Misrepresentation Of The People

The Partido Popular has lost a vote in the Balearic parliament. It is the first vote that it has lost during this administration. It will be the last. It was a vote lost because despite the PP having a clear majority, the majority is too low. A qualified majority of two-thirds of the parliamentary deputies was required for them to act like turkeys, vote for Christmas and to see sixteen of their number removed from the chamber. The PP motion to cut parliamentary representation was always destined to fail. The party has no friends in parliament. The motion, the debate, the vote were no more than symbolic.

Nevertheless, the process was worthwhile. Before President Bauzá got it underway, had anyone stopped to ask why the Balearics needed 59 deputies? His opponents refused to back the motion because they feared that a reduction would merely strengthen the PP and would "alter the basic rules of Balearic democracy". Bauzá argued that it was only a cost-cutting exercise: an annual saving of seven million euros. Neither view focused on the core issue. Why 59? And neither view addressed an underlying issue. Just who do these 59 represent?

The opposition speak of basic rules of democracy, but what do they mean? The representation of the people in the Balearics is significantly greater than the Spanish benchmark of one parliamentary deputy per 40,000 people. Basic rules of democracy were not about to have been broken had the Balearics ratio changed from one deputy per 19,000 people to 1:26,000, which is what would have happened if the motion had been accepted. But whether 43 or 59 deputies, there is the subsidiary question - who do they actually represent?

At present in parliament there is only deputy who can be considered to in any way represent a constituency, and that is Margalida Font, the single deputy for the island of Formentera. None of the others can be, because no deputy, including Sra. Font, has a constituency. Comparing the parliamentary system here to the one in Britain may not be fair, and it would be wrong to assert that the British system is by any means perfect or truly representative, but the constituency basis of that system does give greater accountability: an MP is, not always in practice of course, accountable to his or her constituents. In the Balearics there aren't constituents to be accountable to. The consequence of this is that a deputy's allegiance is to the party and to the party alone. There are no constituents to muddy the waters and potentially divide that allegiance.

Coming back to the number of deputies, it is hard to accept the opposition's argument that democracy would somehow be diminished if there were fewer of them. By standards of other parts of Spain, the Balearic parliament is over-represented and would still have been with 16 fewer deputies. But over-representation, even at an unnecessary cost of seven million euros a year, is preferable to under-representation, which brings us to Andalusia.

There, the ratio of deputies to population is one per 77,000, almost double the national benchmark, and it has of course just had a parliamentary election. For a population approximately eight times greater than that of the Balearics, Andalusia doesn't even manage to have twice as many deputies: 109 play the Balearics 59. The representation, whether too little or too great, is cockeyed. And in Andalusia it will be even more so if Susana Díaz does as she has said she will, which is to govern in minority.

The PSOE minority in Andalusia isn't to the tune of one or two seats. It is eight short of the 55 needed for a majority, a far from insignificant shortfall in terms of what her PSOE colleagues in the Balearics might deem to be the "basic rules" of democracy. And the 47 seats have been gained with a percentage share of the vote of just over one-third. How can governing in minority when the minority is as small as it is be considered to be adequately representative? It can't be. Díaz's proposal, supported by PSOE's national leader, Pedro Sanchez, is little short of a disgrace.

Why does she appear intent on minority government and so on avoiding coalition partners? Let's hazard a guess. The partner would have to be one or other of Podemos or Ciudadanos, both of them rivals to PSOE nationally. The last thing PSOE wants at present is to give either of them the credibility that would come from inclusion in a coalition and so also potentially strengthen their support nationally. But between them, Podemos and Ciudadanos gained a quarter of the share of the vote. Denying either of them the chance to be in government would be a snub to the electorate and an abuse of the system of proportional representation.