For Kuwait’s upcoming parliamentary election, the government is instituting, for the first time ever, a campaign against buying or selling one’s vote.
During a recent broadcast on Dubai TV (which I saw via Link TV Mosaic), this poster was shown. I do not read Arabic, but I gather that these voters are happy because they have neither bought nor sold their vote.
Kuwait had parliamentary elections just a year ago, using a form of multiple non-transferable vote (MNTV). Apparently voters were “limited” to voting for fewer than M candidates, where M is the magnitude of the electoral system. That was a change from the previous “unlimited” vote, in which each voter could cast up to M votes, and the candidates with the top M vote totals in the district would win. M-votes MNTV is often misleadingly called “block vote.” However, in the 2003 election when this system was still in use, there was not a lot of “blockness” of voting, which I suggested could be calculated from the ratios of winners’ and losers’ votes.
Non-transferable vote systems–whether voting is “limited” or not–are personalistic, and thus provide the context in which vote-buying can be expected to flourish, absent effective controls of one kind or another. Limits on the number of votes per voter (with SNTV being the limit) would not exactly seem to decrease the personalism that often breeds “vote-buying,” especially in the absence of legally recognized political parties to structure the campaign.
Kuwaitis are going back to the polls so early because the emir evidently did not like the notion of a parliament that would question the prime minister. So he dissolved it.
> “Non-transferable vote systems–whether voting is “limited” or not–are personalistic, and thus provide the context in which vote-buying can be expected to flourish”
Having said that, Australia has seen a few “second[*]-preference-buying” scandals, where a major party (or a heavy in one) gives material help to a smaller party or an independent candidate, and receives (post and presumably propter hoc) the recommendation of a second preference [*] in the latter’s How to Vote materials.
Upper House tickets have to be lodged well before the polling day, but “How to Vote” leaflets for single-seat Lower House contests can be, and are, printed and rewritten right up to the close of polling on election day – which means a minor player can respond promptly to mid-campaign overtures by one of the Big Two-and-a-Half.
[*] Shorthand for “any preference other than a [1] that puts the recipient ahead of its main rival in the final count.” May often be a second-last preference out of 8 or 10 candidates but of course the legal effect is the same.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 07 May 2009 @ 03:18
The thing that strikes me as odd about that ad is either Kuwaitis look really, really young for their age or they’ve expanded the youth voting craze to the tweener set. It looks like an ad to encourage turnout in elections for 8th Grade Class President or something.
Seed planted by Chris Lawrence — 07 May 2009 @ 03:20
MSS, do you mean that if a Kuwaiti district elects (say) 7 MPs, a voter may vote for up to 6 candidates, and so on?
Seed planted by Tom Round — 08 May 2009 @ 19:48
Ha ha, Chris, I had the same thought!
Tom, I do not recall the “degree of limitation,” but I do not think it is 1 less than the magnitude. There was information about this in the comment thread to the previous Kuwait planting (regarding the 2008 election).
(Chris, I also had the thought just the other day that we had not seen you planting in the virtual orchard in some time. Welcome back!)
Seed planted by MSS — 08 May 2009 @ 22:36
When it rains in Cairo it pours in Kuwait:
The constitutional court annuls the 2011 dissolution of the 2009 parliament and so dissolves the 2012 parliament and reinstates the (more docile?) 2009 parliament.
(reutersreuters)
Seed planted by Bancki — 22 June 2012 @ 12:11
…and this reinstated 2009 Parliament is now dissolved by the Emir. Fresh elections on 1 december.
Before this dissolution, the Emir tried to redistrict, but the court stopped this.(al arabiya 25-09-2012)
Together with the dissolution, the Erir amended the electoral law so that in each of the five districts (M=10) the voter will have one and not four (non-transferable) votes. (al arabiya 20-10-2012)
The opposition calls for a boycott and demonstrated against this amendment on 11 november, the 50th anniversary of the consitution.
Seed planted by Bancki — 13 November 2012 @ 07:03
Thanks, Bancki. So it is now SNTV in ten-seat districts. Of course, with the opposition boycotting, there won’t be many coordination issues.
Seed planted by MSS — 13 November 2012 @ 20:49