Part of my revision

All the work I have done, the knowledge I have chosen to absorb, the countless number of books I have read and the advice I have taken from those around me all come together now. Yes my minions, it is the time of the year again. The time of judgement, the age of examinations. Hahaha yeah I know, a bit too melodramatic.

My first paper is in two weeks from now, and in the past two weeks I have been studying non-stop, even my trip to Coventry went along as I have read materials on current international issues and what not. Prior to these two weeks, I thought my revision would be futile as I have been delaying it time after time. Fortunately, the mood in the United Kingdom has been been very political due to the elections.

The political parliamentary condition in the UK is somewhat in a turmoil as some might say, however most are left unaffected and apathetic. As a politics student, I see it as my solemn right and duty to inform you of these matters, just so that you all know that I'm a know-it-all of course in this matter (and also this might help me in my revision, thanks). Although I won't be learning about the UK Government and Politics until the next academic year, I know enough to give enlightenment of this matter.

The electoral system in the UK is of a plural/majoritarian nature, as it is a first-past-the-post kind of election. Unlike the election system of the US, in which they are of the same nature, the Prime Minister of the UK is elected according to the support their party gets and in this sense meaning the party with the most MPs winning seats in parliament have the right to establish a new government. Therefore, in the case of the 2010 elections, the Conservative Party, whose leader, David Cameron, I have personally met on a train to Loughborough (to my surprise), won the most number of seats in parliament. However, Mr Cameron has not been elected Prime Minister due to the fact that his party did not win a majority of the seats. Winning more than half of the seats in parliament is considered a majority. The Conservative Party was and is still short of 20 seats in order to gain majority. The current government under the Labour Party, whose leader, Gordon Brown, I have not met, had lost to the Conservatives by almost 50 seats. Apart from Labour and the Tories, the Liberal Democrats have also taken their stance in the UK parliament having won almost 10% of the seats making them the third biggest party in the Parliament.

The problem now is that without majority in the Parliament, no party is able to form a government, therefore the status in the UK now is that they have a hung parliament, the first to happen in the UK after 36 years. The Tories are unable to form a government, even a minority government due to the fact that they are the opposing party to the current system. The case would be different if Labour had won the elections, as they would have the right to form a minority government, subject to the queen's invitation to parliament of the leader of the party. Therefore, the only chance for the Tories to form a government, is if they have the backing of the Liberal Democrats and with that they will achieve majority. So the past few day, talks between the Tories and Lib Dem have taken place and have been stated as progressive. but the major turning point in this matter is the declaration of resignation of Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party in order to gain the support of the Lib Dems. Because of this, I have a feeling that Labour will win. But with a Labour-Lib Dem coalition, I think it would be wrong as it would be a collaboration of the defeated :s

Ok now for sure I know your heads are hurting. Because mine is slightly in pain. Alright now, I will give a solution to this problem. A solution persistently repeated by politicians, especially of the Lib Dems. A solution practiced by most European countries. The solution is: Proportional Representation. Proportional representation means the ratio of votes should equal the number of seats. Unlike the current system now, the elections are based on the number of seats won, not by the number of votes. To explain even further, lets make a hypothesis of a liberal democratic Brunei. Just imagine Brunei going through an election between two parties in Brunei: the Blue Party and the Yellow Party, to determine who the executive should be. Lets take the current electoral system of the UK as a model and use regional types of voting and parliamentary seats and what not. Lets say every every district in Brunei has two contenders each from both parties vying for a seat in the Brunei "Westminster" and the party with most seats will have the right to rule. Lets say the Blue Party won the elections in Belait, Temburong and Tutong, while the Yellow Party only won in the Brunei Muara Districts. This makes the Blue Party having the majority of the seats and are viable to rule the government. However, this does not necessarily mean that the Blue Party got the most votes. Have I lost you now?

Ok let me explain slowly. Ok lets take Brunei's population to be 400,000 with Brunei Muara having 200,00 people, Tutong having 100,000, Belait 80,000 and Temburong 20,000. Can you see where I'm going at now? No? Ok lets move on. Lets say hypothetically in the three districts the Blue party won, the managed to get 60% of the votes of the population. Meaning in Tutong, the won 60,000 votes, in Belait 48,000 and in Temburong 12,000. That all adds up to 120,000 votes, the remainding 80,000 votes belonged to the Red Party. In addition to that lets say they won only 10% of the votes in Brunei Muara, meaning 20,000 votes equating totally in 140,000 votes nationwide. The Yellow party on the other hand won 180,000 votes in Brunei Muara and couple that with the remainders of the other districts, they won 260,000 votes nationwide, clearly more than that of the Blue Party. However, using the British electoral system, the Blue Party would still be considered to have the right to rule due to their dominance in the parliament. Unfair right? Right!

So this is where Proportional Representation should come in. the number of seats in the parliament should be proportionate to the ratio of the votes won. So if the hypothetical liberal democratic Brunei was to adopt PR, 260,000 votes won by the Yellow Party would be translated into 65% of the seats and the rest would go to the Blue Party.

So now do you get where I'm getting at? I hope you did.

PS: the english is a bit mediocre. blabbered everything. lol