When even Britain risks not to form a functioning government after the next elections, the calls for majoritarian electoral systems in other countries (like Italy) become more and more useless and laughable.
The current system in place requires citizens to cast their vote for one candidate within their own constituency, instead of voting for a party. The first candidate past the post in each constituency – that is the one with the most votes – is elected as an MP and holds a seat in the House of Commons, which is the lower House in the British parliament. The upper House, the House of Lords, remains unelected.
Western society is increasingly fragmented and no majoritarian systems (unless even more undemocratic than the British one) can solve our problems.
It’s time for the major parties to renounce their more radical proposals, sit around a table and form “intelligent” coalitions to lead the countries. Compromise is a useful democratic value and an underpinning of an inclusive discourse.
