deborda blog

Guardian Letter - party conferences

The following letter was published in The Guardian on Fri 15th Sept

Dear Editor, Except for big political parties, nearly all democratic organisations hold AGMs and annual elections. Hence the party leadership struggles: Thatcher, Kennedy and now Blair. Is there any chance that the forthcoming annual conferences could turn themselves into proper democratic AGMs?

Yours

Darfur

Dear Editor, The 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement outlines a referendum on autonomy in 2010. The 2002 Machakos Protocol for South Sudan promised a similar ballot on independence in six years. So if one part of the country can break away, why not another? And was the latter Protocol for the SPLA/SPLM in Juba a cause of the former conflict by the SLA/SLM in Darfur?

In 1999, Rambouillet proposed a referendum for the independence of Kosovo after three years. Earlier, the 1991 Badinter Commission suggested every �people� aspiring to break away in what was still Yugoslavia should have a referendum. The result was a spate of such polls, because for every majority which wants to opt out, the corresponding minority wants to opt back in again; and to quote Sarajevo�s newspaper Oslobodjenje, �every war in the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum,� (7.2.1999).

Is it not time to question the use of this simplistic and divisive device? After all, it only encourages each �people� to draw its own border in which to (fight and then) vote, while the respective government, not wanting to see the dismemberment of its own country, fights back. So Khartoum blocks any initiative in Darfur (Sudan throws out Darfur peacekeepers - 5th Sept.), while the �people� of Republika Srpska still look to Belgrade (Serb move may trigger new war - 6th Sept.).

Yours

Weighted majority voting

If Northern Ireland is ever to have a power-sharing arrangements which functions successfully, considertion should be given to a form of multi-option preference voting, instead of thinking that EVERY political question is a dichotomy! Accordingly, we recently sent the following letter to the press.

]]> Dear Editor, Current proposals for decision-making in the seven super councils (envisaged by the Review of Public Administration) talk of 75% weighted majority voting. A disadvantage of such a system is that, in effect, any group of 25% or more can exercise a veto. And as was said some years ago, a veto is like a pistol in a Chekhov play: if it is on the mantelpiece in Act I, someone will use it in Act II.
Another more fundamental disadvantage of the weighted majority vote also applies to the consociational mechanism of the Belfast Agreement. Both of these methodologies are dichotomous: they both reduce every discussion to a majority vote or to a series of majority votes. So everything is either �option (or amendment) A, for or against?� or �option A versus option B�. In other words, the question is always a closed one.
In conflict resolution work, in contrast, professional mediators rely on open questions. If a similar approach were adopted in our political institutions so that contentious decisions were subject to a multi-option vote, then, by asking the councillors to express their preferences on a range of options, it would be possible to identify that option which was the most widely acceptable, i.e., the option which got the highest average preference.
In both weighted majority voting and consociational voting, there may be winners who win everything, and losers who get nothing. Consensus voting, in contrast, is inclusive, and because the outcome is an average, (and an average, by definition, involves everybody), it means that (almost) everyone wins something but that no-one wins everything. Furthermore, by establishing a minimum average preference rating, councillors may know, without any resort to �designations�, that the winning option has sufficient cross-community support.
Yours

Journ�es d'�t� des Verts

On 24th August, during the annual Journ�es d'�t� des Verts held this year in Coutances in Normandy, the de Borda Institute gave a presentation to the French Green Party on decision-making. It went well and, as a result, one person even suggested that the majority vote should be re-named "le syst�me napoleonique"!

House of Lords reform

On the news that the government still wants to reform the House of lords, and on the rumour that Jack Straw might even allow for a free votre on this issue, this Institute has sent the following letter to The Guardian.

Dear Editor

]]> So there could be �a free vote of MPs on the composition of the Lords [and] the proportion of elected members�, (Hereditary peers could remain in Lords until 2050 - August 4). Does this mean the MPs will be �free� to express their preferences?

Last time round, in 2003, there were seven options on offer. Unfortunately, however, both Houses used a 2,500-year-old decision-making process, i.e., several majority votes. In such circumstances, how do you vote on your second preference? And what happens when two or more options get separate majorities? Or what is the conclusion when no option wins a majority, as was indeed the case in the Lords?

That process, to quote Lord Meghnad Desai speaking prior to the vote, was �the daftest�, (Hansard, 23.1.2003). Is there any chance that parliament might modernise itself and use, as he suggested, a rankings system, first advocated by Nicholas of Cusa in the year 1435? Otherwise, he continued, �another 90 years will pass before this issue is decided,� and three of them already have.

New book to be published in 2007

Publishers Springer-Verlag announce plans to publish a new book 'Towards an Inclusive Democracy' edited by Peter Emerson in the Spring of 2007. Details on the Publications section of the Deborda site.

Letter in Irish Times (27 Sept)

From the Irish Times on the Sept 27th:

Dear Madam,

When conducting public surveys, is it really beyond the wit of your pollsters to ask, not just for which party would you give your first preference, but for which parties (plural) would you give your first and subsequent preferences? Much more information could thus be gleaned, and we might all benefit from a greater understanding of just how plural is contemporary Irish society.

There is a second point here, which relates to a slow but steady and unfortunate trend towards a two-party state � a trend associated with the reducing size of the average multi-member constituency and the habit, which some parties have, of announcing their likely coalition partners prior to the election. This trend is surely accelerated by the implication from your pollsters to the effect that there are only two likely forms of coalition. Is the possibility of a Swiss style all-party coalition not even on the agenda? Or is the very thought of power-sharing for Northern Ireland only?

Yours sincerely,

Peter Emerson

Voting in Scotland

Scotland will soon have four different election systems: 'first-past-the-post' for Westminster elections, PR-list for the Euros, AMS for the Scottish Parliament, and PR-STV for the 2007 local council elections.

So the Arbuthnott Commission came to Ireland, to see what people think of PR-STV, and at a formal sitting on 31st March 2005, we presented our 'de Borda' submission. More...

Preference voting & Belfast City Council

The de Borda Institute recently gave a demonstration of electronic multi-option preference voting to the Policy and Resources Committee of Belfast City Council. A copy of the report will appear on the site soon.

]]> Their committee rooms are fitted with computers, data projectors and plasma screens, so it was very easy to download our computer program, Decision-maker, and run the exercise described.

The hope is that, one day, soon, the council chamber itself will also be fitted with technologies appropriate to those occasions when our democracy is plural and our debates are multi-optional. On such occasions, the Norwegian parliament uses two-round voting, the Swedish chamber opts for serial voting; and many countries use a form of plurality voting in referendums.

So far, the (modifed) Borda count has not been employed in decision-making in any elected chamber in these islands. The Green Party has suggested this methodology in the D�il, while two years ago, Lord Meghnad Desai advocated this "rankings" procedure when Westminster was debating the question of reforming the House of Lords, with five options on their agenda. (Hansard, 22.1.2003.) Sadly, his advice was ignored; instead, they took five majority votes, lost the lot, and then said there was a crisis!

Ukraine

A new article from February's edition of Fortnight magazine on the situation in Ukraine is now available on the site.

An Open Letter to Mark Durkan

An open letter published in the Irish News, December 2004, to SDLP leader Mark Durkan, noting the inevitable dichotomies emerging from the Belfast agreement.

LEEDS CASTLE

As the NI parties head for Leeds Castle, it is interesting to note that this Institute long since predicted the problems that would arise with the Belfast Agreement.

See Fortnight (June 1998, No 371), for example, for an article by one "Waldo Ralph", where we predicted that there would be problems with MLAs changing their designations.

Another problem which is bound to arise, sometime, is the whole question of the referendum, by which, in theory, the constitutional position can change if a majority of at least 50% + 1 is in favour. If, however, the people vote to stay in the United Kingdom, there can be another poll in 7 years time or so, and another, and another; the process is best called a "never-end-'em"! Thirdly, once the people vote for NI to be in a united Ireland, there can be no replays. Fourthly, every individual has the right to be British, or Irish, or both; but collectively, we don't have the chance of a compromise, it's either/or. In a word, the whole thing needs a little more thought.

Finally, as we suggested in a seminar in February 1998, and as we demonstrated in a public meeting in 1986, the Assembly could appoint its Executive democratically, i.e., by electing them (as opposed to selecting them, via a d'Hondt process). After all, the people elect the Assembly, by PR. So, let the Assembly do the same: let all of them elect the Executive, again by PR. The best way to do this is by a matrix vote (see the web-page for details), for this methodology allows the Assembly to elect its power-sharing and proportional Executive, without any designations!

Perhaps the answer is for everyone to ask their local politicians, what is their policy on the matrix vote. Over to you.

Matrix Vote adopted by Greens

The Green Party (Comhaontas Glas) has adopted the matrix vote as part of its policy for the on-going review of the Belfast Agreement.

The matrix vote is the ideal way for the Assembly to elect its power-sharing Executive. The system means that all 108 MLAs can vote on an equal basis. Furthermore, it is proportional. And yet the whole thing works without any designations or even party labels. Perfect! See our web-page for details.

Sudan

In July 2002, the two parties to the civil war in Sudan - the Sudanese peopl's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Khartoum Government - signed the "Machakos Protocol". This Agreement will give South Sudan the right to self-determination, i.e., a referendum, a two-option ballot on secession, yes-or-no.

Six months later, there's civil war in Darfur, this time between the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) on the one hand and, on the other, the Khartoum Government (and its Janjaweed).

Yet again, it seems, as in Yugoslavia, as in Indonesia, a referendum or the prospect of a referendum starts a war! Yet again, western diplomats appear to be incapable of suggesting anything better than a simple, divisive, majority vote.