with many more seats in future elections. Seats which will better correspond to the votes they get from the people.

On that morning, Gordon Brown, leader of the Labor Party, still governed Britain from number 10 Downing Street as the Prime Minister according to Britain's unwritten constitution of doing things. The Labor got only 258 seats of the 650 seats of the House of Commons. Brown came out yesterday and announced that he respected the fact that Mr. Clegg wanted to talk to the Tories first, but that if such negotiations came with nothing, then he will be happy to talk with Clegg and then skillfully put the issue of proportional representation on the table. He knew that Cameron was tough on the issue which is considered as the "Holy Grail" of the LibDems, since it is the issue which can give UK's third largest Party the power it thinks it deserves in making decisions in Westminster. The problem is, added together, Labour and LibDems still do not have a clear majority in the House of Commons. So, why, in Tories' eyes, would a coalition of Labour and LibDems be allowed to form a minority government when Tories alone can do that? The traditions, however, gives the incumbent Prime Minister, Mr. Brown at this case, first right of forming a government.

Wael Nawara

The Other Side of the Tory-LibDem Deal

LibDem Fans Disenchanted with the Tory Deal

While I welcomed the deal as a chance to reform the UK Election System, some UK LibDem voters had a different view.

Here it goes.

Eve Ryman:

My heartfelt apologies, Wael, but as a citizen of the UK - and especially as a northerner - I can't agree. What they've done here is alienated forever those who hate the Tories, such as myself. I'll never be able to vote for them again, now. I shall instead give my vote to the only viable anti-Tory party - Labour. I think that most people in the north of England and Scotland feel the same way. I'm truly sorry to have to say it, Wael, and I genuinely wish it wasn't so: but the Liberal Democrats will rue this day for a very, very long time to come.

Wael Nawara:

I appreciate your sentiment. I just think that the chance to improve the election system is worth some compromises. But I agree that LibDems will lose some supporters because of this - but as it often happens in politics - they will also win some. Being in government is never popular, but it opens the way to actually changing legislations and policies.

Eve Ryman

It's hard to take the longer view when you're already so poor that you're struggling just to survive and a party comes to power that holds the poor in utter contempt.

There's some strength in the argument that it's worth some compromises in order to get voting reform - even for AV (which isn't true proportional representation). Ultimately I find it extremely hard to believe that this is going to happen, though. The Tory party view voting reform as utter anathema, and something that could keep them from power for generations. They are also by far the best-funded party (a fact which contributed in no small measure to their 'success' in the election), and have made sure, in their deal with the Libdems, that they are allowed to campaign against AV, when the referendum comes. The Tories have most of the British press, and Rupert Murdoch, in their pocket, and I fear they will manipulate the media to such an extent, when the referendum comes, that the public will vote decisively against, thus leaving us with no reform for another generation (at least). I guess we'll have to wait and see. I certainly hope like hell that our corrupt electoral system IS reformed. If this happens, I may be able to forgive the Libdems for their pact with the devil.

With regard to what you say about losing some supporters and gaining some - that's exactly my fear. They're going to lose their left wing supporters and gain right wing supporters - and since parties have to keep their supporters happy, this will make them move to the right as a party, in terms of policy. The Libdems have always been seen as a party of the middle classes (rather than the poor, I mean), in the UK, and I fear that what we have here is a crossroads at which they take a road that leads them even further away from the poor.

Still, for all that I'll now never vote for them again, I *am* glad that we haven't got untramelled Tory power, and that the Libdems will (probably, hopefully) act as some kind of restraining influence on the Tory party.