Jean-Philippe Feldman opposes proportional voting for the election of deputies | EUROtoday

Din his common coverage speech of 1^er October, former Prime Minister Michel Barnier declared that he was able to open a “reflection without ideology” on proportional illustration. On November 26, he introduced the opening of a “construction site”. Then, on the twenty ninth, he confirmed the mission given to political scientist Pascal Perrineau “to evaluate all possible options allowing the introduction of proportional representation in the legislative ballot” with a purpose to enable the tabling of a invoice within the spring of 2025, all including elliptically that the reform ought to “respect the spirit of the institutions of the V^e Republic.”

Many commentators noticed this announcement as a name to the National Rally (RN). However, we should remember that, from Emmanuel Macron to François Hollande through François Bayrou, a big a part of our flesh pressers help the institution of proportional illustration or, a minimum of, the precision isn’t trivial. , of a “dose” of it within the legislative elections.

Current or media constitutionalists type a big group to plead in favor of adjusting the voting technique, a lot in order that we are able to say with amusement that everybody is, has been, or can be in favor of proportional illustration…

No voting technique is ideal

The phrases of the talk are recognized. The majority vote is historically thought-about (within the equally basic picture of the precise…) as efficient, however unfair. Except that, right now, he’s now not supposed to meet the primary high quality, the final elections not even having yielded a relative majority. The matter is due to this fact understood, we should lastly set up a proportional system and the one factor nonetheless debated is its nature: integral or not, with a threshold or not, with a majority bonus or not, in a nationwide framework or not?

Let us level out on the outset that no voting technique is ideal, as a result of human nature is itself imperfect. Let us additionally level out {that a} voting technique isn’t every thing. It interacts particularly with the celebration system.

These particulars having been made, the target is to hunt the voting technique, if not one of the best, in any case the least unhealthy. And for that, no matter Michel Barnier mentioned, we should embrace ideology, within the sense not of a totalitarian thought, however of a coherent system of thought.

In this sense, we couldn’t suppress a smile after we learn from the pen of a herald of very cathodic proportional illustration that it might have been “demonized under the V^e Republic for reasons more ideological than scientific”, while supporters of the majority vote would have a “dogmatic and somewhat obscurantist vision”.

However, and this is never emphasized, a good part of the constitutionalists consulted lean… to the left.

Proportional, darling of the left

It is not a question of claiming that proportional representation would be “left”, but it is clear that since Victor Considerant in the 19th century^e century up to Mitterrand via Blum, socialists have a long history with it, and this is perhaps no coincidence.

We also shuddered when we were recently able to read several times from the writings of constitutionalists and left-wing politicians, such as Benjamin Morel or André Vallini, that proportional representation would have the advantage of allowing programmatic coalitions or “post- electoral”.

On the contrary, it is a formidable vice. Indeed, for voters to be able to make their decision with complete clarity, the coalitions and programs must be known before the elections. This is the virtue of the majority vote, which the former secretary general of the Constitutional Council Jean-Éric Schoettl had rightly underlined.

Democratic really?

With proportional, it’s a return to IV^e Republic and its “Parliament without windows”, it is the return to tampering behind the backs of voters, once the polls have passed. Just look at what is happening in Germany where voters often vote for a party or a coalition and where, ultimately, it is up to the elected deputies to decide!

What a great example of democracy, really! Proportionality is likely to reduce the threat of dissolutions since, in reality, the country is governed at the center. Alternation tends to become an empty word. Democracy is captured by political parties, even more so by their staffs, for the benefit of politicians above ground because they are linked to an electoral list and disconnected from the territories. Democratic, really?

Two votes, two visions

At the basis of the opposition between the voting methods, there are two visions of representation. For supporters of proportional representation, representation must be a mirror, it must reflect, if possible in the finest way possible, the nuances of opinion. For those who favor majority voting, it must be a filter; it must above all lead to a majority and consequently to a stable government.

Proponents of proportional representation argue that the majority vote does not necessarily lead to a majority and the current situation demonstrates this, but they must recognize that nothing suggests that this is a precedent.

Proportionality explicitly favors compromises, and therefore bargaining.

Some of them add that a majority bonus would give stability to proportional representation, but then what is the point of moving to a new voting method, when they must recognize that majority voting allows already the representation of minorities and that the majority bonus would undermine the “justice” of representation which nevertheless constitutes in their eyes the essential advantage of proportional representation? Furthermore, “PR” is a voting method by definition complex and its very complexity is a call for renewed revisions.

Proportional voting: the path of compromise and bargaining

There is another major argument against proportional, and it is never emphasized. It explicitly favors compromises, and therefore bargaining, and as a result it is likely to lead to an extension of the “political market”. Conversely, a strong and unfragmented majority is likely to reduce this risk.

To Discover



Kangaroo of the day

Answer

One of the contributions of the V^e Republic is to have damaged the vicious circle of middle extremism and inaction. After having undermined, with the constitutional revision of 2008, rationalized parliamentarism, after having performed the sorcerer’s apprentice by touching our Constitution in an inconsistent method on a number of events, we might do effectively to recollect the virtues of an excellent textual content drafted in 1958 and to keep away from including to the confusion by modifying the electoral regulation for electoral causes and with nice inconsistency.

* Jean-Philippe Feldman is an affiliate professor of regulation and a researcher on the Institute for Economic and Fiscal Research (Iref).