Election expert Dr Mads Qvortrup says that under the proportional representation (PR) system of voting, that Prime Minister Patrick Manning is completely opposed to having included in a new constitution, the ruling party would still win a majority of the seats in Parliament.

It will just be a smaller majority than it won in the 2007 General Elections.

’Some claim that PR can lead to rule by minorities. This is never the case. In fact, it is the other way round. In Trinidad and Tobago, the PNM has 63 per cent of the seats with less than 50 per cent of the votes - 46 per cent of the votes to be exact. Under PR Manning’s party would get in the region of 45 per cent of the seats but never more than 50 per cent of the seats,’ Qvortrup said in an interview with the Express on Tuesday.

He did so during the YesTT International Conference themed -Strengthening Democratic Processes & Good Governance - at the Hilton Trinidad hotel, St Ann’s on Tuesday where he delivered an address on the concepts of PR, referendum and recall on Monday.

Proportional representation is proving to a major stumbling block to any agreement between the Government and the Opposition on a new draft constitution.

Opposition Leader Basdeo has based his version of a new constitution on that system of voting as he says it will ensure the executive president does not have a majority in the Parliament, since each party will get seats depending on how many votes they get while Manning says it will divide the country along racial and ethnic lines.

Qvortrup, who is a senior research fellow at the University College in London, did a calculation based on the data from 2007 General Election and also on Suriname’s PR system that showed under PR in this county, the PNM would gain 40 per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives with 46 per cent of the votes while the UNC would get 30 per cent of the seats with 30 per cent of the votes.

He said that the COP, which won 22 per cent of the votes in the last general election but not a single seat in the Lower House would get ’20 per cent of the seats with 23 per cent of the votes’ under a PR system.

He added that the first-past-the-post electoral system in existence in Trinidad and Tobago, ’virtually guarantees rule by the largest minority.’

’PR would remove the largest party’s majority and its ability to boss the other parties around. That would make it more democratic,’ Qvortrup said.

The PR issue was a source of great debate during the YesTT conference with views expressed in favour of it and against by several panelists.

Speaker of the National Parliament in Guyana Ralph Ramkarran dismissed any suggestions that PR does not work in his country while Professor Bhoe Tewarie, Pro Vice Chancellor of Planning and Development at the University of the West Indies said raises concerns as to whether ’you can lose the power of Parliamentary oversight’ while adding that the normal outcome of the PR system is coalition forming.

’I think that is important in our circumstances in Trinidad and Tobago,’ Tewarie said.