Valruzia

[Aethan]

The government proposes electoral law reform and the creation of a second chamber "for regional debates"

The reform would introduce a single nation-wide electoral district, and instead, districts would elect one representative to this new chamber

April 5691

Deputy Chancellor and minister of Internal Affairs Fryderyk Konik (Forward Valruzia) explaining the proposal to the press

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Early this morning, the government presented an electoral reform proposal that, if passed, would significantly change Valruzia's parliamentary politics as we know it today.

While the KPW government managed to amend the electoral law to allow citizens to vote from the age of 16 and raised the electoral threshold for Voivodeship to 3%, Krystian Barela's government is proposing a new reform: eliminating the five current constituencies, corresponding to the Voivodeships, and replacing them with a single national constituency, i.e., counting all votes and then distributing seats proportionally.

According to Deputy Foreign Minister and Interior Minister Fryderyk Konik, leader of the conservative Forward Valruzia party, this reform would give Valruzia “better representation of the will of voters at the national level,” eliminating “regional biases” and making all votes “count equally and have the same value.”

In this newspaper, we have carried out a simulation of how the current Sejm would look if the reform were to go ahead, assuming that the electoral threshold remained at 3% of the total votes:



As can be seen, ironically, the parties most affected by this reform would be the governing parties, Sovereign Valruzia and Forward Valruzia, which would each lose three seats. The winning party in the elections, the KPW, would also lose two seats, while the other political parties would see their parliamentary representation increase, notably the Valruzian Alliance, which, having been left out of the distribution of seats by Ruzia, saw a significant decrease in its number of representatives after the last elections. But it is precisely for this reason – the government parties' net seat loss, argues Fryderyk Konik, that "this reform is not partisan, but seeks to improve the political representation of the will of the people".

To push this reform through, the government needs the support of two-thirds of the chamber, i.e., a minimum of 401 votes in favor. The other political parties in parliament have not yet made a statement on the matter, but it is expected that those most affected by the current electoral law — Dignity and Progress, Our Homeland, and Valruzian Alliance — will vote in favor, which would add up to a total of 371 votes. This means that the reform would depend on the votes of Workers' Vanguard, as the KPW is expected to vote against it. All eyes will therefore be on the party led since the beginning of this year by MP Patrycja Juskina, who defeated the former general secretary and founder, Marcin Borkowski, in the primaries.

However, the government does not want to push this reform through on its own, but rather intends to approve it in conjunction with the creation of a second parliamentary chamber, a kind of “upper house,” which would serve to better represent “the sensibilities of the different Voivodeships.” The government's intention is that this new chamber—which has yet to be named—will have one representative for each council in Valruzia, that is, it would be made up of 73 seats (19 for Chynberg, 11 for Gryfit, 15 for Kampania, 13 for Ruzia, and 15 for Valusia), with the most voted party in each constituency as its candidate. This chamber would serve to hold debates on regional issues, and the government believes it would help “the parliamentary system to function better.”

If we use the results of the last elections, the composition of this chamber would be as follows:

The most represented party would be Forward Valruzia, which won 28 of the 73 constituencies. It would be followed by the KPW with 17, Soverign Valruzia with 14 and Workers' Vanguard with 13, while Valruzian Alliance would obtain one representative as the most voted party in the last elections in Solin County, which represents only 1.6% of the total population of the Voivodeship.

Perhaps this is where the greatest point of friction could arise, as parties such as Our Homeland and Dignity and Progress, which have practically never won in any county, may not be in favor of creating a chamber from which they are likely to be excluded. On the other hand, the KPW would always be assured of strong representation due to its significant electoral weight in Kampania. It is perhaps this difference in representative weight that will tip the balance one way or the other, as large cities such as Nowogard, Brzansk or Szary Kamien would contribute the same number of representatives — one — as counties such as Solin, which, despite its low population, would be on a par with representatives elected in constituencies that represent up to 20% of the total population of a Voivodeship.

In any case, negotiations are expected to be tough and lengthy, and although the government's most optimistic plans are to pass the reform before the next elections, internal sources say they would be satisfied with having it ready before the new century, although this may not be possible if the government changes after the next elections and this reform is shelved.

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