----- Original Message ----- From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 9:22 AM Subject: Re: Who is the sheriff?
> At 23:45 12-03-03 -0600, Dan Minette wrote: > > >Germany has proportional representation. If there are two big parties, > >each with 47.5% of the legislature, then a party with 5% can claim a > >pretty high price to make one of the two parties the top dog. > > In theory, yes, but that's not how it works in real life. In a multi-party > system (as opposed to a two-party system), one party rarely (if ever) gets > that big a share of the votes. To form a government, the party with the > most votes will try to form a coalition with one or more of the other major > parties, not just to create a majority, but to create as big a majority as > possible -- which means broader support for the government. Well, it doesn't work that way all the time, but I was referring to Germany: Lets look at the last election results: SPD 41.6% CDU/CSU 41.1% Green 9.1% FDP 7.8% PDS 0.3% The support of the Green party, with 9.1% of the vote is a required member of any government. This makes them the kingmaker for any new government. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
