Only half

4 December 2022, translated from Dutch by the author, using Google Translate, but carefully editing its results.

I found notes made on 12 April 2022, in which in fact I had described the same idea as the one I had again on the night of November 14 to 15, and which lead to this article. But with an important difference:

Then I proposed that half of the parliamentary seats would be determined in the first round of voting. In the second round, only the three largest parties would be allowed to participate, so that all voters could divide the other half of the seats among those three parties.

The advantage of my April proposal compared to November’s, is that smaller parties would still be represented in the House. There would not be just three parties in it by definition. However, those three parties together occupy at least half of the seats. In addition, they also have quite a few seats from the first round. This also has the advantage that it is easier to form a coalition government of one or two parties. This makes for a clearer and more effective government.

What is the effect of this in practice? All parties smaller than the largest three are halved. Those who only won one seat under the current system would be dropped. Those seats are shared between all other parties.

The largest three parties would also be halved, but in addition they get their share of the other half of the available seats in the House. That share may be proportional to first round results, but that is far from certain.

In the example I discussed in the previous article (only available in Dutch), it would mean that the largest three roughly get these numbers of seats: VVD 40, PVV 34, BBB 28. The advantage of simple majorities of one or two parties is no longer present in this example. Cumbersome negotiations with smaller parties would be needed again.

So this is not a good proposal. I retract it, and return to the previous one. Smaller parties are not in parliament at all. They can make a website to promote their ideas. They will have a new chance in the next elections.