Indi.ca, I am worried about what will happen next.
Of course that means the immediate aftermath of the conflict between real people being able to really harm each other. I do not like that one bit, and this should be avoided at all cost.
But I am more worried from a larger perspective about Sri Lankans not picking the right system for the future of Sri Lanka.
Remember the Arab Spring in Egypt?
They got a change of system, but they put the South-American version of democracy in place. It is the most difficult democratic version in the world because it is AND proportional representation AND an empowered president. It is a difficult and actually stupid system and I believe it may have been put in place on purpose so Egypt would not become a real democracy.
Almost no one in the world is educated about voting systems.
Can I say that out loud:
No one in the West, the East, the South or the North knows anything about voting systems but their own. Their leaders don’t educate people about voting systems because all voters would then want the better voting system.
So, folks end up thinking that their own voting system is just like the voting system everywhere else.
Not true.
-Voting systems with winner-take-all (and nothing else) give power to the elite, but then the elite fights with the elite -- which one can say ends up being better for all. Still, that battle benefits the elite more than society.
-Voting systems with full representation (and nothing else) give power to everyone, and everyone needs to deal with everyone (good, but rather complicated).
-Voting systems with a mixture of the two can go either FULLY to the elite (one-winner-taking-all can then manipulate all the other representatives that were elected fairly so none of them are powerful enough to hold down the one winner-in-top) or it can go to give power to large political groups but not super large (in which the two or three largest groups must then work together to get anything done).
How we vote is ESSENTIAL to how our society ends up functioning in the long run. Sri Lanka had a system, and it ended up being a corrupt failure. The system must be reinvented.
Indi.ca,
There are hardly any folks in the world that talk about the societal push that systems make. They all look at the people in the controlling places for guidance, but they don't look at the system that guides society even more strongly. They don’t realize that systems can be dictators by themselves, without any actual person being involved other than the now-dead people in the past picking that particular system.
Let's talk shop if you are interested. It's not about today, and that breaks my heart. It is about how to make Sri Lanka become and then remain a good nation for all people in the future.
It may means to break the idea that one leader should have all the reigns in the nation. King Arthur may be King, but it is the round table that made his court successful. Same in Europe, the best nations for their own people do not have a president but a manager (a chancellor, like Angela Merkel).
Close to no nation outside Europe has proportional voting without an empowered president. They all have that empowered president in top. Presidents can get corrupted more easily than systems without a strong president in top.
