[r0dia]

I would like to rant a bit if you don't mind.

There is no political Left in Europe. Podemos is not a leftist party, since no leftist party or democratic conservative party would ever get paid by the State and be part of it (like the Nazi party). It's a contradiction in terms and something that simply cannot be.

Most of the people don't know the distinction between formal democracy and real(social) democracy and this causes great confusion.

Formal democracy is not about the content of laws (eg: laws to protect Human Rights), but about the rules that define the democratic game, rules that ensure that the People is in charge at all times (constitutional liberty). Real democracy is about the content and this explains why it is prone to have an ideological battle.

The most important requirements are:

1.- Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal among others, since they use the proportional list system.

2.- Separation of powers: not happening in Spain. The most voted political party in the legislative elections forms government.

3.- Imperative mandate: Sieyes abolished it during the French Revolution and it still to be restored in all Europe. The elected candidates in the legislative elections should remain loyal to their promises.

4.- Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

Podemos doesn't care about any of these things as far as I concern.

In my modest view there is no possible reform, the problem is not the people in charge (Podemos guys seem honest), but the actual political system that doesn't fulfill any of the requirements. We haven't conquered our Liberty yet.

[mercurial]

> Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal among others, since they use the proportional list system.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Are you talking about undue importance given to small parties in such systems?

> Separation of powers: not happening in Spain. The most voted political party in the legislative elections forms government.

That's not how separation of power works...

> Imperative mandate: Sieyes abolished it during the French Revolution and it still to be restored in all Europe. The elected candidates in the legislative elections should remain loyal to their promises.

I'm also not sure what you mean by "imperative mandate". As for promises... well, there are promises and there is political expediency.

> Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

I'm stopping you right here. It makes very little difference in practice, since the elections for the lower chamber happen right after the presidential elections. I also don't see how it's a benefit in general. It suffers from the idiotic, anti-democratic first-past-the-post system. I'd rather have a token President and a PM coming from a coalition instead.

[r0dia]

> Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal among others, since they use the proportional list system.

> I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Are you talking about undue importance given to small parties in such systems?

No. The proportional list system prevents representativeness. The people whose name is on the list represent the one that put them on it. They do not represent the electors.

> Separation of powers: not happening in Spain. The most voted political party in the legislative elections forms government.

> That's not how separation of power works...

Exactly. I was explaining what happens in Spain.

> Imperative mandate: Sieyes abolished it during the French Revolution and it still to be restored in all Europe. The elected candidates in the legislative elections should remain loyal to their promises.

> I'm also not sure what you mean by "imperative mandate". As for promises... well, there are promises and there is political expediency.

The electors should have a contract with their representative and if they are not loyal to that contract they can be ceased.

> Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

> I'm stopping you right here. It makes very little difference in practice, since the elections for the lower chamber happen right after the presidential elections. I also don't see how it's a benefit in general. It suffers from the idiotic, anti-democratic first-past-the-post system. I'd rather have a token President and a PM coming from a coalition instead.

It makes sense if you think about the different characteristics that you look for in a legislator in contrast to the values required to be a president. A legislator should be loyal to their representatives (a part) whereas what you are looking in a governor is intelligence to guide the Nation (all). It is nonsense to think that a good legislator could be a good PM (UK). Loyalty vs intelligence, that's why it should be different elections.

[mercurial]

> No. The proportional list system prevents representativeness. The people whose name is on the list represent the one that put them on it. They do not represent the electors.

Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time?

> > Separation of powers: not happening in Spain. The most voted political party in the legislative elections forms government.

> > That's not how separation of power works...

> Exactly. I was explaining what happens in Spain.

That's the same thing elsewhere. What do you expect to see instead? > The electors should have a contract with their representative and if they are not loyal to that contract they can be ceased.

That's definitely an idea, though it seems tricky to put in place.

> It makes sense if you think about the different characteristics that you look for in a legislator in contrast to the values required to be a president. A legislator should be loyal to their representatives (a part) whereas what you are looking in a governor is intelligence to guide the Nation (all). It is nonsense to think that a good legislator could be a good PM (UK). Loyalty vs intelligence, that's why it should be different elections.

I expect that legislator look to their conscience first (if they can find it...) and to their party second. I also contest the underlying idea that an election campaign is a test of intelligence.

[r0dia]

> Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time?

I'm going to focus on this one. Most european so-called democracies lack representation of the elector, and we can thank the proportional list system for this.

This lack of representation, in combination with the imperative mandate to the party instead of to the electors in Spain causes that we have, lets say, 150 legislators from party X, 75 from party Y, and 30 from party Z. The leader of the X party is going to be PM, which means it's going to execute the law. Law that he is going to decide(his legislators that he did put on the list).

In the spanish system we can get rid of the Parliament and the system wouldn't be affected, I'll prove it to you.

When the leader of party X votes Yes to one proposal, all of the X representatives vote always in the same direction. The same happens with the opposition. What this means is that we can get rid of all the legislators apart from the leader of X, Y and Z. The vote of X leader would value 150, vote of leader Y 75 and so on, and both us and the system wouldn't notice.

We don't need almost 500 representatives of their respectives leaders because their leaders are already present. There is no need to represent someone who is present, right?

[mercurial]

I'm puzzled. Surely MPs in Spain are supposed to represent a particular area in the country and defend the interests of their voters? I understand how that closed list system[1], which I was not familiar prior to find the correct Wikipedia article, is not awfully democratic. This could be alleviated by switching to an open list system like in Denmark, where a "personal vote" makes it possible to vote for individual candidates within a party, if you don't want the "party vote".

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_list

[r0dia]

I don't know how good the open list system is working in Denmark. In Italy a experiment showed that only 3% of the electors use their right to change the candidates, making it useless.

A majority system where you can choose directly your MP would be way better to achieve representation. Why voting a list? Why not elect one representative for an area of about 100k citizen?

That way you do know who is your representative, in the list system (even in the open list) who is your representative? All of them?

[aptwebapps]

I think you have a different definition of 'left' than most Americans, so there might be some disconnect there. Here, it just means socialist progressive (or in the direction of the same), more or less.

[ep103]

Yes, but the meaning of left in America is so far off the definition for the entire rest of the world, it is hardly worth considering.

[lukeschlather]

When you're speaking on a predominantly American message board, you should either avoid using terms that mean radically different things to you than what they mean to most Americans, or you should consider what they mean to most Americans very carefully and make sure that your meaning can't be misinterpreted.

[sebkomianos]

Ouch. Really?

[lukeschlather]

Well, unless you prefer semantic arguments to meaningful discussions.

[sebkomianos]

A discussion of "what 'left' means in America compared to what 'left' means in Europe" can also be interesting.

[aptwebapps]

I presumed the GP was referring to the use of the term in the linked article - which is American, even if it's talking about something happening in Europe. I'm not saying that the American definition is to be preferred, I was just pointing out the potential disconnect.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

> 1.- Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, > Germany, Greece, Portugal among others, since they use the > proportional list system.

What? I feel much more represented by a list of people that share my ideas and projects for the country, than by whomever the majority of people in my city chose among some candidates from the city.

What's not democratic is first-past-the-post systems, where if in my city 30% of the people vote for candidate A, 25% for B, 25% for C and 20% for D, only 30% of the people get a representative and the rest of the votes go directly to the trash bin.

If anything the problem with the Spanish electoral law is that it's not purely proporcional, it has districts which doesn't make any sense.

[r0dia]

Honestly, I don't care how you feel. The Constitutional Court of Bonn (Germany) states that there is no representation in proportional list system. (I'll look for the quote).

> What's not democratic is first-past-the-post systems, where if in my city 30% of the people vote for candidate A, 25% for B, 25% for C and 20% for D, only 30% of the people get a representative and the rest of the votes go directly to the trash bin.

This doesn't happen in a two-round majority system.

[mercurial]

If you mean a two-round first-past-the-post system, it works about the same as a one-round system. This is what got Jacques Chirac elected with 82% of the votes in France in 2002 in the second round. Whatever the number of rounds, it's a broken system designed to favour the two main parties.

[r0dia]

Still, a representative democracy would be a way better than a partitocracy, don't you think?.

Podemos can use State power to improve things(social justice) but that is a totalitarian way of doing things.

[herge]

> 4.- Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

The two most powerful countries with non-figurehead executives (France and the United States) are perpetually beset with bickering and internal fighting instead of "checks and balances". Is a system with government shutdowns like we saw last year in the US, or François Hollands troubles in France any better than a system where all the power is held by the legislature and the prime minister? I only see a president as a sort of dictator who holds for 4 or 5 years the view of the electorate at one point in time, as opposed to a legislature who are always looking at future elections.

[dragonwriter]

> The two most powerful countries with non-figurehead executives (France and the United States) are perpetually beset with bickering and internal fighting instead of "checks and balances".

That's not so much a problem of a Presidential system as a problem of the a Presidential system in a country which also has a poorly-representative electoral system in general (particularly for the national legislature).

However, there aren't a lot of systems that have electoral systems that produce effective representation and Presidential systems in the same place.

[r0dia]

France doesn't have a full separation of powers since the president's executive needs the OK from the legislative power.

The Montesquieu proposal is the best mechanism that we have to avoid institutional corruption. If the power is held only by one group (legislators) corruption is inevitable.

If you only care about the output then Plato was right and the best system would be an aristocracy that cares and chooses the best for the country.

[jacquesm]

> There is no political Left in Europe.

That very much depends on which country you look at. For example, in NL we have the SP, in Germany 'Die Linke'. There are probably many like that in other countries as well.