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107

Macron names right-leaning French government under Michel Barnier (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The lack of even the most basic understanding of parliamentary politics flying around in this thread is appalling, but certainly illustrates the reason why there are so many wild takes flying around on Lemmy.

To summarize:

The right got a 2/3rds majority in parliament. The united left had the most votes of any individual group, but that's only around 1/3 total.
The reason the left proclaimed they "won" is they came "first" and thought the center-right party would ally with them rather than the "hard right" (welp)
That, in isolation (!), isn't antidemoratic. A majority of French representatives (presumably) approve of the government. Simple maths. A government can only govern with the approval of parliament, it literally can't work otherwise.
However the French voting system very strongly relies on strategic voting, and the far-right came very close to having a parliamentary majority. Therefore the center-right party only got the seats they did because everybody left of the far-right made electoral agreements to pull out their candidates so only the candidate with the most chances to win against the far right would be running. This heavily benefited the center-right party who then allied with the hard right, which is being perceived as treason (for lots of reasons that I'm not going to get into). Strategic voting is a democratic failures and leads to suboptimal choices for representatives (thought that is still miles better than whatever the fuck the CCP is doing, since apparently that needs saying on here). Furthermore this whole shift to the right certainly isn't going to help with the socio-economic issues and is going to end up benefiting the far-right.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (6 children)

The left won a plurality, the right is in charge.

This is the counterargument to those who want multiparty democracy.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is a counter argument to having a constitution that allows the president to do what Macron did. There are basically nothing stopping him besides tradition and good will.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Every multiparty system allows someone to do what Macron did, it's baked in. When no party has a majority, multiple coalitions are possible. Someone has to choose which of those possibilities gets the first opportunity to make a government.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

As far as I know, by tradition, Macron should have taken the NFP's candidate as prime minister even though they only had a small majority. Then the assembly could have censored the government or not, basically triggering a new election if they did.
Macron, knowing what we want better than everyone else, took a shortcut by making shoddy alliances with the traditional right and the far right to name Barnier.

The only reason he refused to name Castet was because she wanted to reverse his retirement reform (which was also rejected by the far right, so it could have actually been removed). But the official communications were all about "nobody really won the election" or "it would be ungovernable".

Macron is a child throwing tantrums because what he wants is best and he knows better than us peasants, he sees himself as a benevolent dictator, as in, he is making the tough decisions because he knows he's right. And in our constitution, the president has extensive powers that allow him to act in such a way if he wants to, with basically no checks and balances but honesty and tradition.

And in all that, some members of his former government won seats at the assembly, and kept their positions as ministers too. So we had deputies-ministers, wrapping up the "urgent matters" and setting themselves up for their next jobs. They effectively wrote budgets that, they themselves will vote for in the next few weeks. That's effectively breaking the separation of power

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago

If I had £1 for every time the right had a mysterious unfair advantage in a democratic system, I'd buy myself a politician

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago

Nah nothing to do with multiparty, the problem is with the fith republic of France giving too much power to the president.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The prime minister of France is not an elected position but appointed by the president. This has nothing to do with multiparty democracy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What's the point of holding elections if the winner is an appointed position?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What? Not all positions are elected, in no system. Or when did you vote for secretary of state in the US?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Not all positions, but the head of government is elected in the US.

And if voters can't choose the head of government, what are they voting for?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

France has a Head of State, the President, and a Head of Government, the Prime Minister. The PM is appointed by the President. The President is the head of the Executive branch, and the PM is the head of the Legislative branch.
From the Wiki:

The political system of France consists of an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. Executive power is exercised by the president of the republic and the Government. The Government consists of the prime minister and ministers. The prime minister is appointed by the president, and is responsible to Parliament. The government, including the prime minister, can be revoked by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, through a motion of no-confidence; this ensures that the prime minister is practically always supported by a majority in the lower house (which, on most topics, has prominence over the upper house).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_France

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Right. So like I said, voters cannot choose the head of government.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

It's a bit more complicated than what you're saying, but sure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Different parties

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yes, everyone votes for their favorite party and then Macron decides.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Technically the left didn't win the majority of seat in the parliament. They have a relative majority as in they are the biggest group in parliament by a small margin but they don't have the majority needed to make a stable government.

A majority vote from the parliament can oust the PM and his government.

If you take all the right wing parties, they hold the majority of seats (2/3rd). A left leaning government would last 48 hours, so in spite of french leftists telling everyone they "won", they didn't.

Our electoral system is very flawed though and the current make up of the parliament is not representative of what people want, there are much better voting system for plurality based political system that could be implemented.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (4 children)

In every country the biggest party would be the one that would at least get a first shot at forming a government.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

And if the leader of the second biggest party would rather work with the third biggest party?

Then the biggest party could well remain out of government, because someone decided that a different coalition would form the government.

The virtue of a two party popular vote is that once the votes are counted there is a clear winner determined by the voters, and nobody can change the winner behind the scenes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

As long as the coalition represents the majority, I don't see why the largest party needs to be part of the government. The largest party doesn't represent the will of the people by itself, otherwise they would have a majority.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yes, that ends up happening sometimes, but the winner will at least be allowed to try.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Coalition building happens in a two party system, too. The difference is that it happens before the election, not after. That way the voters, not the coalition builders, get the final say.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In a two party system the power balance within the coalition is decided behind closed doors and the voters have no say in it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's true, but they have complete control of who wins the election.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Two choices is not complete control

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The winner of the election reflects the will of the majority of voters. That's the most control you can get in a democracy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Lol, sure it does

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

They did. They proposed a candidate and she wasn't accepted.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Counter examples exist. Willy Brandt was social-democratic German chancellor in a coalition with the liberals while the conservatives were the biggest party in parliament. The conservatives could only watch.

Also recent state elections in Thuringia, the fascist AfD is the biggest party but nobody wants to work with them, so they don't get a chance to form a government.

What's important in both cases: the majority of voters want it that way. They wanted a social-democratic+liberal government under Willy Brandt and there is a clear majority in Thuringia that don't want the AfD to govern. In both cases it's more democratic to not let the biggest party govern.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Germany

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Cite some example

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Check Poland's last parliamentary election.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The United Right alliance placed first for the third straight election and won a plurality of seats but fell short of a Sejm majority. The opposition, consisting of the Civic Coalition, Third Way, and The Left, achieved a combined total vote of 54%, managing to form a majority coalition government.

So exactly the opposite of what you said.

The party with the largest number or seat didn't get to make a government and the largest coalition who managed to get a majority of seats did.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They did get thay opportunity from the president. The prime minister didn't get a vote of confidence after a month of trying to pull a majority together. But they did get a chance, unlike french left.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Oh so a right wing president tried to push a right wing PM against a majority left leaning parliament disregarding the vote result and failed ?

You have weird notions of what makes good governance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's my point. In a multiparty system, it's rare for a party to win a majority. So someone can win even though the majority prefers a different person.

For example, suppose there are three candidates A,B, and C. It's possible for 60% to prefer A over B, 60% to prefer B over C, and 60% to prefer C over A. No matter who wins, a majority agrees that they are worse than another candidate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

There are other voting system than first past the post like Condorcet, coda, etc.. nothing is a absolutely perfect but some system will be closer.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

None of those can avoid the situation I described above where a majority oppose the winner.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

*looks at FPTP countries with two party systems* yeah, they are doing grand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Italy and Israel are among the purest forms of multiparty democracy, and I'll take any FPTP government over those two.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You think Italy's and Israel's problems are due to their form of democracy? 🤣🤣🤣

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

In part, yes. It gives extremists more voice in government then they deserve.