[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?

[mercurial]

That's the French way of doing. The results are so far unconvincing.