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In the debate about electoral process, there have been two main themes. First concerns the effects of electoral process on the proportionality of representation and the possibilities for minorities to be represented. Second, concerns the effects of electoral systems on parties and consequently on the viability and effectiveness of democratic government.

Elections to a single office are inherently majoritarian and disproportionate, but the majority-runoff method gives small parties a chance to produce a respectable showing in the first round, some bargaining leverage between rounds, and hence a sizable incentive to participate in such elections. Plurality system favours the large parties and especially the two largest, which are the only parties with a reasonable chance to win, and hence encourages the development and maintenance of two-party systems.

In a two-party system the legislature may well include member’s numbers from smaller parties – for instance, the British House of Commons normally contains about ten parties. But in a two-party system the major parties predominate, and one of the two is likely to win a majority victory in parliamentary elections.

Plurality system often creates a one-party majority of legislative seats out of less than a majority of popular vote cast for the winning party. All of the one- party majorities in the United Kingdom since, 1945 and in New Zealand since 1954 have been such examples. The normal party system under proportional representation is a multiparty coalition cabinets (or sometimes minority cabinets) needs to be formed.

The conventional argument is that two-party systems are preferable because they produce one-party cabinets that are internally united and hence strong and decisive – in contrast to coalition cabinets, whose continual need to make compromises makes them weak and indecisive. When post –

World War II Western parliamentary democracies are compared, two-party democracies do not have better record than multiparty democracies on managing the economy (stimulating economic growth and controlling inflation and unemployment) or maintaining public order and peace. Critics of the British two-party system have explained the superior performance of a multiparty democracy like the German in terms of steadiness and continuity.

They point out that a steady hand is better than a strong hand and that centrist coalitions encourage continuity in public policy that alternating parties cannot achieve. Similarly, proportional representation and coalition governments in religiously and linguistically divided countries have a greater capacity of reaching compromise and of formulating broadly acceptable policies than more narrowly based governments. Two-party systems do have the advantage of providing clear government accountability. The voters know that the governing party is responsible for past public policies. When these are judged favourably, the voters can reward the ruling party by returning it to power; when they are seen to have failed, power can be turned over to the opposition party. But greater accountability does not necessarily spell greater responsiveness to citizens’ interests.

There is no evidence that coalitions are less responsive than one-party majority cabinets. On the contrary, coalitions are usually closer to the center of the political spectrum, and hence closer to the ideological position of the average voter, than one-party cabinets representing the left or the right. But supporters of plurality and two-party systems can legitimately regard government accountability as a value in and of itself -just as, for many proportional representation advocates, proportionality is an ultimate value.

Both supporters and critics of proportional representation agree that proportional representation elections yield greater proportionality, than plurality system. Greater proportionality means better minority representation, not only in the sense of the representation of minority political parties but also in terms of better representation of religious and ethnic minorities. Moreover, the representation of religious and ethnic minorities. Moreover, the representation of women – a political rather than a numerical minority – is much stronger in proportional representation than in plurality systems.

Party unity and Cohesion:

The unity and cohesion of political parties, and the encouragement of alliances between parties, are affected in important ways by the electoral process. Party unity is lessened when members of the same party have to run against each other; hence to the extent that electoral processes give them an incentive to do so, party unity tends to decrease.

With respect to unity the clearest contrasts emerge between different plurality and proportional representation systems. Most plurality systems do not entail competition between candidates of the same party, but this element is introduced by the direct primaries of the United States.

List Systems can range from closed-list to open-list systems. When the lists are completely closed, as in Israel, voters can merely choose the lists of candidates as these are nominated by the parties without expressing preferences for one or more of these candidates. At the other extreme, lists can be completely open, as in Finland, where the voters vote for both a party and for a candidate within the party; so voters determine which candidates will occupy the seats won by the party list.

An example of an intermediate from is Belgian list system, where voters can vote for the entire list nominated by the party or for an individual candidate, and where lower placed candidates can win election over higher placed candidates if they succeed in collecting a specified minimum number of preferential votes.

Electoral alliances between parties are encouraged by the alternatives vote, single transferable vote, two-ballot systems, and list systems. Examples of interparty alliances that have been stimulated by the inducements to collaboration of these electoral systems are the virtually permanent partnership of the Australian Liberal and National Parties, the occasional collaboration between fine Gael and the Labour Party in Ireland, and the alliances of the left and the right in the multiparty but two-bloc French party system