Elevating the voting percentage threshold for political parties' proportional representation (PR) seats is the recent buzzword in today’s varied media outlets. Following the seven point dramatic deal between otherwise main opponent parties- NC & CPN-UML on July 1, 2024; issue of ‘political stability’ has transcended without surprise to many. In fact, the recent coalition for said stability had roots in the 2022 election with a fractured mandate. Voter's preference for 'alternative politics' also accounted for the hung federal and provincial assemblies of 2022. With no party in majority, making and unmaking of coalitions led by third largest party-CPN Maoist Centre, painted the picture of instability. Frequency of government changes also percolated on all seven provincial governments, eroding further their already dismal credibility, sparing the local governments, thanks to the directly elected local executives with fixed tenure. Since then, PR has been dubbed as the cause of fractured mandate and key obstacle towards single party majority, by traditional major parties. Members of this thought club believe elevating the threshold proportion from existing 3 to 5 percent for house of representatives and 1.5 to 3 percent for the provincial assemblies would enable a clear majority. By contrast, Madhesh based splinter political groups along with newly erupted parties perceive the idea as a majoritarian move to silence smaller parties and their voices.
Who is to blame?
Election studies underline the merits of the PR system in generating political stability. Studies also argue that direct elections (first past the post- FPTP) inherently are captured by local (constituency) interests, preferences, issues and personalities while PR tends to favor nation-wide parties based on broad ideology and programs- much needed for stability. However, such PR is not without threshold. In fact, the merits for high threshold lie in promoting stable governance by preventing fragmented legislature, a matter of prime concern in parliamentary democracy where stability of the Cabinet depends on the legislature. Incorporation of the PR system in various countries accounted for these merits with a general 5 percent threshold in various European nations while Turkey with an outlier case with 10 percent of legal threshold. But the pertinent question here is, would this marginal increase in threshold cap ensure political stability? Simple calculations suggest that there would be marginal gains for the major parties, just a couple of seats. So, would it be justified to blame the multi-party system for instability? Were there stable governments before adoption of PR in our electoral system? Did we switch to a mixed electoral system without any valid reasons? What went wrong, then? Who is to blame, the PR system or political parties? What could be the possible implication if the threshold is elevated?
Stability in records
1.5 pc threshold proposed for upcoming parliamentary poll
With a rare distinction in adopting seven different constitutions in the last seven decades, experiments in political laboratory of Nepal yielded enough evidence to argue that multi-party system cannot be blamed for Nepal's only stable fate of having unstable governments, let alone the role of PR which is a recent arrangement incorporated in 2008 as the CPN-Maoist demand. The mixed election system was adopted to ensure socio-economically marginalized regions, communities and ethnic groups in the house, both with the PR and FPTP arrangements. It aimed at resolving the non-inclusive disproportional character of elected legislatures, elected after 1991. In fact, no major political parties, neither NC nor left parties could provide stable governments even with a majority in their hand. For instance, NC failed to complete its full term under Girija Prasad Koiral because of intra-party feuds leading to the first midterm election of 1994. The single largest party-CPN-Maoist, after the 2008 constituent assembly polls also failed to deliver a stable government in view of army chief sacking controversy. Prime Minister Prachanda had to resign in 2009, just within eight months after election owing to his immature political move. Similar instability caused by personality clashes among top left leaders, evident in the post 2017 CPN led government. After three years, the then Oli government dissolved the house following factional politics, halting the ongoing party merger, and eventually splitting into three separate parties. Therefore, theorizing stability with higher threshold correlation is unambiguously a political excuse, eyewash by parties and leaders. In fact, provision for PR was necessitated on the ground that post 1991 elections always resulted in disproportionate representation of socio-economically well off at the cost of the marginalized in the house. Why has proportional representation been so controversial, then?
Controversy over confident choices
Clearly, leaders across party lines invariably misused the PR constitutional provisions. Immediate family members, relatives, wives and close confidants of influential leaders were chosen under various proportional categories. For instance leaders like Aarzu Rana Deuba, Bimlendra Nidhi from NC, Naina Kala Thapa (wife of UML Vice chair Ram Bahadur Thapa) are just few names who were included in PR quota. Similarly, Madhes-based parties' chose the merchant class, immediate relatives, under minority and women category of PR. Such blatant misuse of PR quota has made it really unpopular among common people as well. It is the centralized pyramidal structure of political parties and internal democratic deficit in their functioning that accounted for such malpractice. Reinforced by patron-client culture, and centralization of power, leaders indulge into such political zero-sum game. Unfortunately, urgent need for reforms in political parties is unheard of. Transparency in parties funding, and accountability in governance are unsung song. Likewise, meaningful federalization in party structures and decision making processes, needs due deliberation. Now what could be the implications if the proposed high threshold is adopted?
Implication of trade offs
There seems to be a couple of pros and cons in regard to its impact. To talk of positives, firstly, parties would be obliged to choose right candidates justified in the eyes of the voters so as to garner higher percentage of votes for their survival. Secondly, there is the possibility of consolidation of ideology, developmental policies and programs among parties because of limited blur policy space. Parties would be obliged to take clear sides with programs and policies because of the limited choices available to voters. Merger among parties, particularly smaller groups seems another positive likelihood. Inverse relation between high threshold and number of parties are likely to discourage fissiparous tendencies in parties, an opportunity essential for the survival for Madhesh based splintered political groups. However, its flipside is-voters must align to parties taking extreme or polarized views because of lost median political space with increased thresholds. Another negative implication would be parties' focus on populous constituencies at the expense of sparsely populated ones. As parties would have to compete for higher voter percentage, they would tend to focus more on populous constituencies. Further, high threshold move negates the constitutional intent of multi-party democracy. Effectively, exclusion of smaller parties would distort proportional opportunity for minority voices by rewarding disproportionate benefit to larger parties at the cost of political pluralism
Conclusion
People hope that parties and leaders seriously deliberate on the issue and not just obviate attention from leaders’ alleged murky hands, in a series of recent corruption scandals. If at all, stability is the sincere political search, consideration for executive president or a collegial executive could be the alternatives. I foresee stability only after legitimizing sharing of the magical chair among top three leaders in rotation, on the Swiss model of collegial executive!
