02/06/2007 00:00
TW
0
By Jason Moore CALLING all those of you who have been campaigning for proportial representation in Britain. It doesn't work. In the interest of democracy the Partido Popular must form the next Balearic government because they won by a landslide (in British terms) at the local elections on Sunday. If the British system of first-past-the-post had been used in the Balearics Jaume Matas would have been celebrating an enormous victory. But thanks to proportional representation he was a few thousand votes short of an outright majority. It would be outrageous if Matas was not in power and we had a repeat of the so-called rainbow coalition. The combined strength of these four parties is equal to Matas' share of the vote. The Partido Popular are busy at the moment analysing their election results and criticism has been levelled at Matas rather stupidly when you consider the above. At fault here is the election system.

However, one thing the party should remember as they look through the results; I sincerely doubt whether their inability to secure a majority had anything to do with the Balearic parliament having Cat for Cataluña rather than Es for España on their e-mail address. Perhaps it could have been the Andratx scandal or the enormous amount of building. But in the interest of democracy the most voted party should form the next government.