Democracy and vote: comparing countries
Juan Bautista Alberdi once said: “Ignorance does not discern, look for a tribune and take a tyrant. The misery does not deliberate, it is sold. Make the suffrage from ignorance and destitution away is to ensure the purity and success of its exercise. Some will say that it is undemocratic but democracy, as has been exercised so far has led us to this sad destiny."
In Spain, the world of politics is extremely complex and a large number of citizens would say that it is also unfair, especially when the president is elected and demand an absolute majority, but one of the most serious problems is that citizens themselves, noThey know who they are voting. The method used in Spain to determine an electoral system to choose president is different from the one used to choose the legislatures.
When it comes to presidencies, they are almost always unipersonal (a person) and, therefore, the government says that pretending a proportionality between the majority and minorities is not possible, which is debatible. In this wording, I have decided to concentrate on what most directly affect the population, the presidential elections and the different parties of the country.
Presidents can be elected by one of three systems:
- Relative majority (MR)
- Preferential vote (VP)
- Absolute majority through the double round system (DV).
The relative majority is the first system that I will explain. The relative majority is the most direct way that Spain has to choose a president and it simply consists that the candidate who achieves the greatest number of votes, is awarded the triumph. This is the procedure that is also used for presidential elections in countries such as Mexico, Kenya, Philippines, Zambia, South Korea, Malawi. Iceland and Zimbabwe.
Definitely, this system is simple, cheap and efficient. However, in a highly disputed multiparty competition, it leaves open the possibility that the president is elected with such a low percentage of the vote cast that the bulk of the electorate has not voted in his favor or, worse yet, that he has voted against him. That was the case in Venezuela in 1993 when Rafael Caldera won the presidency with 30.5% of popular vote. Similarly, in the Philippine presidential elections of May 1992 Fidel Ramos was chosen among seven candidates with only 25% of the popular vote.
In divided societies, the presidential elections by MR can exacerbate the problems of the policy of ‘The winner takes everything’. In Angola in 1992, Unita’s leader Jonas Savimbi lost a direct election by relative majorTo fulfill the democratic opposition role.
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