Small parties likelier to win seats under new system Any disproportion to be rectified Stabroek News November 9, 2000 The new electoral system has a mix of geographic and gender representation but does not alter the principle of proportional representation. Therefore, smaller parties may have a chance of getting into the National Assembly with fewer seats than before but there will be a mechanism to expand the number of seats to correct for any disproportion. Twenty-five seats in the National Assembly will be allocated geographically. These will be spread out amongst the ten regions according to a formula prescribed by the President, but largely reflecting the different populations of the regions. As an example of how geographical seats would be won, take a region with two geographical seats and 10,000 votes. First divide 10,000 by two and remember the number 5,000. Imagine 'Party A' wins 7,000 votes; it would get the first seat. The second seat would be won by the party which has the most votes either left over once 5,000 has been taken away from its total or what it received as its total amount. If 'Party B' wins 3,000 votes it would get the second seat because 3,000 is larger than the 2,000 remaining from 'Party A's' votes. If 'Party A' gets 8,000 votes and 'Party B' 2,000, 'Party A' would win both seats because 'Party A's' remainder (3,000), would still be larger than 'Party B's' total vote. In a larger region with perhaps five seats, the total number of votes cast--for example 80,000--would be divided by the five seats to give 16,000. If 'Party A' were to get 50,000 votes it would win three seats (three times 16,000 = 48,000) with a remainder of 2,000 votes; 'Party B' with 20,000 would win one seat (with a remainder of 4,000 votes) and 'Party C' with 10,000 would win the last seat. Once the 25 geographic seats have been worked out, the Elections Commission would then calculate the distribution of the other 40 national seats in Parliament to make sure they reflect the total percentage of votes cast in the elections. There is also provision for the adjustment of the number of seats. Clause 9 (4) of the passed bill says "the total number of seats in the National Assembly that are derived from geographical constituencies shall be such that the number of seats not derived from geographical constituencies is sufficiently large to correct any overall disproportionalities that might arise from the allocations of seats to geographical constituencies". The names of the parliamentarians to fill these seats would come from a national list provided by each of the parties. So if 'Party A' got 57% of the vote it would have to have 37 total seats out of the 65 regardless of the distribution of the geographic seats. This could lead to an increase in the number of seats in Parliament to cater for the fact that some of the geographic seats would have been won with less than the 7,000 votes currently needed to win a seat. This was calculated by dividing 445,000 votes by 65 seats. The alteration to Article 60 of the Constitution states, "...such number of members of the National Assembly as determined by the Assembly shall be elected in accordance with the system of proportional representation prescribed by Article 160." The alteration to Article 160 states, "The seats of the said elected members in the Assembly... shall be allocated between the lists in such a manner that the proportion that the number of such seats allocated to each list bears to the number of votes cast in favour of that list nearly as may be the same for each list, thus minimising the level of disproportionality between the percentages of votes earned by lists and the percentage of seats allocated to lists in the cases of individual geographical constituencies, if they exist and of the Assembly as a whole." While there may be more geographical representativeness, the main political parties have made sure that those persons voted in as geographical parliamentarians are still bound to their parties. The amendment to Section 160 states, "a person may stand as a candidate for election in any such geographical constituency only if... he has declared his support with one and only one of the lists" of a particular party. In addition, members of Parliament who might wish to switch parties even for the most noble of reasons are no longer allowed to do so. Amendment to Article 156 states, "A member... elected on a list shall be disqualified from being a member of the National Assembly if he or she declares that he or she will not support the list from which his or her name was extracted... or declares his or her support for another list." Gender representativeness is so far only catered for by the statement that the Parliament can pass legislation to address "the minimum number or proportion of female candidates on a party's lists for geographical constituencies." It has been forwarded that the party lists would be required to contain at least one third female members but it is not clear whether the parties will fill the seats in Parliament by the same proportion. (William Walker) Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today