Given all the debate about lists and electoral reform and MMP in the blogsphere these days, I got a chuckle out of this story in the Globe:
President Vladimir Putin will head the candidate list of Russia's dominate political party in parliamentary elections in December and may become the country's next prime minister, he said Monday.Probably not the example I'd use when promoting MMP. Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers
Mr. Putin is barred by Russia's constitution from seeking a third straight term in the presidential election in March but has strongly indicated that he would keep a hand on the reins of power.
He agreed to head United Russia's candidate list in the December parliamentary vote, which could open the door for him to become a powerful prime minister leading in tandem with a weakened president.
5 comments:
Thank god we have term limitations in Canada. :)
Close, though.
Russia uses "supplementary member" (SM).
More here.
There is no adjustment for proportionality of legislative weight with respect to the popular vote - unlike MMP.
A party gets a proportion of the list seats regardless of how they do in the constituency ridings.
The big difference is a political party could conceivably form a majority government comprised entirely or mostly of list seats.
Another big difference, the leader of a big party need not run locally under SM simply because a big party with wide support is nearly guaranteed seats from the list. Unlike MMP, where a party leader will need to run locally - especially if their party comes in first.
Not quite -- Russia used to have a mixed system, where half the deputies came from a party list vote and half from single mandate districts, but, as of the legislative elections in December, it'll be a simple party vote with a 7% threshold for State Duma representation.
If only Putin had a first past the post westminster model!
He wouldn't have to do all this job swamping and just be PM as long as William Lyon Mackenize King was speaking to the dead.
They used to have MMP in Russia, but now they use stright list system. There are no constituencies, just the list seats.
We don't have term limits in Canada yesterday.
Interesting about the Russian system. I guess it isn't MMP, I just found the list thing amusing.
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