Be careful of what you wish for

[WarBlade]

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 Austria and Jörg Haider, I have no idea.

Neo nazis? Militant environmentalists? In NZ? err . . .

Well technically it's possible for anyone to win, but first one must garner the vote and your examples are the kinds of people who would not get over the 5% threshold necessary to get into parliament. Environmentalists, sure. Militant anything, highly improbable.

The Green Party actually became a coalition partner in the last government, but they're a bunch of tree-hugging pacifists. :lol: Actually it was kind of cool there for a while having a member of parliament with knee length dreadlocks who got around on a skateboard! :lol: Intelligent guy though, even if I do disagree with him a lot.

As for neo-nazis, well they're not a problem here. I've heard of it happening, but when you get maybe a dozen zit-squeezing teens together trying to look menacing against a significant countrywide percentage of islanders backed up by most of the rest of us, well . . . it's a bit one-sided.

I see your point though. Someone with a bizarre agenda might get a voice. In reality that doesn't happen because they simply don't get the vote. The Christian Heritage party for example, who are interested in promoting Christian values and banning Marilyn Manson performances, can't get over the 5% threshold to get in. The Green Party by contrast have enough support that they did get in during the most recent election (they got in the time before because they won an electorate seat).

To recap a specific question . . .
"All the same, does not your MMP system allow one party with less than a majority of popular consensus to win?"

In a sense, yes, but to clarify: The Labour Party gained the most votes in the last election. Their traditional opposition, National, came in second as per usual. But in order to govern one still needs more than half of the seats available so a coalition must be formed if that hasn't happened already.

Currently Labour (a left-of-center party) leads with United Futures (a right wing family values proponent) and Labour's historical, yet small, ally Jim Anderton's (left idealist) giving them a further two seats. That's enough to govern and the coalition also have pledged support from the Greens on most issues.

Results Graph: http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/

The system only fell flat on its first application, where a third party became the swing vote against the two major players and actually went against popular consensus leading to a feeling of betrayal in many voters (We wound up with a right wing government when the votes indicated left). It was understandable though considering how people were still voing along traditional lines and had yet to get used to the new system.