The aim of a con­sti­tu­tion in a democ­ra­cy should be to es­tab­lish in­sti­tu­tions and mech­a­nisms de­signed to pro­vide for po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty, na­tion­al uni­ty and equal­i­ty for all and one of the mech­a­nisms used to fa­cil­i­tate this ob­jec­tive is the elec­toral sys­tem.

The first-past-the-sys­tem and pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion are two of recog­nised sys­tems of vot­ing in most democ­ra­cies but pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion would ap­pear to be the pre­ferred sys­tem since the first-past-the-post sys­tem is deemed to be de­void of fair­ness and fraught with in­equity.

The ques­tion whether the first-past-the-post sys­tem of vot­ing in our elec­tions should be re­placed by pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion was raised as ear­ly as 1962 when the draft in­de­pen­dence Con­sti­tu­tion was be­ing con­sid­ered by the se­lect com­mit­tee of the leg­is­la­ture as well as at the in­de­pen­dence con­fer­ence in Eng­land, but the propo­si­tion was re­ject­ed by the then Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion has been and con­tin­ues to be used by more coun­tries than those us­ing the first-past-the post sys­tem and the ra­tio­nale for so do­ing has been that all vot­ers and groups or par­ties should be rep­re­sent­ed in the leg­is­la­ture in pro­por­tion to the votes cast for them.

Ac­cord­ing­ly em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence will show that the first-past-the-post or plu­ral­i­ty or the win­ner takes all sys­tem of vot­ing dis­cour­ages rather than en­cour­ages vot­ers to go the polls or ex­er­cise their right to par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Par­lia­ment. Fur­ther, the first-past-the-post sys­tem has been found to be fraught with in­iq­ui­ties and jus­ti­fied more on the ba­sis of his­to­ry rather than log­ic.

More­over, it has been es­tab­lished that the first-past-the post sys­tem of vot­ing makes a mock­ery of true democ­ra­cy be­cause seats are al­lot­ted not in pro­por­tion to votes cast but on the ba­sis of the win­ner takes all. Un­der this sys­tem if three or more can­di­dates run for elec­tion, then the win­ner can have less than a ma­jor­i­ty of the votes and as a con­se­quence such a gov­ern­ment would be vir­tu­al­ly au­thor­i­tar­i­an since it could do vir­tu­al­ly what­ev­er it wish­es.

In the 1966 gen­er­al elec­tion the PNM re­ceived 158,573 (52.4 per cent) of the votes and ob­tained 24 seats; the DLP ob­tained 102,792 (34.0 per cent) votes and got 12 seats while the Lib­er­al Par­ty and the Work­ers and Farm­ers Par­ty re­ceived 26,870 (8.9 per cent) and 10,484 (3.5 per cent) votes re­spec­tive­ly but got no seats.In the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship re­ceived 432,026 (59.81 per cent) and 29 seats while the PNM got 285,354 (39.50 per cent) and 12 seats.

Pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion is a sys­tem of vot­ing that aims at al­lo­cat­ing elect­ed mem­bers in pro­por­tion to the to­tal votes cast. The sys­tem pro­vides for par­ties to win seats in pro­por­tion to their vot­ing strength and to re­move the tyran­ny of a gov­ern­ment with a mi­nor­i­ty of votes but a ma­jor­i­ty of seats over the ma­jor­i­ty of vot­ers.

Fur­ther, the sys­tem pro­duces re­sults which the vot­er de­sires while at the same time de­fus­ing the po­lar­i­sa­tion of vot­ing in so­ci­eties such as ours. More­over, this sys­tem of vot­ing fa­cil­i­tates vot­ers who may be dis­en­chant­ed with the pol­i­cy and/or lead­er­ship of their re­spec­tive par­ties to es­tab­lish their own par­ties and be guar­an­teed rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment pro­por­tion­ate to the votes cast for their par­ties.

More im­por­tant­ly, pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion pro­motes greater co-op­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion as well as con­sen­sus and com­pro­mise among par­ties and lim­its the im­po­si­tion of poli­cies by mi­nor­i­ty gov­ern­ment over the ma­jor­i­ty of the vot­ers. Crit­ics of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion ar­gue that the sys­tem is known for pro­duc­ing coali­tion gov­ern­ments which are short-lived and put a dis­pro­por­tion­ate pow­er in the hands of one or more mi­nor par­ties.

How­ev­er, the Wood­ing Com­mis­sion of En­quiry ap­point­ed in June 1971 by the gov­ern­ment was re­quest­ed to con­sid­er the 1962 Con­sti­tu­tion and make rec­om­men­da­tions for its re­vi­sion and re­form and one of the com­mis­sion's find­ings was that the first-past-the-post sys­tem of vot­ing was a nega­tion of true democ­ra­cy and should be re­placed by pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

The Hy­atali Com­mis­sion which was ap­point­ed in 1989 to re­vise the 1974 Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion found that the first-past-the post sys­tem of vot­ing did not al­ways ac­cu­rate­ly rep­re­sent the pop­u­lar will of the cit­i­zens and fail­ure to re­move it might de­prive cit­i­zens of par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

The ques­tion whether pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion should re­place the first-past-the-post sys­tem of vot­ing would ap­pear to be beg­ging the ques­tion since most of the pro­gres­sive democ­ra­cies of the world, such as Hol­land, Is­rael, Switzer­land, Aus­tralia, North­ern Ire­land, Ger­many, Bel­gium, Den­mark and South Africa to name a few, have as their sys­tem of vot­ing pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion in lieu of first-past-the post.

Ken­neth R Lal­la, SC