If there’s one thing the general election result shows clearly, it’s the need for major electoral reform, said the Green Party this morning.
A party spokesperson said:
“Clearly the electorate wanted rid of the Labour government, but equally clearly there is massive opposition to a Conservative government. And despite ‘Cleggmania’ and the huge amount of media coverage devoted to boosting the Lib Dems, the public obviously doesn’t want a Lib Dem government.
“Yet the turnout was up, so nobody can say apathy won.
“We believe strongly that what Britain most needs is electoral reform – but not the ‘additional vote’ sham favoured by Labour and the Lib Dems. AV is not truly proportional and would continue to help three parties to dominate the entire political system, effectively excluding fresh ideas.
“A properly proportional system would give priority to what the voters want, not to what the biggest two or three parties can get away with to keep power for themselves.
“The old argument that proportional elections would lead to ‘horse-trading’ is at last being widely criticised by commentators. We have first-past-the-post, yet this morning all the talk is of horse-trading because no party can form a government on its own.
“What we need to realise is that first-past-the-post may not always result in horse-trading, but it does commonly lead to a government coming to power which a majority voted against. And this cannot possibly be democratic.”
The Greens point to Germany as an example of a country with a high reputation for democracy under a proportional electoral system, which also confounds the common criticism that coalition governments are weak. The truth is that Germany routinely has a coalition government but also has a very strong economy, say the Greens.