Actually it doesn’t surprise me. But seeing suggestive evidence for it cheers me!
(The next post in the thread says who it is; that candidate has become my new default in a ridiculously weak field.)
And yet that city’s mayor is running for governor and calling to “suspend” the gas tax, one of our main revenue sources for transit improvements like this.
(Thanks for the translation! Even better when it comes with an electoral system context.)
Yes, to the first point. That was my interpretation.
On the second, probably?
Seriously, what theory of democracy says that the “will” of a minority legitimately can impose itself on the electorate at large?
This kind of discourse is pure nonsense.
Absurd! Was it the “will” of his voters that he head (and allegedly subvert) the police? And if so, so what? Those who voted for him to have policy & personnel influence were a fraction of the less than 11% who voted for the alliance list on which he ran.
www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...
“No country in the world has a mechanism that allows a court to dismiss a minister from his position.”
—Israeli High Court Justice Alex Stein
Is that true?
www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...
I was just about to suggest that!
(The potential endogeneity)
Then again, 1992 works against the (small sample) pattern. It was also ages ago.
This sort of flipping a chamber control happens periodically in the US, especially if we include state legislatures. But it should be unusual in parliamentary systems. And I think it is. But I hope someone has examples I’ve overlooked.
That’s a better source than mine! But if you are combining German and French systems you are doing precisely what I suggested earlier.
I find it hard to believe those at the table weren’t aware of that, even if their actual understanding of electoral systems was shallow.
Maybe it wasn’t obvious, but my question was explicitly about parliamentary systems.
Maybe it wasn’t obvious, but my question was explicitly about parliamentary systems.
I think there are lots of cases of majority flips in US state legislatures. Maybe it wasn’t obvious, but my question was explicitly about parliamentary systems.
My suspicion was that the best examples might come from rather long ago.
What are other examples of minority governments following general elections that become majority govt due to party switches? Due to byelections? Canada will have a maj govt now via these paths. I’m sure it’s happened before but I don’t have a specific recollection of cases.
Read @laderafrutal.bsky.social if you want an expert take on how the rules did and did not matter in Hungary over the years.
Back to my point on 1990. It was meant to help the largest bloc, not necessarily the largest party (which was initially thought still to be the MSZP).
As I discuss in the post, the 2011 reforms definitely were a deliberate effort to exaggerate the large party bonus. But they built on the framework already there rather than adopt something wholly new. I think a lot of the commentary misses the substantial continuity in the basic model.
I’m confident Hungarian leaders knew what they were doing in 1990—trying to encourage coordination in what at the time was a fragmented opposition field. That’s why they went with MMM with a partial compensation mechanism instead of MMP. And 2 rounds. It was a hybrid of hybrids. (And a mess!)
Thank you for sharing.
Of course the source of the winners bonus is different in those other cases: parties not clearing high thresholds in Poland and Turkey, effective coordination by one side but not the other in India.
Hungary’s was systematically designed to be highly disproportional.
Great post. Since 1990, Hungary's electoral system has contained a structural (and dangerous) form of electoral bias that causes the party gaining the highest percent of votes to win a far higher percent of legislative seats. This bias is what led to Orban/Fidesz winning a supermajority in 2010…
More Jews in the Diaspora were murdered in 2025 than any year since 1994, the year of the mass terror attack by Iran & Hezbollah in Argentina.
Increases in antisemitic incidents in every western country. Especially bad in Canada, Britain, Australia, Germany.
www.timesofisrael.com/2025-toll-of...
Not so much, actually. But both are bastardized versions of the mixed-member system concept. Just highly divergent bastardizations!
As we await results…
The claim that there has been gerrymandering by Fidesz is not necessarily wrong, but it is not right in the way most people familiar with US districting (mal)practices would understand that term. And it is not the main story.
fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/04/12/h...
Zelenskyy said on Friday that Ukrainian military personnel have shot down Iranian "Shahed" drones across multiple Middle Eastern countries.
"We are helping strengthen their security in exchange for contributions to our country's resilience," said Zelenskyy.
p.dw.com/p/5BzDv
It’s nice to have him back. I’d better enjoy it while I can because I can’t help but always be in injury watch with him.
The only teams in history to have fewer than 5 total hits in the first 2 games of an MLB season:
1909 Chicago White Sox
1953 Chicago White Sox
2026 San Francisco Giants
Wikipedia article on Colombian 2026 legislative election says they use “largest remainders,” citing as a source an IPU page that claims the last amendment to the electoral law was in 1990.
In 1991 Colombia adopted a new constitution.
In 2003 they adopted D’Hondt divisors.
