Elections 2019.

[Luffy 500]

Nepal's recent election is an eye opener for how proportional representation fosters stability and empowers the opposition. The Nepalese ditched the archiac british FPTP system in favor of a hybrid proportional system where 110 of its 275 seats are elected via party list proportional nation wide. The result - the pro-beijing/pro-nepal leftist coalition won but the opposition pro-indian Nepalese congress was NOT left high & dry. They managed to prevent the leftist coalition from gain 2/3 majority with just 46% votes. But if it was BD style FPTP system, the Leftist would have 70% of the seats as they managed to get 116 of the 165 FPTP seats with just 46% of the votes. The Nepalese congress would have been left high & dry with just 13% seats with 33% votes. The only thing that bought back semblance of fairness and prevented tyranical majority was the proportional element of the Nepali system. Nepali election system has lessons for BD and Nepalese do NOT have a care taker system btw.

@Banglar Bir @idune @Nilgiri @Al-zakir

 

[Nilgiri]

Nepal's recent election is an eye opener for how proportional representation fosters stability and empowers the opposition. The Nepalese ditched the archiac british FPTP system in favor of a hybrid proportional system where 110 of its 275 seats are elected via party list proportional nation wide. The result - the pro-beijing/pro-nepal leftist coalition won but the opposition pro-indian Nepalese congress was NOT left high & dry. They managed to prevent the leftist coalition from gain 2/3 majority with just 46% votes. But if it was BD style FPTP system, the Leftist would have 70% of the seats as they managed to get 116 of the 165 FPTP seats with just 46% of the votes. The Nepalese congress would have been left high & dry with just 13% seats with 33% votes. The only thing that bought back semblance of fairness and prevented tyranical majority was the proportional element of the Nepali system. Nepali election system has lessons for BD and Nepalese do NOT have a care taker system btw.

@Banglar Bir @idune @Nilgiri @Al-zakir

Its well spotted by you. But we will need a few election cycles to determine the long term effects of how incumbency and anti-incumbency factors play out and materialise in this system.

Would just like to add the "pro-beijing" thing is overdone tbh, all politicians in Nepal are connected and cocooned largely by Lutyens. Friend of mine for example, his father's friend is one that helped to mentor Oli, not in Katmandu, but in Delhi. In fact Oli in deference to Delhi, brokered the Mahakali river treaty with India (which favoured India many say) and did many pro-India things in the 90s and 2000s when he had various cabinet minister roles. Oli also was quite anti-Prachanda too for large part of his more recent tenure, yet now they are in a power sharing agreement....so enemies become bedfellows and we supposed to forget why they were enemies before . Thus the swing "away" is more for optics and political expedience/delineation than underlying premise (esp the narrow buffer dictated in first place by millions of Nepalis living, working and remitting from India). Problem for both of them is if they dont deliver results, large blocs of people will swing back to Nepal Congress party...and hardly any of these results are related to foreign policy in Nepali electorate mind.

Same reason why those calling themselves "Marxist" when you scratch beyond the surface are not really true Marxist at all....esp in the policy they end up implementing. You simply cannot have marxism in a democratic system.

It's also like saying all leftist parties in India are "pro-beijing" (like pro-moscow was used before)....their foreign policy may lean that way overall compared to others, but they are not really "pro" in the absolute scale.