Be careful of what you wish for

[kandrathe]

Was it not a MMP paliamentary system thet elected Jörg Haider in Austria. Could not the same thing happen in New Zealand? But, rather than neo-Nazi's, would perhaps be militant environmentalists? I recall the some problems with French commando's round July 10, 1985... All the same, does not your MMP system allow one party with less than a majority of popular consensus to win?

To be considered a major party here in Minnesota, one must consistently have results in a major elections of over 5%. In our last election here in Minnesota, a liberal ("Democratic") candidate's campaign worker ran under a third party ("Constitution") ticket with the express purpose of siphoning off conservative ("Republican") votes to enable the liberal to win. It didn't work, but I could see how a with some better organization and deception, a multi party system could be fractionalized to enable the party with around 25% of the vote to wrest power. Then consider that in most parts of the United States less that 40% of the people even bother to vote; you could theoretically take over with only a dedicated 10% of the population.