mercredi 7 novembre 2012

A strange breed

Voters all over the world have become a very strange breed.  It would seem that they can not trust anybody enough to give them a clear mandate.  Where you have proportional representation systems, of course, coalitions are the norm but in systems such as the British patterned government systems they are not.
However, as of late in many countries voters seem to be unable to make a clear choice.  The U.S., for instance, will have, at least for the next two years, a Democrat President (Thank God), a Republican Chamber of  Representatives and a Democrat Senate; a clear recipe for legislative paralysis.  Britain has a coalition Conservative/Liberal government, odd bedfellows.
Québec very recently elected a minority government split evenly between Separatist P.Q. (54) and Liberal Federalists (50), the remaining seats split between a radical left party Q.S. also separatist leaning (2) and a the right leaning semi-federalist C.A.Q., about a dozen.  No one wants to coalesce with another so it will be negociations ad nauseam to pass legislation.
No wonder we have an unending  economic crisis and uncertain social climate.