Good Governance
Good Governance

Summary/Abstract: In many countries, ‘free and fair’ parliament elections precede a process of cabinet selection which, in contrast, is often far from transparent. In single party majority rule, the party which wins the election then forms the government, its leader becomes the premier, and he/she then has the power to hire and fire ministers, as it pleases. Where elections result in a number of parties being represented in parliament, none of which has a majority, there invariably follows a very opaque part of the democratic process: inter-party meetings, wherein various parties try to form a majority coalition, with ministries allocated to party functionaries in deals perhaps shady or worse. A third structure relates primarily to conflict zones, all-party power-sharing; in these situations, any negotiations by which a government is formed can be both problematic and protracted. It need not be so. In either a single-party majority rule, a majority or grand coalition, or a unity government, the parliamentary party or parties concerned could use a transparent voting procedure, a tabular mechanism by which every mp can vote, not only for those whom they wish to see in government, but also for each nominee’s ministerial post. It is called a matrix vote. This article will examine different government structures – one-party, two-party and multi-party states; it will examine the assumptions on which democracy is based, with particular regard to the fact that the right of a majority to rule is often interpreted to mean that political decisions can best be resolved by binary votes; it will consider a hypothetical example of the matrix vote; and finally, it will discuss the feasibility of an inclusive, all-party political structure.

• Details
• Contents