Not really. It is all a matter of give and take. One major advantage of this system is that it forces parties to work together and find compromises. But if no compromise can be reached a minority government is also a possibility and then there is the multi-party majority.
Germany has proportional representation. If there are two big parties,
each with 47.5% of the legislature, then a party with 5% can claim a pretty
high price to make one of the two parties the top dog.
In the past it has been shown that making the 5 percent hurdle can be a pretty big hindrance for parties to overcome. If they don't get at least 5 percent of all votes they are not represented. This makes for a very cleaned up form of representation and prevents nutter parties from being represented.
I had to write a paper once on all the pros and cons I could come up with for different types of representations. It turns out that for all types of representation systems it is possible to come up with scenarios where the representation unfair in respect to the voting result. Actually neither of our current systems is good when you compare it to the direct representation like f.i. that of the ancient Athenians. Then again in ancient Athens only free _male_ citizens had a vote .... :o)
Sonja _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
