Tag Archives: Greece

Italy’s PM passes brand new election system law

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Italy’s (unelected) Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has very narrowly — with just 53% of MPs supporting — managed to ram through a major electoral reform to stabilize Italy’s increasingly fractured and ineffectual parliamentary lower house. The reform appears to take a page from the Greek parliamentary system (described further below) but adapts it. Here’s a news summary of the new Italian elections law from France24:

The new legislation, which only takes effect in July 2016 [and only if the Senate is reformed first], is based on proportional representation but guarantees a big majority to the winning party and gives party bosses wide powers to handpick preferred candidates.

If the winning party gains at least 40 percent of the vote, it qualifies for a winner’s bonus that automatically gives it 340 seats in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies.

If no party wins 40 percent, a run-off ballot between the two largest parties is held two weeks after the first election to determine which party gets the winner’s bonus.

 
Now to the comparison. Previously, I wrote an explanation of the Greek election system, which is quite similar but had some serious flaws:

250 members of Greece’s parliament are elected through a system that ensures fair geographic representation along with the proportional will of the national electorate, using a 3% threshold.

However, there is one big innovation to clarify the executive mandate. As of the 2008 revisions to Greek election laws, the top-finishing party is given a victory bonus of 50 extra seats – bringing the total to 300 seats in parliament – to help the winner get closer to a governing majority.

This represents a bonus equal to 20% of the proportionally elected seats. (An earlier law gave the winner 40 seats.)

It’s not a perfect setup, of course. A party earning relatively low percentage of the vote share can gain an extra 20% of the seats even if it falls well short of capturing the confidence of a majority of voters and even if another party were to capture just 1% less of the electorate than the winner.

However, it substantially boosts the chances of quickly forming a government and allowing that government to push through its major agenda items, rather than floundering along with the status quo due to internal gridlock.

Meanwhile, it still allows for diverse, multi-party elections — but constructively counteracts the growth of fringe, single-issue, or personality-centric parties that take up seats or weaken serious parties without actually contributing to the government or the opposition in any substantive way.

 
Renzi’s Italian law is actually probably a substantial improvement on the Greek system. First, it includes a backup runoff component if no party wins at least 40% (which prevents a very small first place finisher from gaining a huge boost or even an outright majority without broad national support). Second, if I understand the news summary correctly, the Italian system will have a sliding-scale/diminishing victory bonus of up to something like 88 additional seats, and as few as about 25, rather than a fixed bonus number whether the winning party got 40%, 50%, or 60% of the vote in the first round. (That way, the extra seats allotment is not unfairly overwhelming if the margin between the first and second finishing parties is very small.

Depending on how it works in practice, Italy’s new law might actually end up being one of the better proportional representation election systems in the world.

Granted, it won’t be without controversy (rightfully so), that an unelected young Prime Minister with a bare majority of parliamentary support has significantly revised the country’s election law (in a way that temporarily favors his large party over the fractured center and right oppositions) and is planning to more or less abolish the Italian Senate in favor of a completely different upper house. But this has been passed constitutionally by a majority of the duly elected people’s representatives, and if it improves Italy’s democratic stability and representation, there won’t be much to complain about.

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Greece’s defense ministry ratchets up rhetoric

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Panos-Kammenos-greeceAs part of the anti-austerity coalition deal between the leftist, pro-european reformers of Syriza and the right-wing, euroskeptic Independent Greeks, the latter were given the country’s National Defense portfolio in the government. Unlike Syriza, which at least officially favors cooperation with Europe, the Independent Greeks party under Defense Minister Panos Kammenos (pictured) is openly antagonizing other European Union governments and being far less diplomatic — either as a rogue effort or as the role of “bad cop” outside the negotiations.

The latest ramp-up in “bad cop” talk was Minister Kammenos’s suggestion that the eurozone would disintegrate in the aftermath of a Greek economic implosion or exit, with Italy, Spain, and possibly even Germany being forced to go back on to their own currencies too. (The latter seems pretty unlikely.)

He also recently threatened to release all Middle Eastern refugees in holding in Greece into the rest of the Union with papers to enter Germany — in the midst of a political crisis there over refugees — if Germany fails to ease up on its demands upon Greece, and he reiterated counter-demands that Germany repay Nazi war debts that Greece forgave under Allied pressure in 1953 along with damages from the brutal Nazi occupation and counterinsurgency of Greece during the war. (Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos, a former academic who is not a member of either party in the governing coalition, also suggested that failure to repay the debts and damages could open German companies in Greece to asset seizure.)

But the most specific and perhaps unexpected demand to emanate from the defense ministry was actually related to defense! The ministry — along, actually, with some German journalists — alleges that its predecessors wasted billions in public funds on buying weapons systems and arms it didn’t need from EU firms that bribed Greek officials to make the purchases, and they want compensation. Reuters reports: Read more

Oped | Victors’ Bonus: What Israel Could Learn From Athens

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The following essay and original research first appeared in The Globalist.

On Tuesday, more than a dozen Israeli political parties are expected to win seats in the country’s snap parliamentary elections that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called after his coalition broke up last year.

These parties will vie for a total of 120 proportionally elected seats in the Knesset. Israel’s threshold to win seats has this year been raised to 3.25% of the vote (translating to 3-4 seats).

As a result of this fractious system, no single Israeli party or joint list has ever won a majority (61 seats) in an election.

No clear winners in Israeli elections

In the past five elections, the party or list that ended up forming the coalition won an average of just 30.2 seats out of 120 – i.e., only a quarter of the seats – with 11-14 other lists also winning seats.

To form a government thus requires coalition building among quite a few parties, usually with very different (if not diametrically opposed) policy views. No wonder that, under those circumstances, coalitions do not last very long.

The public has previously shown a desire for a stronger executive mandate. Israel briefly adopted direct elections for Prime Minister in the 1990s. To exclude unserious candidates, only major parties could nominate someone. In each of the three times Prime Ministers were directly elected, only two candidates competed.

This modification unfortunately did not fix the problem because the Prime Minister could win an outright majority of the vote but still lack a majority of legislators to support his cabinet or agenda.

Since then, other than tinkering with the electoral threshold very slightly, Israel has not tried to deal with the leadership and policy instability problem inherent in its system.

Where Athens does provide inspiration

One possible place to seek electoral reform inspiration for Israel might be Greece – the birthplace of democracy and a country with a similar population size – despite its own serious current political challenges.

Similarly to Israel, 250 members of Greece’s parliament are elected through a system that ensures fair geographic representation along with the proportional will of the national electorate, using a 3% threshold.

However, there is one big innovation to clarify the executive mandate. As of the 2008 revisions to Greek election laws, the top-finishing party is given a victory bonus of 50 extra seats – bringing the total to 300 seats in parliament – to help the winner get closer to a governing majority.

This represents a bonus equal to 20% of the proportionally elected seats. (An earlier law gave the winner 40 seats.)

It’s not a perfect setup, of course. A party earning relatively low percentage of the vote share can gain an extra 20% of the seats even if it falls well short of capturing the confidence of a majority of voters and even if another party were to capture just 1% less of the electorate than the winner.

However, it substantially boosts the chances of quickly forming a government and allowing that government to push through its major agenda items, rather than floundering along with the status quo due to internal gridlock.

Meanwhile, it still allows for diverse, multi-party elections — but constructively counteracts the growth of fringe, single-issue, or personality-centric parties that take up seats or weaken serious parties without actually contributing to the government or the opposition in any substantive way.

Israel’s political system, even more so than Greece, would benefit from being cleared of such parties. Politicians would have more incentive to remain inside a major party, rather than splintering, as often happens.

Applying Athens in Jerusalem

If a comparable bonus were applied in Israel, it could mean 120 seats would be elected proportionally with 24 additional seats awarded to the winning list. (The Knesset would expand to 144 members in this scenario, and 73 seats would be a majority.)
Read more

The language of austerity

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What happens to the politics of word choice when two dozen languages are spoken in a union?

Below are excerpts from “How do you say ‘austerity’ in German? You don’t” in France24:

In Germany, the crisis rocking the country’s EU partners has produced the ugly term “austerität”, but few use it, least of all Chancellor Angela Merkel. She has made no secret of her distaste for the word, prefering to speak of “sparpolitik” – which translates as “the politics of saving money”, or of spending it “sparingly” – and “sparsamkeit” (frugality). Both terms have positive meanings and refer to very reasonable policies. Conversely, anyone opposing “sparpolitik”, like Greece’s government, is necessarily unreasonable.
[…]
“Schuld”, the German word for debt, also means “guilt”. It has a moral quality that doesn’t translate into other European languages. For Keynesian economists, spending one’s way out of crisis, at the risk of temporarily increasing the debt load, is eminently sensible – particularly at a time of low interest rates, as is presently the case in Europe. But to many Germans it is sinful.

The West German debt writeoff

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France24 — “Lessons from 1953: The debt write-off behind Germany’s ‘economic miracle'”:

West Germany’s debt at the time was well below the levels seen in Greece today. But German negotiators successfully argued that it would hinder efforts to rebuild the country’s economy – much as Greek governments have in recent years, in vain. Under a crucial term of the London Agreement, repayments of the remaining debt were made conditional on West Germany running a trade surplus. In other words, the German government would only pay back its creditors when it could afford to – and not by borrowing even more money. Reimbursements were also limited to 3% of export earnings. This gave Germany’s creditors an incentive to import German goods so they would later get their money back, thereby laying the foundations of the country’s powerful export sector and fostering its so-called “economic miracle”.
[…]
Back in 1953, the money Greece gave up included a loan extorted during the gruesome Nazi occupation of the country, when thousands of resistance fighters and civilians were murdered and hundreds of thousands starved to death. Even before Syriza’s electoral triumph, Greek newspapers were awash with calls for Germany to repay the loan, the exact amount of which is a matter of historical dispute. Estimates range from $24 billion to five times the amount. While few Greeks expect Berlin to pay up, many believe that Germany was let off the hook after the war and should now be more generous in Greece’s hour of need.

 
See also: A Brief History of the Greek Debt Coverup – Arsenal For Democracy
And: Greece’s Syriza, Germany, and the Gordian Knot – Arsenal For Democracy

January 28, 2015 – Arsenal For Democracy 115

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Topics: Big Ideas – Zero-Tuition Public College; Greek elections. People: Bill, Nate. Produced: January 26th, 2015.

Discussion Points:

– Big Ideas for Reforming American Governance: Should the federal government offer a zero-tuition 4-year public college system? Is this feasible?
– How will Syriza’s win in the Greek elections affect Greece and the EU?

Episode 115 (46 min)
AFD 115

Related links
Segment 1

– ThinkProgress: How Obama Could Make College Free For Everyone Without Spending A Dime
– EdWeek: Some Higher Education Advocates Wary of President’s Free Community College Plan
– The Atlantic: Is There a Better Way to Deal With Student-Loan Debt?

Segment 2

– AFD: The Questions Posed by World’s 2015 Elections
– AFD: Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition takes office

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Video: Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition takes office

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The leftist Syriza and the Independent Greeks party have formed a coalition government successfully after Sunday’s historic elections.

The Independent Greeks, unfortunately, are a right-wing nationalist party aligned with the Orthodox Church and against the EU and immigrants. However, they are far milder than Golden Dawn, and they are anti-austerity, which is a major point of agreement with Syriza.

Independent Greeks campaigned explicitly on the idea of being a junior coalition partner to Syriza. They also held just 13 seats as the 6th place party, which will provide enough for a governing majority but few enough to significantly prevent Syriza from calling the shots.

Still, I would have thought a coalition with the centrist/pro-European/anti-corruption The River party (4th place) would have made more sense, since Syriza is also pro-European and anti-corruption and neither are right-wing.

Composition of the parliament of Greece following the January 25, 2015 election. (Adapted from JackWilfred/Wikimedia)

Composition of the parliament of Greece following the January 25, 2015 election. (Adapted from JackWilfred/Wikimedia)