Mark Wil­son

In just two weeks, Ger­many's An­gela Merkel faces the vot­ers in a bid for an­oth­er term as chan­cel­lor. In the opin­ion polls, her par­ty is a good 15 points ahead of its near­est ri­val.Easy win? Per­haps not. Ger­many, like most of Eu­rope and Latin Amer­i­ca, us­es a pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion elec­toral sys­tem; An­gela's like­ly 40 per cent of the votes would give her pret­ty much 40 per cent of the seats–more than any­one else, but not enough to rule alone.

Like­ly coali­tions are named for the par­ty colours–tiger-duck (black and yel­low–the cur­rent al­liance with the mi­nor­i­ty Free De­moc­rats), traf­fic light (red, yel­low, green), Ja­maica (black, yel­low, green), piz­za con­nec­tion (green-black) and so on. In most Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries, win­ners are cho­sen seat by seat. First-past-the-post gets you elect­ed. The over­all na­tion­al vote share counts for noth­ing. Small par­ties get squeezed. Coali­tions are un­usu­al.

Vot­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go get ex­cit­ed by the big, se­ri­ous is­sues–Row­ley's hair, Jack's un­chal­lenged rep­u­ta­tion, Kam­la's tire­less ear­ly-morn­ing starts. The vot­ing sys­tem bores most of the cus­tomers rigid; but that's what re­al­ly de­cides the out­come.Ask any 16-year-old. For stu­dents tak­ing CSEC's So­cial Stud­ies ex­am, the fine points of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion are part of the com­pul­so­ry syl­labus. Grip­ping stuff.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers