After Bihar, the vote share vs seat share debate is back again. Here’s why this matters

We must first focus on the harder things that reduce the legitimacy of any election process in the eyes of the voters such as ensuring the independence of the Election Commission.

RJD got the majority vote share in the Bihar elections, their seat share was not proportional | Representational image | ANI


The dissonance between seat share and vote share has made headlines again after the Bihar elections. The Rashtriya Janata Dal won far fewer seats than their vote share would suggest, if proportionality were to be followed. And almost immediately, there were casual conversations everywhere on these lines: “The root cause of unfair electoral representation is that India follows the primitive FPTP or first-past-the-post system. We should instead move on to a ‘fairer’ Proportional Representation system, one in which the legislature represents the true vote shares.” But the lived experiences of Israel’s, and earlier, Italy’s, PR system show it’s riddled with problems too.

The PR system optimises for the proportional conversion of vote share into equivalent seat share. People vote for a party, not a candidate. In Israel, all parties with a vote count above a minimum threshold (3.25 per cent currently) are sure to have their representatives in the Knesset.

India follows the first-past-the-post system. Voters vote for a candidate. The one who polls the most votes wins. The parties fielding the losing candidates get zero seats, even if they poll just one vote less than the winning candidate’s party in every constituency. The disproportionality between the vote share and seat share is a feature of this system, not a bug. So, a party with a 30 per cent vote share can win a majority of seats and form a government.

Drawbacks of a PR system

Before we make up our minds about the two systems, we need to consider the three problems associated with PR systems in countries like Israel.

Issue 1: The purpose of an electoral system

A PR system can be perfectly representative and yet utterly dysfunctional.

Its proponents are right that it is fairer than FPTP in translating vote shares into seat shares. By design, it will also have the positive effect of having more political parties in the legislature.

At the same time, another inescapable feature of the PR system is post-election coalition-building, in which many fringe parties hold all the aces. Israel’s recent electoral struggles are a case in point. Many smaller extremist parties are openly demanding specific ministerial posts as a precondition for their support to Netanyahu. In a democracy that is nearly 150 times bigger than Israel, this problem of unstable and unworkable coalitions could get amplified. A government would be formed by a coalition of 20-30 parties, and the smaller partners would have disproportional leverage. Fewer governments will complete their full term. Israel has had 25 elections to the Knesset thus far, and only on nine occasions has the government completed or come closer to completing the four-year term. If you think that coming to power with a 30 per cent vote share is a problem, consider the fact that Netanyahu’s party (Likud), the biggest party in the ruling coalition, has just a 24 per cent vote share.

Confronting the trade-off between fairness in translating vote shares to seat shares and effectiveness in creating governments that can perform is inevitable. And it’s doubtful if the PR system in India can strike the right balance. The fundamental goal of an electoral system is not necessarily proportional representation but to render a government legitimate. On that count, Indian governments elected using the FPTP system have been broadly accepted by the Indian electorate after the elections. Recent issues of rushed-through voter list modification is testing the limits of this acceptance, but the government’s legitimacy to govern is not under serious question yet. The focus should be on improving the processes that can enhance legitimacy within the current framework.

Issue 2: The party vs the legislator

In a PR system, the legislator is virtually a rubber stamp, as candidates vote for parties, not specific candidates. The political party is at the front and centre of the system, unlike in an FPTP system, where people vote for individuals to represent them. In the Indian context, a political party is already an unhealthily powerful institution that has accreted more power through instruments such as the anti-defection law and electoral bonds. Switching to a PR system would break even the modicum of connection between legislators and the electorate.

Issue 3: The fringe as the centre

In a divided polity such as India’s, successful political parties have no option but to cater to a broad section of the electorate to win the 30-40 per cent vote share. In a PR system, parties have no incentive to appeal to a broad section of the electorate. As long as they can win the votes of a narrow group, they are assured of seats, which would be enough to make them “kingmakers”. Moreover, as the Israeli experience has repeatedly shown, a PR system can sometimes legitimise small, extremist parties, a result India definitely doesn’t need at this time.

Focus on ensuring legitimacy

These three issues highlight that the PR system might make us worse off. Of course, this debate between PR and FPTP is not new. Some countries, such as Germany, have tried a mixed-member system in which voters cast one vote for their legislator (who has to qualify through FPTP) and another for a party list (which then translates to seats on a proportional basis). But one thing’s for sure: Every alternative is path-dependent and not without its drawbacks.

The unthinking support for shifting to PR at the margins is a specific case of a general phenomenon I call the ‘tyranny of context’. The existing familiar system appears unworkable because we know its pitfalls too well. On the other hand, a reform from another country seems attractive because we don’t understand it at all.

Changing to a PR system alone is unlikely to result in better governance outcomes. While it has its advantages, on some parameters, it might make things worse. Whether FPTP or PR, we must focus on the harder things that reduce the legitimacy of any election process in the eyes of the voters: Ensuring the independence of the Election Commission, ending the anti-defection law, and reducing the incentives for electoral corruption.

Pranay Kotasthane is a researcher at Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)