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CONCEPT – FIRST PAST THE POST SYSTEM (FPTP)
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- The largest democracy: India is the largest democracy in the world, with more than 82 crore voters (2014). India's parliamentary government and First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system was a legacy of British colonialism, which ended in 1947.
- Self Government by the British: 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.
- Thinking through: 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. In the FPTP system, the candidate who polls the most votes (not necessarily majority votes) is selected.
- Universal suffrage: The Indian Constitution provides that all adult citizens who are 18 years or more of age, and who are not otherwise debarred from voting, can exercise their right to the franchise. Voters elect a Lok Sabha from single-member constituencies, and each of India's 29 states have the similar system. But the upper house of parliament – the Rajya Sabha – as well as the corresponding upper houses of the states (Legislative Councils) are indirectly elected by members of the state legislative assemblies. There is also a (non-executive) President and Vice-President elected by the members of parliament and state legislative assemblies.
- Majorities: The major effect of the electoral system was to guarantee majority governments based on a minority of voter support. The FPTP electoral system resulted in the ruling Congress party securing stable majorities in the Lok Sabha, usually against a fragmented opposition. But since 1977, when the opposition parties combined to form coalitions and started putting up common candidates against the Congress candidates (as was the case in the 1977 and 1989 general elections), the Congress majorities vanished.
- Nature of the system: In FPTP, even small changes in vote share often have a dramatic impact upon the shape of the resulting parliament.
- Most, not majority: 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.
- Reserving seats: Despite this drawback of the FPTP, the electoral system has retained a considerable degree of support, due in part to the practice of reserving seats for socially underprivileged groups. In the “reserved” constituencies, only a member of the Scheduled Castes or Tribes may contest the polls, although all electors have voting rights. This has ensured that their parliamentary representation is in line with their proportion of the population. A constitutional amendment, which seeks to reserve 33 percent of seats for women representatives, is also being considered.
- Proportional representation: Proportional representation (PR) tries to properly show the divisions in an electorate, in the final elected body. If n% of the electorate support a particular political party, then roughly n% of seats will be won by that party. The idea is that all votes contribute to the result, and not just a plurality of them.
- PR types: The most prevalent forms of proportional representation need the use of multiple-member voting districts (also called super-districts), as it is not possible to fill a single seat in a proportional manner. The most widely used families of PR electoral systems are party list PR, the single transferable vote (STV), and mixed member proportional representation (MMP). PR tries to resolve the unfairness of majoritarian and plurality voting systems where the largest parties receive an "unfair" "seat bonus" and smaller parties are disadvantaged and have difficulty winning any representation at all.
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