Document details

Useless votes: the dictatorship of the big parties in Portuguese democracy

Author(s): Carvalho Campina, Ana Cláudia ; Rodrigues, Carlos Augusto

Date: 2024

Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10284/15666

Origin: Repositório Institucional da Fundação Fernando Pessoa


Description

According to Portuguese legal order and as stated in the last Report of Freedom House 2024, Portugal is “a stable parliamentary democracy with a multiparty political system”, reinforcing that “civil liberties are generally protected.” However, across all the elections during the democratic regime along the last 50 year, there is a kind of dictatorship of the big parties in Portuguese democracy due the useless votes in each election. The principal reason is due the Hondt Method that presents different disadvantages, mainly linked to smaller parties and constituencies and the representativeness of constituencies. Hondt, the most used electoral method applied in the world, is a mathematic model that convert votes to mandates however the small parties and electorates representation are seriously affected, being translated in proportional application but not proportionally. In March 2024 from the Legislatives Elections there were 673.382 valid votes that didn´t elected representatives, what is serious and should be studied for legal and political re-action, “Democracy in the world” Report 2023 state that “Portugal fell from liberal to electoral democracy” but it is not a full democracy. The Portuguese Electoral Law for the Portuguese Assembly needs changes, probably with Compensatory constituencies protecting small parties and valuating all electors.

Document Type Conference paper
Language English
Contributor(s) Repositório Institucional da Fernando Pessoa
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