Task force examines election reform

Separate election districts to be preserved

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A working group appointed to consider changes to the Finnish Parliamentary election system is considering a model in which the current electoral districts would remain intact, while turning all of Finland into a single election region to assure better proportionality. The model would also ban electoral alliances between parties.
     In practice, the reform would mean that while voting would continue to be held in individual electoral districts, the votes tallied by the various parties would be added together to assure greater national proportionality. The committee has yet to decide how Parliamentary seats would be allocated among electoral districts.
     In the model under consideration, the parties would need to get a certain percentage of the vote - 3.5 - 4 per cent has been suggested - in order to win seats in the Parliament.
     The present system, a variation of the model devised by Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt in 1870, has no national hurdle, as is the case in many other countries with proportional representation. However, as proportionality is implemented within the electoral districts, and not nationally, each district has a de facto hurdle, which is high or low, depending on the number of seats each district has in Parliament.
     For instance, in the Helsinki electoral district, which has 21 Parliamentary seats, a party requires slightly less than five per cent of the vote in that district to get one MP elected. The Åland Islands send only one MP to the Finnish Parliament, which means that the semi-autonomous province has what amounts to a first-past-the-post system in the Parliamentary elections.
     Calls for reform emerged after last year's Parliamentary elections, when Green League chairwoman Tarja Cronberg failed to get a seat in Parliament even though she won an impressive 8,000 personal votes. However, she ran in the district of North Karelia, which sends just six seats to Parliament; consequently, her party fell below the number of votes needed to get one candidate elected in the district.
     
The changes have been supported by the Centre Party, and by most other parties in Parliament. The Swedish People's Party takes a more negative view, as its political clout is very localised, and which could stand to lose from greater national proportionality in the allocation of Parliamentary seats.
     For similar reasons, other small parties are wary about the idea of a national vote hurdle. One idea that has been considered is that all parties getting at least two per cent of the vote would be entitled to party subsidies - even if they do not win any seats in Parliament.
     
"Now we are making a great leap in our election system", said Centre Party secretary Jarmo Korhonen, who has been dubbed the father of the proposed new system. He notes that the changes will require a constitutional amendment, which means that the new model cannot take effect before the 2015 Parliamentary elections.
     Also pleased that the measure was moving forward was National Coalition Party secretary Taru Tujunen.
      Maarit Feldt-Ranta, party secretary of the largest opposition group, the Social Democrats, said that the model would have to be considered by the SDP executive. "We take an open mind toward the reform", she said.
      Aulis Ruuth, who represents the Left Alliance on the committee, took a positive view of the project.
     Swedish People's Party secretary Ulla Achrén emphasised that no model had been chosen yet, as not all calculations have been made. "We are nevertheless open to discussion."
     In the view of the Swedish People's Party, the problems in the present system could be reduced by merging the electoral districts of North Karelia, North Savo, and South Savo. "The electoral districts of Lapland and Oulu could also be joined", Achrén said.
     
Electoral reform was agreed upon at the government formation talks last spring. The working group, comprising party secretaries and other representatives of Finland's political parties, has been asked to draw up a model by the end of March. However, the deadline will probably have to be extended.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  President Halonen calls for debate on reform of electoral system (29.3.2007)
  Pressure grows for reform of Parliamentary electoral system (22.3.2007)

Links:
  Wikipedia - The D´Hondt method

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