Should the greek "bonus" policy be changed?

[Polarbear]

Personally I think the greek "bonus" policy (I dont't know it's real name) should be changed. The "bonus" policy gives the party that gets the most votes 50 extra seats in the parliament. In the recent election "New democracy" received 29,5 % of the votes and "Syriza" 27,5 % of the votes meaning that for just 2 % of the votes "New democracy" got 17 % of the seats. Now, I think the precentage of seats any given party recieves should reflect the precentage of votes they got as closely as possible, this policy is detrimental to that. Thoughts?

 

[sandandfoam]

Makes no difference either way.
Frankfurt and Brussels are running the show. Parliaments are only window dressing.

 

[Polarbear]

Makes no difference either way.
Frankfurt and Brussels are running the show. Parliaments are only window dressing.

If you are talking about the bailout I agree that it isn't fair. The common man/woman in Greece has to pay the bill, but they didn't get a chance to vote over it. However I am little bit unsure what you mean when you call parliaments window dressing?

 

[Panda]

It is a bit of an odd system I have to admit. I wonder what the reasons for it are?

 

[sandandfoam]

If you are talking about the bailout I agree that it isn't fair. The common man/woman in Greece has to pay the bill, but they didn't get a chance to vote over it. However I am little bit unsure what you mean when you call parliaments window dressing?

Power in Europe does not rest in national parliaments, it rests in Germany, the Commission and the ECB.

Parliaments, in Eurozone countries at least, at best represent middle-management.

 

[lunakilo]

It is a bit of an odd system I have to admit. I wonder what the reasons for it are?

My guess would be that the idea is to make sure the 'winning' party has som pull in the parlament.

If you have 3 parties which get 33%, 33% and 34% of the votes then the party with the most votes don't really have a lot to say over the others, but if they get 50 extra seets they will be better able to get their way.

Ah! Wikipedia is my friend: List of political parties in Greece - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"the largest party gets a 50-seat bonus (out of 300 seats) ostensibly to ensure elections return viable governing majorities."

I still think it is a strange system too.
If you end up with a parlament where no one holds the majority, then you make minority governments. That way even the opposition get some of their stuff passed from time to time, which seems fair to me.

 

[HonestJoe]

I gather their core voting system is proportional representation, which has advantages but also a major disadvantage of alone leading to close results and weak, coalition governments. Many PR systems have methods to balance this disadvantage and this seems like one of them.

It doesn't sound perfect (no system is) but I can understand the logic behind it.

 

[Polarbear]

My guess would be that the idea is to make sure the 'winning' party has som pull in the parlament.

If you have 3 parties which get 33%, 33% and 34% of the votes then the party with the most votes don't really have a lot to say over the others, but if they get 50 extra seets they will be better able to get their way.

Ah! Wikipedia is my friend: List of political parties in Greece - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"the largest party gets a 50-seat bonus (out of 300 seats) ostensibly to ensure elections return viable governing majorities."

I still think it is a strange system too.
If you end up with a parlament where no one holds the majority, then you make minority governments. That way even the opposition get some of their stuff passed from time to time, which seems fair to me.

Thanks for posting the info from wikipedia, also I agree with your views.