Aside from Germany, there is also a general election in Portugal today. Portugal, a semi-presidential democracy, is electing is parliament, via closed-list PR (with widely varying district magnitudes).
In addition, there are primary elections in some Colombian parties.. Colombia is one of a small number of countries with state-administered primaries (which are optional for parties). The Liberals and the Alternative Democratic Pole are holding presidential primaries. For the first time in Colombian history, there are also some congressional primaries, including in the Conservative Party. The Conservatives canceled postponed their planned presidential primary when the proposed constitutional amendment to allow President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term passed congress.* (This information is from Steven Taylor; see his post for further details.)
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* In a correction, Steven Taylor notes that the Conservatives still have a presidential primary scheduled in March “just in case” Uribe is not running for a third term. (Up to today, all presidential primaries in Colombia had been held in March, on the same day as congressional elections. So the parties holding primaries today are part of what seems to be almost an iron law of primaries everywhere: they get earlier and earlier…
Exit polls suggest 33% for conservatives and 15% for liberals, which should give them a combined majority.
(Of course, the Telegraph dutifully reports that “complex electoral arithmetic… will likely be enough to put them over the top”; in other words, under good old FPTP it would be enough without any of that hard math.)
Seed planted by MSS — 27 September 2009 @ 14:11
I’ve not gone through the German election results, but they seem to indicate a pretty shocking disaster for the SPD. Also, the two large parties only combined for 57% of the vote, which I think is their worst combined result during the Federal Republic.
Its a win for the CDU-CSU-FDP coalition but hardly a mandate. Excluding the FDP from the debate didn’t seem to suppress their vote.
Seed planted by Ed — 28 September 2009 @ 13:18
It’s a bit of a worry that the percentage of votes thrown in the bin under the MMP threshold appears to be 6% when the gap between the combined votes for the parties of the right and the parties of the left is only 2.4%. Der Spiegel reported before the election that the CDU was likely to enjoy an unfair advantage in overhang seats, so much so the SPD were desperate to introduce electoral reform but unable to do so in terms of the grand coalition.
Seed planted by Alan — 28 September 2009 @ 23:05
The nice thing about MMP is that it gives you some idea of how the parties would have done using single member plurality:
CDU 173
CSU 45
SPD 64
Linke 16
Greens 1
Wikipedia has a nice map of the constituencies, that show graphically just how much the election was a disaster for the SPD:
That the Linke took 16 seats shows the importance of regional concentration with first past the post. They even came first in two eastern states.
Under a real single member plurality system, the parties would have changed their electoral strategies, so the FDP either wouldn’t exist or would be looking to find some region of the country where they could actually win a seat. Incidentally, the SPD and the CDU-CSU were tied in constituency seats the last election.
Seed planted by Ed — 29 September 2009 @ 12:29
I think Ed’s last point is actually the one to emphasize: that is, MMP gives us relatively little sense of how the distribution would be under pure FPTP, because of strategic considerations. Even with the distinctive eastern party system since the fall of the GDR, Germany’s party system is a good deal more uniform, with more competitive districts between the top two parties and fewer with locally competitive (national) third parties, than most FPTP systems.
The high number of Linke seats in the nominal (FPTP) tier is striking, and shows the extent to which this party has eroded the SPD’s claim to be the dominant party of the German left. There clearly is some sort of realignment underway on the (small-l) left, but I am not sure of what sort.
Seed planted by MSS — 29 September 2009 @ 12:38