The Times News Network

March 10, 2004

How To Grab Power Without A Majority
by Kingshuk Nag

AHMEDABAD: It has always happened like this. On the day of election
results, the victors crow about their success and thank voters for giving
them the janadesh , while losers look diffident and say they bow to the
peoples mandate.

There's no reason why it will be any different this time round. Drowned out by the beats of victory drums would be a crucial fact: the Indian electoral system does not really return to power those who have the mandate of the majority.
 
Analyse this: One, no party has won more than 50% of the votes polled in any general election. The closest anybody got was Rajiv Gandhis 1984 sweep when 49.1% of votes polled went to Congress. Two, parties have come to power with 37% votes like the Congress in 1991. In 1977, when the Janata romped home after the Emergency, it got only 41.3% of votes. Three, considering that not more than 62% of the electorate has ever voted in the 13 Lok Sabha polls till now (sometimes its been as low as 45%) the actual vote (as a percentage of the total electorate) behind victories is lower.

Amazingly, the votes polled translate into a disproportionate amount of
seats for the winner. Thus Rajiv with 49.1% vote got a massive 414 or over 70% of the seats in the 545 member strong Lok Sabha. In 1977, the Janata party got 295 seats with 41. 3% vote.

This is the doing of the first past the post system (FPTP) of elections
that the country gave to itself, copying from Britain. This winner take all
system doesnt lead to majority governments. In the Indian context it has
fuelled the politics of caste, encouraging parties to promote block caste
voting.

The last few Lok Sabha polls have led to a peculiar situation. In 1998, the BJP polled 25.6% of all votes but got 182 seats. The Congress got more votes, 25.8%, but only 141 seats! In 1999, the BJP polled 23.75% votes but got 182 seats. The Congress polled a higher 28.3% but secured only 114 seats.

Democracies in western Europe use different electoral methods to beat this system. The proportional representation (PR) system, where parties get seats in proportion to votes polled, is the most popular. This comes in many variations and hybrids, like the German method. There 50% of seats are filled by the coventional FPTP method and the remaining 50% by the list system. Each party gets as many seats as their aggregate percentage of votes. But the list of candidatesin a descending order of preferencehas to be announced before polls. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands use the PR system.

The French have a double ballot system for electing deputies by which
voting is held twice. The first round eliminates those who polled low
votes, for a direct contest between the leading candidates in the second
round. Mathematically the most representative system in vogue is that of
single transferable votes (STV), operational in Australia. This asks people to rank all candidates in their order of preference. In India this is used to elect the President, but the method may be too complicated for
illiterate voters.

In the late 1960s, Vajpayee and Advani were  very vocal about changing
India's electoral system. Now, having learnt to use the system to get into
power they may have become no changers. It is time for the Congress,
beneficiary of the FPTP for years but now being pushed to the corner, to
cry out for change.