Is the country ready for PR system?

The 13th National election is expected to be held next year under the interim government. Political parties' divided opinions over the procedure of the election are quite manifested as some political parties want a PR system election while other parties oppose it.

In the PR system, there would be no constituency-based election. The voters will cast their votes to political parties instead of candidates. A party will get parliamentary seats based on the percentage of votes it receives. In this case, the country will follow a PR system in one house and constituency-based election in another house. Elections are conducted between registered political parties instead of individual candidates. There will not be 300 constituencies. Conversely some political parties demand an existing system of election to the lower house and the ratio of seats in the upper house will be decided by the number of seats a party receives in the lower house.

We understand that the constitution must be amended to hold elections under the PR system. Also, there are some other complications. Striking a political consensus to implement this approach soon might be difficult. Culturally, we are accustomed to the current system, under which a party needs to get a majority of seats to form a government. That means they have to get more than 150 seats or a coalition government can be formed if this number of seats is not won by any party.

Elections under the proportional representation (PR) system can make it difficult for a single party, by no means to form a government, even forging of coalition with the parties might be a difficult task and obstacle to form the government or would make the government very fragile if the parties leave the coalition. Under the PR system, we can franchise our voting rights, but we do not know the person who we are voting for. In our country PR is a new system and the majority of people are not familiar with this. So, we need time for establishing PR system elections in the country.

In this situation, and to avoid the existing differences in opinion among political parties, we may hold 13the national election under the existing system and at the same time all political parties should have a political pledge and a consensus on the PR system for 14th national election upon constitutional amendments by the new elected government.

Abu Taher

Kawran Bazar, Dhaka

abutaher011@gmail.com