IMAGINE a football championship in which the two top teams always draw, regardless of which plays the better, and in which the smaller teams stand little chance of ever winning a game. If the Chilean electoral system were a football championship, that’s what it would be like.
The country has a unique “binominal” voting system that ensures that the ruling centre-left coalition (the New Majority) and the centre-right bloc (the Alliance) take almost all the seats in parliament, shared pretty much equally between them. Two parliamentary seats are contested in each constituency. The winning candidate takes one and in most cases the candidate who finishes second takes the other. To win both seats, you have to win by a mile. That makes it difficult for either bloc to win a big majority in parliament, or for small parties and independent candidates to break their duopoly.
The country’s new president, Michelle Bachelet, wants to change the system. Describing it as “a thorn in the heart of our democracy”, she sent a bill to parliament on April 23rd outlining her plans to do just that. She wants to redraw Chile’s constituency...Continue reading
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