At 08:25 AM 5/10/99 -0400, Steve Kurtz wrote:
>
>BBC Friday, May 7, 1999 Published at 17:32 GMT 18:32 UK
>
>Historic Green victory
>The Scottish Green Party is celebrating a political landmark
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Since I lived in Scotland till I was 21 (1960); am a Green Party member in
Canada; and am an advocate of citizen-initiated referenda and proportional
representation (PR); I followed the Scottish Election with interest
The other interesting phenomenon about the election results was that, due
to the PR system, Labour has a minority government, and looks like forming
a coalition with Liberal Democrats.
As the following results clearly show, under the old FPTP
(first-past-the-post) system, which predominates in Canada, and, I believe
in the US, Labour would have had an overwhelming majority government
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BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/vote_99/default.htm
State of the parties
After 73 of 73 constituency seats declared After 8 of 8 regions declared
Constituency Region Total % FPTP %Total
(FPTP) (Top Up) Seats Seats
Lab 53 3 56 72.6% 43.4%
SNP 7 28 35 9.6% 27.1%
Con 0 18 18 0.0% 14.0%
LibD 12 5 17 16.4% 13.2%
Others 1 2 3 1.4% 2.3%
Totals 73 56 129 100.0% 100.0%
Voter Turnout 58%
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So is this a FAIR result, and one to be applauded?
Or will it just gum up the works, make decisions difficult, result in
compromises, etc.
Or will politics just continue regardless?
Colin Stark
