I think I could support STV but not party-list PR. Frankly, I hate political parties for the way they force my elected representative to “toe the party line” against the interests for which I elected them in the first place! STV is okay because it does not give parties any more power than they have under FPTP.

Ideally I’d like to see political parties abolished. The founding fathers of the US feared the damage parties would cause to the system they were building. They turned out to be right!

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

PR gives more power to smaller parties as opposed to big ones. Here in Australia we have STV but not PR, and it still sucks. Our democracy is almost as broken as America's. Most people on the left agree with the Greens more than the larger Labor party, but our votes for the Greens don't count. We live in labor/liberal districts, and our votes transfer to Labor. Which is better than letting Liberals win, which is why we haven't fallen to fascism like the US has, but it still sucks. In the last national election, Greens got 12% of the popular vote, but only 2.6% of the seats. Less than a quarter what they deserved! Labor loves non-proportional representation, because it keeps the two party system running. If we had PR, there would be less power in the hands of big parties.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Israel has true PR and look what they’ve done with that: a coalition of small, far-right parties and one moderately large one.

[–] LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

Instead of being inside the Knesset they would be outside the Knesset, rebelling against the system not reveling in it, being left out, destabilizing the country. Proportional representation gives all sections of society power, and yes that's frustrating [...], but it's empowering and in its own way stabilizing too.

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