The politics of Fiji?

The referendum on the type of voting system we should adopt in General Elections in the UK takes place on May 5.

I began to worry immediately I saw a leaflet about it come through our letterbox festooned with the photos of celebrities. ‘Because Stephen Fry and Joanna Lumley think a certain way you should too’, seemed to be the message. ‘Oh dear’, I thought.

The choice is between retaining the old ‘first past the post’ system and the arrangement known as the Alternative Vote (AV), in which voters rate candidates in order of preference on their ballot paper. The appeal of AV seems to be that minority parties have more chance of getting a say. But is that always a good thing? If we think that Christian parties might at last find a platform under AV, it might also mean that extreme Islamists and the BNP will do so too. And remember that AV is not the same as proportional representation. Its results do not even have that degree of ‘fairness’ about them. Some say it is also likely to lead to mediocre candidates in power, with second and third choice names on the ballot paper coming out on top. I understand that the only countries which presently use the AV system are Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji and that the latter is now seeking to ditch it.