Tom Friedman steals my idea

At least I’d like to think so. Here’s the key language:

Specifically, the Obama team needs to make sure that Iraq’s bickering politicians neither postpone the next elections, scheduled for January, nor hold them on the basis of the 2005 “closed list” system that is dominated by the party leaders. We must insist, with all our leverage, on an “open list” election, which creates more room for new faces by allowing Iraqis to vote for individual candidates and not just a party. This is what Iraq’s spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is also demanding. It is a much more accountable system.

If we can get open list voting, the next big step would be the emergence of Iraqi parties in this election running for office on the basis of nonsectarian coalitions — where Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds run together. This would be significant: Iraq is a microcosm of the whole Middle East, and if Iraq’s sects can figure out how to govern themselves — without an iron-fisted dictator — democracy is possible in this whole region.

H/T to Barak of the thoughtful new blog Democracy & Society.

Update: Ranj Alaaldin at the Guardian is on board, and now is a good time to recall Ayad Allawi’s November 2007 op-ed that effectively called for a more candidate-based system.

Philly Dem would engineer GOP off city council

From Philadelphia comes more news that proportional representation (and its cousins) isn’t just for progressives and minor parties.

While a coalition of the Cincinnati NAACP and local Republicans backs that city’s return to PR-STV, a Philly Democrat wants to boot the only two Republicans from city council by eliminating two at-large seats elected under limited voting.

Of 17 council seats, 10 are elected in single-member districts. Limited voting (here, two-vote MNTV) helps prevent Democratic electoral majorities from sweeping the remaining seven at-large seats.

The Democratic member’s apparent plan is to reduce district magnitude in the non-majoritarian tier, making it more difficult for the city’s few Republicans to win representation.

Another candidate-centric Iraq proposal

Via POMED comes a call by Scott Carpenter and Michael Rubin for MMP in Iraq’s governorates. A candidate-centric system, they argue, could dampen sectarian tension by weakening the party system.

Reforming Iraq’s election system on the national level will be difficult… At the local level, however, there is real opportunity… Iraqis should have the right to vote for the best individuals to administer governorates and sit on district councils. The country need not abandon parties or proportional representation, but lawmakers could explore an open-list system that would allow citizens to vote for people they know. Even better would be a mixed system, such as the one practiced in Germany, which combines party lists with the ability to elect individuals.

More on the rationale:

“[Adopting list PR for national elections] was a fateful decision. Rather than vote for individuals, Iraqis voted for political parties, whose leaders compiled lists of candidates. In descending order, one candidate would enter parliament for every 31,000 votes the party received. Under this system, aspiring politicians owed their future not to voters but to the party leaders who compiled the lists. Instead of encouraging Iraqi politicians to debate security, sewage and schooling, the party-slate system encouraged them to engage in the most extreme sectarian or ethno-nationalist rhetoric to prove their mettle to party leaders. Those who preached tolerance or voiced more technocratic concerns found themselves at the bottom of lists.

I have been making the same basic argument since April. The parties are the problem. Institutional choices made in 2005 largely caused them. Present institutional design efforts in the governorates are an opportunity to work on the problem. The system implemented must be highly candidate-centric.

To make that system work, federalism has to be strong enough to put a premium on governorate elections. And to keep federalism from ripping the country apart, there must be inter-governorate revenue sharing.

I applaud Carpenter and Rubin’s careful thinking about an important detail that most democracy promoters ignore. At the same time, open-endorsement SNTV remains preferable to their proposals.

Open-list proportional representation only mildly puts the candidate ahead of the party. Even though one votes for an individual entrepreneur, co-partisans depend on his or her performance for their own chances at winning seats. Open-list PR does not adequately dampen the incentive to run as a team.

Mixed-member proportional representation is problematic for theoretical and implementation reasons alike. One, it requires drawing single-member districts. Those presumably need to be of equal population. Even if the census data existed to allow equal population districts – it does not – districting would raise lots of different questions about gerrymandering (Does the way districts are drawn “naturally” advantage certain groups? Are the districts drawn purposely to do so? Et cetera.)

On the theoretical side, the nominal tier would have to be much larger than the list tier. That is, the proportion of seats elected in districts would have to overwhelm those elected from lists. Otherwise the ‘list logic’ of campaigning that the writers identify would again dominate.

Carpenter and Rubin are thinking in the right terms. Their proposal, however, should be more practical and ambitious. SNTV gets around the districting headaches while even more radically “put[ting] the people ahead of the party bosses.”

H/T to POMED’s Andrew Albertson.

Georgia result

Via IFES, the AP reports “a nearly complete vote count from Wednesday’s election indicates Saakashvili’s party will hold about 120 of the Parliament’s 150 seats.”

Last week I wrote that electoral “reforms” in Georgia were not actually reformist. While March legislation lowered the threshold for entering parliament from 7 to 5 percent, simultaneous decreases in the total number of seats and proportion of them elected under PR would be new hurdles for small parties. Reform, in other words, would benefit Saakashvili, not his opponents.

Now the main opposition party is threatening to boycott its mere 14 seats. Coverage of protests keeps pointing at fraud, but the electoral rules appear to have been the main source of opposition squeeze.

Glancing at preliminary results from the nominal tier, the ruling United National Movement is the clear leader in most districts. Yet it frequently has less than a majority, and other parties sometimes have sizable vote shares. In the list tier, the UNM is reported to have won 61 percent of votes.

Recall that one “reform” reduced the share of PR seats from 100 to 75. If one considers that no election was held under original provisions for the 150-member parliament, “reform” actually reduced the PR share from 150 of 235 seats at the 2004 election to 75 of 150 today.

The net effect of “reform” was less proportional representation and more first-past-the-post, regardless of what Saakashvili did to the PR threshold. That’s how he’s winning 80 percent of seats on 61 percent of votes.

Georgia votes: lower threshold but lower magnitude

RFE/RL optimistically reports that Georgian president Saakashvili has reduced the threshold from 7 to 5 percent for the list tier of that country’s parliamentary elections. Of course, today’s elections are for a much smaller parliament with far fewer seats elected under PR rules than in 2004. Despite the optimism, this probably will result in a smaller opposition seat share.

Since winning reelection, a seemingly humbled Saakashvili has taken pains to show that he understands the mood of both the electorate and the opposition, enacting a series of electoral reforms his supporters say are meant to boost confidence in the elections.

What “humbled” Saakashvili was his “close call in [a] snap presidential election four months ago,” according to the news service. Yet he won with over 53 percent, 18 points ahead of the runner-up. Such is his standard for competitiveness.

As usual, the details of the new system depend on the source. The overall picture since 2004 is fewer seats in general and fewer elected proportionally.

According to the electoral law, last updated 17-12-07, 50 members are elected in single-member districts and 100 are elected from party lists (Art. 91). The threshold was 7 percent, and seat allocation is by Hare quota with largest remainder (Art. 105).

IFES’ Election Guide says the 2004 elections proceeded with 75 single-member districts, 150 list seats and 10 seats reserved to “displaced persons.” Via ACE Project, the same organization says this is the system in place. The 2008 Election Guide entry, however, reports a 150-seat parliament with 75 list and 75 district seats. That is consonant with RFE/RL’s report and others.

Angus-Reid has a good description of the politics of the electoral law. Saakashvili’s allies in parliament approved the 75-75 system on March 21, with opposition leaders balking in favor of the 50-100 system, which is the one on the books as published.

Reuters, via the Washington Post, says opposition leaders accuse the president of “rigging” the elections. More problematic than outright fraud, it seems, is a lack of basic agreement (even clarity?) on the details of seat allocation.

It flies in the face of cynical reason to think the president would increase opposition prospects in response to his own electoral “close call.” More important than reducing the threshold to 5 percent, an opposition-inclusive reform, is reducing the PR tier from 150 to 75 seats, which is opposition-exclusive. A glance at the 2004 results-by-region at Electoral Geography shows why. Saakashvili’s National Movement polled an average 69.4 percent. The median share for his party was 71.8 percent. The overall effect of “reform,” I suspect, will be to further weaken opposition. The more small districts, the more seats for Saakashvili. Reducing average district magnitude is what matters here. Lowering the threshold is an empty gesture.

Fixing Iraq’s party system: Take two

No word yet on what electoral system will be used to elect Iraq’s 18 governorate councils. I want to revisit the point because now is an historic opportunity to be proactive. Using another high-magnitude list system is alarmingly likely to reinforce the zero-sum disaster that is Iraq’s party system.

Last week I argued for open-endorsement SNTV in governorate-wide districts. Under that system, parties would have little control over nominations.¹ Each district would seat several members. Each voter would get one vote. He or she would cast it for a person, not a party.

That system could foster clientelistic constituent linkages. Such linkages would get parliamentarians talking about more than sect. This must be the goal because religious disputes are intractable under democracy.

Ayad Allawi ran a topical op-ed in the NY Times last November.² Mainly because of closed-list PR, Allawi argued, “the vast majority of the electorate based their choices on sectarian and ethnic affiliations, not on genuine political platforms.”

I propose that a new electoral law be devised to move Iraq toward a completely district-based electoral system, like the American Congress, or a “mixed party list” system like that in Germany, in which some representatives are directly elected and other seats are allotted based on the parties’ overall showing. In either case, the candidates must be announced well in advance of the election, and they must be chosen to represent the people in their locality.

Furthermore, a new law should ban the use of religious symbols and rhetoric by candidates and parties — these have no place in democratic elections [...]

This restructuring of the electoral process will be the beginning of the end of the sectarianism that now dominates Iraqi politics and our dysfunctional government [...]

Allawi is onto something in advocating for a large nominal tier. But Iraq does not need to ban religious campaigns. Supplying incentives to talk about something else could suffice. SNTV would do a better job of that than MMP or FPP. Both MMP and FPP would require boundary delimitation that’s impossible given the lack of census data. Both systems moreover would be easy for current parties to game.

Open-endorsement SNTV can generate pork-barrel campaigns. It avoids the districting nightmare. It empowers individual candidates at the expense of the current parties. It could make Iraqi politics about more than religion.

1. Depending on ballot access rules.
2. The original TDP blog post is here.

Repairing Iraq’s party system

As I write, democracy assistance groups are helping lawmakers develop an electoral system for Iraq’s 18 governorate councils. Some creative electoral engineering could take the sectarian sting out of Iraq’s party system. One proposal worth serious thought is using the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) with open endorsements in governorate-wide districts.

Reuters last week claimed that “Iraq’s local elections could reshape power structure.”

Major players — such as the movement of populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Sunni Arab tribal groups — will be competing for the first time and are expected to make gains at the expense of those now in power.

“New alliances will form, old ones will fall. Everything will change. It will redraw the political map of Iraq,” said a senior Shi’ite government official on condition of anonymity.

Really, Reuters means reshaping a balance of power, not an underlying power structure. A party system that continues to revolve around sects will not help consolidate Iraqi democracy. Luminaries from Lipset to Lijphart have taught that stable democratic politics are about more than race, religion or language.¹ The challenge is to get Iraqi elites talking about more than sectarian interest. What candidates need are incentives to cultivate a personal vote. Campaigns need to be about what’s-in-it-for-me: jobs, schools, roads and, as a colleague quipped, a shawarma machine in every kitchen.

Thankfully, beltway rumor has it that the chosen system will be candidate-centric. This is a major step away from the closed-list PR systems that blew open Pandora’s box in 2005.

That leaves us with a few basic options:²

First-past-the-post: As long as parties don’t control who gets on the ballot, this system might work. Yet the number of votes needed to win is fairly high, meaning current parties likely would fare best, unless there were numerous candidates in each district, in which case outcomes would be wildly unpredictable. Ultimately, the lack of reliable census data would make fair apportionment virtually impossible.

Open-list PR: Basically, the system modifies list PR so that voters control who ends up being a party’s most popular parliamentarian. While it gets around the apportionment problem, it is unlikely to change much. The list logic would preserve current parties, the logic of party discipline would remain the same, and we would expect the most popular person under such circumstances to be a sectarian leader.

STV: For all its virtues, this is not appropriate for the context. Illiteracy and innumeracy are likely to cause widespread voter error. The only way to get around the apportionment problem is to use one big district in each governorate. Can we really ask Iraqis to rank up to, say, 200 candidates?

Bloc vote: Two words. Palestine 2006.³

SNTV: With open endorsements, of course. If the parties controlled who got on the ballot, there would be little chance for a shawarma machine in every kitchen. The system would stimulate hyper-personalistic campaigns, party fragmentation and pork-barrel politics at its finest. On one hand, these are ugly dynamics. On the other, they’re just what are needed to break the grip of sect on Iraq’s party system.

Using SNTV in governorate-wide districts would obviate the apportionment problem. If each council were the cube root of its respective governorate’s population, council sizes (and district magnitudes) would hover around 100, meaning each candidate would need about only one percent of votes to win.⁴

Open endorsement SNTV is not a magic bullet. Its efficacy depends on federal-governorate linkages, ballot access rules and the (in)abilities of current parties to coordinate in local contests, to name just a few variables. Iraq nonetheless faces a tradeoff. As long as its electoral rules stimulate disciplined, programmatic parties, sect is likely to be the dominant cleavage. Legislative politics will remain zero-sum with negative implications for the country’s future. On one hand, electoral engineers can reinforce the nasty equilibrium that is Iraq’s party system. On the other, they can try to force it open by stimulating fragmentation and clientelism.

1. ADDENDUM 4/17: Some have read this sentence as my suggestion that the “luminaries” advocate pork-inducing systems in order to activate non-sectarian cleavages. That is not my intention. I drew on the “luminaries” for their emphasis on the importance of such cleavages.
2. Of course, varying factors like endorsement control, pooling, ballot access restrictions, and less feasibly, district magnitude give us far more permutations.
3. For two interpretations of this disaster, see F&V and FairVote.
4. Using data from FairVote.

Toward a more stable Italian left?

A quick thought on the Italian election¹.

There is reason to believe we are witnessing a seismic shift in the Italian party system. The next time a center-left coalition comes to power, it has a good shot at finishing its term.

Division on the Italian left has been persistent. While more extreme factions were not the most proximate cause of Prodi’s most recent fallen government, the outgoing PM had been governing by confidence votes in order to squelch ideological polarization in his coalition. Indeed it was the Communist Refoundation Party that brought down Prodi’s last government in 1998. Speaking at the Brookings Institution on April 10, La Stampa’s Maurizio Molinari noted moderate/extreme leftist compromise had been a staple since 1921 and perhaps as far back as 150 years. Many locals during my trip to Italy last month told me the electoral law, which centers on a “majoritarian prize,” was una truffa [a scam] designed by Berlusconi to exploit the left’s internal division².

Berlusconi’s anticipated victory in both houses may belie growing unity on the left. MSS in the comments of his blog suggests this second election under majoritarian rules has reduced the number of parties in Italy. And Tom Round in the same notes no Communist³ was elected to either house for the first time in a very long time. Where did the hard left go?

Walter Veltroni’s decision to shut the hard left out of his apparentement was telling. At Brookings, Molinari pressed the historical significance of the decision to stop accommodating this faction. While doing so hurt Veltroni’s (not very good) chance of winning in the short term, it may mean more cohesive leftist governments in the long term, under two conditions:

1) Voters did and will continue to strategically desert hard left factions for the center-left;

2) Veltroni’s decision to marginalize the hard left sticks.

Berlusconi has long stressed how his “majority prize” electoral system is meant to bring Italy closer to a two-party system. Scam or not, maybe it will.

1. Subject to revision based on exit polls to be consulted and a spreadsheet to be built.
2. Short description: the apparentement winning a plurality of votes is topped up to about 55% of seats in the Chamber. In the Senate, this “prize” is allocated at the level of the multi-member district corresponding to each region.
3. Capital “C” intended; PD’s Veltroni is a former Communist, at least nominally.

Iraqi provincial electoral law

I’m keeping an eye out for it. According to a personal contact, the electoral system for provincial elections will be candidate-based. That leaves four likely suspects: STV, SNTV, bloc vote and FPP.

I suspect it will be either SNTV or bloc vote with sectarian quota. Reuters implies the institutions are designed to provide some level of minority representation:

New alliances will form, old ones will fall. Everything will change. It will redraw the political map of Iraq,” said a senior Shi’ite government official on condition of anonymity.

And:

Washington says the elections will foster national reconciliation, focusing on how they will boost the participation of minority Sunni Arabs in politics. Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last local polls along with the Sadrists, are under-represented in areas where they are numerically dominant.

Bloc vote systems with gender and/or sectarian quotas are common in the Arab world. STV is rarely adopted, most likely due to numeracy and implementation concerns. SNTV (or some other limited scheme) would provide minority representation. It might also weaken parties at the local level, which one could consider a virtue in light of the strong sectarian parties that formed around Iraq’s federal closed list PR system.

The Iraqi cabinet apparently transmitted a draft electoral law to parliament yesterday. According to the Voice of America, this law was forthcoming when the Presidential Council on March 21 issued a Provincial Powers Law, which calls for elections by October 1. The body rejected a first draft on February 26.

Military occupation: for Democracy’s sake?

There’s a bizarre paragraph towards the end of today’s Washington Post piece, U.K. to Help Investigate Bhutto Case, that I wanted to quickly point out. The gist of the article is that Musharaf, having power-washed away his legitimacy along with the blood and evidence in the Bhutto killing, has been forced to accept a team of “investigators” (really, they’re anti-terrorism division) from Scotland Yard. The article proceeds to explain several ways that Musharaf is suspected – by the opposition and by independent organizations – of trying to engineer the elections in his favor.

The article’s author, Griff Witte, then writes:

The president said in his address Wednesday night that he wants “free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections” for the country. To help achieve that goal, he announced that army and paramilitary troops that had been deployed in many areas last week to quell the rioting would remain in place at least until the election, and perhaps afterward.

Witte does not explain this point any further, but I’m wondering how the Pakistani military forces, which are sort of linked to GENERAL Musharaf, are going to help ensure the freedom of elections. If the military presence persists, it seems that Musharaf is being presented another opportunity to interfere in the electoral process. Why doesn’t Witte address this critical issue?