The British government on Monday announced controversial plans for a major shake-up of the country's electoral system that could see the traditional first-past-the-post elections replaced by proportional voting if people say “yes” to the proposed change in a referendum to be called next year.
Other proposals include reducing the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600, redrawing parliamentary constituencies to “equalise” their size, and a fixed five-year term taking away the traditional power of the Prime Minister to decide when to call a general election.
Announcing the plans in the Commons, the Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg described them as a “hugely significant'' package of reforms that, he claimed, would see power shift from the executive to legislature and make the Commons more representative of the people.
“We've a fractured democracy today,” he said pointing out that because of the variations in the size of constituencies people were not equally represented and the first-past-the-post system was unfair to smaller parties.
The most contentious is the move to switch from the current voting system to Alternative Voting (AV) which would require voters to rank candidates in order of preference. A candidate getting more than 50 per cent in the first round would be elected. If no one gets more than 50 per cent in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and voters' second choices are allocated to those remaining. The process would continue until a winner emerges.
The Conservatives are opposed to the plan and Prime Minister David Cameron has said that his party would ask people to vote against it when a reference is held on May 5, 2011 setting the scene for tensions within the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition.
Labour broadly supports the idea but has questioned the date of the referendum which will clash with the elections to the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and local elections in England.
