Selecting an Electoral System to Enhance Representative Democracy and to Respond to Challenges in Sustainable Communities: Proportional, First Past the Post or Mixed System: A Sri Lankan Perspective

Abstract

In the modern world, only a democratically elected government will gain the recognition as a legitimate government. A state can enhance representative democracy only by adopting an accurate and appropriate electoral system to their election laws. Presently to meet the challenges of this globalized world, most nations have begun to see the need for a suitable electoral system. Quintessentially parliament must mirror public opinion and each and every democratic state should focus on the integrity of electoral system. As we are aware, in Sri Lanka, under the Constitutions of Donoughmore, Soulbury and the First Republican Constitution our electoral system was a ‘First Past the Post’ (FPP) system. Under the 1978 Constitution our electoral system has been changed into a ‘proportional representation’ (PR) system. In this post-conflict era to give a sustainable solution to the ethnic conflict and to sustain democracy the need of enhancing people’s appropriate representation in parliament is essential. Therefore changes to the electoral system are determined as indispensable. So as a result, the main question which dominates the debate on electoral reforms is “should we abandon the present PR system and adopt the FPP system we have experienced previously or adopt some mixed or hybrid system?” The purpose of this paper is to research on this question which is crucial to the present debates on constitutional reforms necessary to solve the present ethnic conflict and to respond to the challenges in sustainable communities. Accordingly, the main purpose of the author is to analyse the drawbacks and benefits of each systems.Apparently, both systems have failed to enhance the representative democracy in a meaningful way.