According to ACE Encyclopaedia Version 1.0 (2024): “India’s parliamentary government and First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system, ..., is a legacy of British colonialism, which ended in 1947. The British introduced self-government to India in stages, but it was not until the end of colonial rule and the adoption of the Indian Constitution in 1950 by a Constituent Assembly that universal suffrage were achieved. The Constituent Assembly, which comprised a number of eminent jurists, lawyers, constitutional experts and political thinkers and laboured for almost three years, debated the issue of which electoral system should be adopted at great length before finally choosing a FPTP electoral system. Various systems of proportional representation were considered and attracted many advocates, given India’s extremely diverse and multi-ethnic society, but FPTP was chosen mainly to avoid fragmented legislatures and to help the formation of stable governments - stability being a major consideration in a developing country with widespread poverty and illiteracy.” (Access Electoral Systems Encyclopaedia, Accessed on 19 April, 2024).
Interestingly, the ACE Encyclopaedia Version 1.0 (2024) also elucidates that:
“The overall results of elections to the Lok Sabha have never been proportional. Because the candidate who obtains the most votes, but not necessarily a majority of votes polled, is declared elected, support can often be divided by setting candidates of the same caste, religion, or region against each other.”
First-past-the-post voting system:
According to the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage in its article titled: ‘First past the post’, on 13 January, 2016 observed:
First-past-the-post voting (FPTP or FPP) is a plurality voting system wherein voters cast a vote for a single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins the election. Analogous systems for multi-winner contests are known as plurality block voting or “block voting” systems; both FPTP and block voting are “plurality” systems in that the winner needs only a plurality of the votes and not an absolute majority (greater than half).
The structure of the Houses of Parliament:
The website unacademy.com on its website page titled: Understanding Lok Sabha Elections In Detail, specifies that:
“As per the constitution, the Lok Sabha is the House of the People, the lower house of India’s bicameral Parliament House, and the upper house is the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are chosen via an universal adult suffrage plus a first-past-the-post system to stand for their respective constituencies.” (unacademy.com, accessed on 19 April, 2024)
“Members of Lok Sabha (House of the People), otherwise the lower house of Indian Parliament House, are chosen by being voted upon via every adult citizen of India, from a set of candidates who contest in their relevant constituencies. Each adult citizen of India can vote just in their constituency. Candidates who prevail in the Lok Sabha elections are referred to as ‘Member of Parliament and clasp their seats for five years or until the body is suspended by the President at the suggestion of the council of ministers. Elections occur once in 5 years to choose 543 members for the Lok Sabha (Lower house).” (unacademy.com, accessed on 19 April, 2024).
Existence of Bias in the FPTP System:
According to Pani et al. (2023) in their research article entitled: The National Bias of India’s First-Past-The-Post System, which was published in the Journal of ‘Studies in Indian Politics’:
The article addressed the question as to whether the first-past-the-post electoral system that India uses was entirely neutral in the dynamic between the local and the nation? (Pani et al., 2023).
Pani et al. (2023) by developing a model that captured the effects of the share of the votes of national parties, as well as the concentration of national and local votes, on the performance of national and local parties, concluded from their empirical evaluation that the FPTP system pointed to an overall national bias, which was eroded over time by the emergence of regionally dominant local parties.
Comparison of the Electoral Systems:
W. Glenn Harewood (2002) enunciates the following points of consideration:
Advantages of First-Past-The-Post System:
n First, when operated with single member constituencies, it provides for a direct relationship between the member of the legislature and the local constituency.
Disadvantages of First-Past-The-Post System:
n First, it cannot be relied upon to provide a legislature reflecting the various shades of opinion expressed at the election and it does not necessarily place in power a government supported by the majority of the electorate.
n Second, the First-Past-The-Post system is a winner-take-all system that can deny representation in the legislature to quite substantial levels of minority opinion and can provide large differences in the number of representatives elected with only a small difference in the number of votes obtained through the operation of the winning bonus. (Harewood & Metamode Institute, 2016, p. 2).
Alternative Voting [AV] System:
Advantages of the Alternative Vote System:
n First, it requires the winning candidate to obtain a majority of the vote. A situation is therefore avoided where a candidate can be elected on a little over one third of the vote, and where there are three candidates who are relatively evenly supported by the voters.
n Second, the system also overcomes the problem of vote splitting: voters can exercise a choice between two similar candidates without the fear that a third, unacceptable, candidate may be elected.
n Third, the Alternative Vote system provides a dampening effect on the Plurality system’s characteristics wherein there is a concentration of party representation on a geographical basis, and a tendency to provide an outcome of exaggerated majorities. (Harewood & Metamode Institute, 2016, p. 3).
Proportional Representation, or [PR]:
n Proportional Representation systems are widely used in Europe and in Australia for upper houses. Proportional Representation systems attempt to relate the allocation of seats as closely as possible to the distribution of votes. Many Proportional Representation systems have been developed to overcome the problems of proportionality that are associated with single member constituencies which use either plurality or majoritorian systems. (Harewood & Metamode Institute, 2016, p. 4).
Whether the FPTP system should be retained:
Chris Bradshaw opines that:
“Every insincere vote is a blank cheque issued to a winner, or a false form of encouragement for a high ranking loser. It is not a politically sustainable practice, for the voter or for our democracy.”
According to the article entitled: FIRST-PAST-THE-POST HAS GOT TO GO written by Chris Bradshaw and published in the Canadian Political Science Journal namely: “OPTIONS POLITIQUES” in the JULY-AUGUST 2001 edition:
“Small parties often whine about the unfairness of the electoral system. In fact, it is unfair to them, but it’s also bad for the system as a whole. It gives rise to strategic behaviour, both by the political parties, inside and outside of Parliament, and by voters themselves. Votes cast for strategic reasons obscure voters’ true preferences and therefore hinder genuine democratic expression. The political parties implicitly endorse this view by using serial ballots to elect their leaders and candidates. Many substitute systems are possible, but first-past-the-post has got to go.”
