Dear Sir,

In responding to Phil Perinchief’s sweeping reform proposal for our electoral system on October 14, the hard part was distilling the real problems.

The discussion needs clarity around parliament and elections. For purposes of this response, the “Westminster parliamentary system” refers to how parliament operates. The “electoral system” refers to how we choose our representatives or MPs to take part in that process. While parliament itself desperately needs modernisation, it is clear that it is the electoral system that is badly broken.

Even that, though, is only half-right:

The electoral system works fine as long as there are clear choices between a relatively few candidates, but breaks down when there is a perception of multiple candidates with little to choose between them.

Mr Perinchief’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the many dysfunctions and stupidities of the parliamentary model as we exercise it is mystifying. The parliamentary model — as we exercise it — is just as much in need fixing as is the electoral model.

There are several ingredients that combine to make our version of parliament a toxic and dysfunctional way of making law:

• We have no direct way for the public to exercise any control over the debate:

— No effective ability to table proposals, amendments or contribute directly to the debate or decision. (Think the US state and local model of “ballot initiatives” and the Swiss ballot referendum system.)

— No direct veto power. (Think ability to require a referendum on an issue.)

— No ability for constituents to “recall” a member whom they believe no longer represents them adequately

• The whole “blanket Cabinet immunity/Cabinet secrecy” thing is a nonsense with respect to anything under the Bermuda Parliament’s control. It may have its place in the cases of defence, foreign affairs and security, but not in the domestic realm

• The absolute authority of ministers makes every one of them a dictator within the confines of their remit. What nonsense! Every ministerial appeal decision should be open to a public challenge that would effectively force a polling to either ratify or veto that decision

• The rules around who speaks, for how long and when, and then who gets to ask what questions and whether or when they might be answered do nothing but make the system opaque and cumbersome

There are a hundred similar systemic problems with the way our version of parliament works. These all contribute to the existing loss of public confidence in the “governance” of the island. These are almost all “fixable”. Like so many other things, though, the fix would disturb the “status quo” that keeps all the established political interests happy.

That is why they are brushed aside by Mr Perinchief, and why he chooses instead to declare the electoral process as the “tool of the rich” and the “enemy of diversity”.

Mr Perinchief’s proposed solution is a ridiculously complicated way to totally divorce our governance from our elections. In particular, it solidly cements the domination of the governance process as the province of organised political Interests for ever. It is a shell game of local candidates and national candidates and proportional allocation of seats.

There is no real world where such a system would not be practically dominated by some kind of political party system. The idea that any group not bound together by a party or association structure with an effective ability to require them to vote “the party line” on certain subjects — a “party whip” — would be able to lead a government is a pipe dream. To expect it to happen here is the stuff of political dreams in a fantasy world.

The issue raised in respect of the “first past the post” election in Sandys really boils down to two things:

First, that it was a by-election for a seat at a time when the Progressive Labour Party holds an overwhelming 22 majority in the House. The result of this election really did not make any real difference at all. The voters were smart enough to appreciate that, so six out of every ten voters just “stayed on the couch”. They were right. This was not democracy; it was Kabuki theatre.

Second, even in a “real” election, as I mentioned, the electoral system works fine as long as there are clear choices between candidates, but breaks down when there are multiple candidates with (apparently) relatively little to choose between them. There really was not a lot to choose between the candidates in terms of any realistic expectation of having an effect on the governing — or governance — of either the constituency or Bermuda as a whole.

Doing all the complicated systemic change that Mr Perinchief suggests is simply not appropriate for Bermuda. The basis of proportional representation is big numbers. I should not have to remind him that Bermuda is small. These ideas simply do not scale to low five-digit electorates with low four-digit constituencies. Making the constituencies larger and fewer does not change things.

Class is not an issue here in any real way. Just look at the policies of the parties. Ninety per cent of the declared objectives are shared. Ninety per cent of the methods that would be actually used to achieve them are constrained by money — so they would not be much different, either. Most importantly, though, the basic objectives of the Bermuda voters are reasonably well reflected in the make-up of the MPs. That is the only task that the electoral system is required to fulfil, and a complicated new system would not make it any better — and perhaps worse.

The one, simple fix I would propose to remedy the perception of failure as seen in Sandys would be to adopt a ballot that allowed voters to rank the multiple candidates in their order of preference. Each ballot would show all the candidates’ names and the voter would mark each as their first, second, third choice, etc

The first vote count in each constituency would be of the voters’ first choices. If no candidate got 50 per cent plus one of the votes cast, then the ballots for the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes would have their second choices counted instead. Wash, rinse, repeat until one candidate receives a majority. This simple fix would ensure that the candidate seated would be the one that had the most support from all of the voters. The winner might not be the first choice of the majority, but the majority would have chosen them over the losers.

The second fix I would propose would be to make voting mandatory. If you are of age and status, you must cast a ballot. It can be blank or spoilt or a write-in, but you have to do the duty or pay a realistic fine and lose access to government services.

My final thought is that the “party whip” is the really rotten core of our party politics. Parties, in and of themselves, are not inherently the problem today in Bermuda. My feeling is that the ability to require an MP to put the will or desire of the “party” ahead of that of their constituents’ interests is the root of much of the dysfunction we experience today.

After the rank voting, mandatory voting and abolishing the whip, it would then be time to fix parliament itself.

My first fix would be to create a “ballot initiative” system for citizen-proposed policy that would be binding on the legislature. My second would be a “recall” system to allow constituents to force a re-ballot of their MP. If he did not receive majority support, then a by-election would follow.

Nowhere near as fancy-fancy as Mr Perinchief’s politically engineered Formula One Maserati of a fix, but it would get us from here to better.

JAN CARD

Smith’s