Binomial Electoral System Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The binomial electoral system is a unique legislative electoral system used in Chile. The system is part of the comprehensive reform of the Chilean political system imposed by Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, which was defeated in a popular plebiscite in 1988. The binomial system remains the military government’s primary and most controversial institutional legacy.

In designing the binomial system, the military government sought to transform Chile’s historic multiparty system by reducing the number of political parties, diminish the power of the left, and provide electoral benefits for the right. Reformers assumed that a small-magnitude (i.e., seats per district) system would reduce the number of political parties, purportedly enhancing stability; however, they knew a single-member district system would shut the right out of congress. Reformers opted for the binomial system to balance the transformational and electoral interests of the military and rightist parties.

Under the binomial electoral system, each party or coalition can present two candidates in each of the sixty Chamber of Deputies and nineteen Senate districts. The system uses open lists, where voters indicate a single preference from one of the two-seat lists. Though preference votes are candidate centered, list votes are first pooled together to determine how many seats each list wins. Seats are then awarded to individual candidates based on their rank order using the D’hondt counting method, which means that the first-place list in a district can only win both seats if it more than doubles the vote total of the second-place list. If it does not, each of the top two lists wins a single seat. In most districts the two largest coalitions (the center-left Concertación and the right-wing Alianza) split the seats, because the only way for a leading coalition to win both is to outpoll its nearest competitor by two to one.

The binomial system failed its initial goal of reducing the number of political parties. Rather, parties now compete as multiparty coalitions but maintain separate identities and electoral bases. The system has provided disproportionate benefits for the right. Because the Concertación would require a supermajority in most districts to double the electoral power of the right, and the Concertación’s level of electoral support has hovered around 55 percent and the Alianza’s at around 40 percent, in functional terms the coalitions simply divide seats in most districts, providing an electoral bonus for the right. The system also has succeeded in marginalizing the non-Concertación left, or any small party that fails or refuses to strike an electoral bargain with one of the two major coalitions.

Although the first four postauthoritarian Chilean presidents proposed reform of the system, opposition from rightist parties stymied reforms. Proponents of the system contend that it has brought stability and governability to Chile, arguing that small magnitudes have helped transform the historically fractious party system by providing incentives for the formation of two long-standing multiparty coalitions. Critics argue that it provides a lock on power for the two main coalitions, excludes small parties, and limits representation and accountability, given its tendency to concentrate the power over candidate selection in the hands of elites.

Bibliography:

Magar, Eric, Marc R. Rosenblum, and David J. Samuels. “On the Absence of Centripetal Incentives in Double-member Districts:The Case of Chile.” Comparative Political Studies 31, no. 6 (1998): 714–739.
Rabkin, Rhoda. “Redemocratization, Electoral Engineering, and Party Strategies in Chile, 1989–1995.” Comparative Political Studies 29, no. 3 (1996): 335–356.
Siavelis, Peter M. “Continuity and Change in the Chilean Party System: On the Transformational Effects of Electoral Reform.” Comparative Political Studies 30, no. 6 (1997): 651–674.
“The Hidden Logic of Candidate Selection for Chilean Parliamentary Elections.” Comparative Politics 34, no. 4 (2002): 419–438.
Valenzuela, J. Samuel, and Timothy Scully. “Electoral Choices and the Party System in Chile: Continuities and Changes at the Recovery of Democracy.” Comparative Politics 29, no. 4 (1997): 511–527.