What to do after another senseless election, how to form a stable majority in parliament, can we open a debate about changes in our political system and who will initiate it?
All questions that both commentators and politicians keep asking in recent days. And all kinds of non-working and hard-to-implement options are offered – from a Greek electoral system with a bonus for the winner to the panacea according to ITN – presidential republic. And the remedy from which all native parties run has existed since time immemorial and was requested by over 2.5 million Bulgarians in the 2016 referendum.
This remedy is called the two-round majority vote, and it is a cornerstone of both inevitable changes in the political system and a symbol and sign of stability. This is what one of the world's political scientists, Maurice Duverger, told us back in 1991: “As long as you use the proportional electoral system, you will always have a risk of political instability…“ Majority voting is used in countries that have made the world's greatest contribution to parliamentarism, democracy and the rule of law – USA, England, France and I don't remember any of them having problems with forming parliamentary majorities.
The consequences of introducing majority voting in two rounds are stable majorities in the parliament with clear programs and personal responsibilities to voters, predictability and a smooth change of power. The opposite of “combinations, non-coalitions, unfulfilled pre-election promises, lied to voters” – all consequences of the proportional electoral system. For this electoral system and its consequences in Bulgaria in recent years, Encyclopedia Britannica gives an amazingly precise definition: “Because they lead to political fragmentation, PR systems (party-list systems) impose coalition governments, which are often unwieldy – increasingly since the beginning of the 21st century, as the number of parties has increased in almost all PR systems.
In coalition governments, accountability also suffers because no party has clear responsibility for the government's performance…The platforms with which parties participate in elections do not match their actions once in power, as coalition negotiations require compromise . And because parties decide on governing coalitions after elections, the degree to which the government reflects the will of the people is less than when a single party is in power.
Parties that manage to enter government can be quite random, and can come from different points on the ideological spectrum. As a result, there may be little direct connection between the preferences expressed by voters and the policies pursued by the government their party has joined.“ A clearer picture of our reality today could hardly be given.
And so that we don't go to new elections several times a year, from which it is increasingly clear that we will get nothing but increasingly fragmented parliaments and to have a stable government and parliament that will be accountable to us and will carry out a program for which they were elected by the majority of voters, the Electoral Code must be urgently amended, as well as the corresponding amendments must be made in the regionalization of the country by single-mandate constituencies.
I want to remind the MPs that in the last amendments to the Electoral Code made in the 46th Parliament, the same MPs wrote at the end that the upcoming elections in November 2021 will be the last elections under the proportional system. And the next vote will be a majority vote. And we have just elected the 50th parliament, so if the proportional electoral system is not changed to a majoritarian one, the prospects for elections in the 51st…55th,…60th, etc. parliaments in a few months will be quite tangible.
In the 1950s, France was on the brink of a civil war, brought to a similar situation - a consequence of multi-year parliamentary elections under the proportional electoral system and unsuccessful attempts to form a government. A great French national hero offers a way out of the situation – general Charles de Gaulle and it is a majoritarian electoral system in two rounds, which is still practiced in France and which is a guarantor and symbol of stability. And in our country at the moment there are quite a few generals with the ability to propose and implement such a change, but whether any of them is a statesman who has transcended his party thinking remains to be seen.
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