Democracy is commonly known as the government of the people by the people.

An integral part
of any democratic process is the elections during which the people vote freely for others to
represent them in parliament and govern them. This is done by using various electoral systems that
translates votes into seats. For democracy to work, everyone must agree to accept the legitimate
results of freely held elections. The people and parties who lose power or who have failed to gain
it must accept defeat. If the loser refuses to accept the winner, the election's legitimacy is
diminished and the political system is likely to be marked by conflict and instability. This paper
will compare and contrast the two electoral systems that are used in Guyana and Trinidad and
Tobago

Guyana uses Proportional Representation as their electoral system. Proportional Representation

(PR) is the system of election in which the people cast their votes directly for a political party.
Keydifferences.com states that any political party obtains their representation in proportion to their
voting strength, each party gets the number of seats in the parliament according to the number of
votes.

Trinidad and Tobago use the First Past the Post as their electoral system. According to Collins
dictionary, a First Past The Post (FPTP) system chooses members of parliament or
other representatives by which the candidate who gets most votes wins. The voter is presented
with the names of the nominated candidates and votes by choosing only one of them. The winning
candidate is the person who wins the most votes.

Democracyweb.com explains that there are certain elements that are similar in both systems. This
can be seen in Article 21 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It states that "the will of
the people . . . shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and
equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures." Periodic
means holding elections on a set schedule known to the electorate within a particular time
frame. Genuine means that elections are free and fair. Electoral laws must offer equal conditions
and opportunities for citizens to have access to polling stations in order to vote. They must offer
equal conditions and opportunities for all parties and candidates taking part in them. Universal
suffrage means that every citizen has the right to vote regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion,
physical disability, sexual orientation or level of education. A secret ballot means that only the
voter knows who he has voted for. If a voter's choice is seen by others, voters may be subject to
intimidation and reprisals by the competition. Elections would then have no integrity.

There are clear differences between each system which Keydifferences.com discusses. The first
difference deals with the voting method. In FPTP, voters cast their vote for a candidate and
accountability exist because they know the candidate. The candidate with the majority votes win
the elections and the political party gets seats in Parliament whereas with PR, voters cast their
votes for political parties and accountability does not exist. Seats are allocated to the party with
the larger voting strength therefore there may be many political parties in the Parliament which
leads to the disagreement of ideas. In FPTP, the country is divided into different geographical areas
known as constituencies and one candidate is elected. Whereas in PR, a constituency is a large
geographical area and more than one candidate can be selected. In FPTP, the total seats allotted to
a political party may or may not be equal to the votes and the majority votes may or may not be
secured by the winning candidate. In PR, the party gets seats in proportion to the votes polled for
them and the candidate who won the elections get the majority votes.

Sam Gurney states “Trade unions have democratic traditions built into our DNA. Members elect
their representatives and their national leaders and we also vote on policy and on when to take
industrial action.” In the early years of the twentieth century, unions backed a proportional system.
The Labour Representation Committee passed a motion in 1913 that stated that all parties should
obtain representation in proportion to their voting strength. Trade unions have also changed since
those pioneering days of arguing for votes for all and have moved on to the FPTP system.

Robert Testa stated that one reason why PR is the better than FPTP is that it has been proven in
other countries to increase voter turnout in local, provincial and national levels. One can only count
on the larger parties to win, instead of "throwing away" a vote for a less popular party, the voter
would either vote for the larger party or not vote at all. One major down fall of PR is that there
may be Coalition governments, which in turn lead to legislative gridlock and consequent inability
to carry out coherent policies. A major benefit with FPTP is that you get a clear-cut choice for
voters which results in a single party government as such they do not need to bargain with a
minority coalition partner. It is a very simple to use and understand, one mark is required next to
the selected candidate or symbol despite the number of candidates vying for the position. One
major downfall of FPTP is that it excludes smaller parties from fair representation which gives rise
to the development of parties based on ethnicity, clan or religion.

The whole point of representative democracy is that voters get a say in who represents them in the
legislature. There are similarities and difference between both system and they also have their own
individual advantages and disadvantages. Each country must be able to choose the system which
best suits the needs of their voters. Governments must decide on whether they want to use the
FPTP system whereby the winning candidate is simply the person who wins the most votes or they
want to use the PR system where they are designed to match the percentage of votes cast in an
election for a particular party or candidate with the percentage of seats gained within a body.
Bibliography

Free, Fair, & Regular Elections: Essential Principles. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2018, from
Democracyweb: http://democracyweb.org/elections-essential-principles

Gurney, S. (2016). Getting it in proportion? Unions and electoral reform.

S, S. (2017, November 24). Difference Between First Past the Post (FPTP) and Proportional
Representation (PR). Retrieved from Keydifferences: https://keydifferences.com/difference-
between-first-past-the-post-and-proportional-representation.html

Testa, R. (2017, October 9). Retrieved from ThoughtCo: https://www.thoughtco.com/proportional-

representation-vs-first-past-the-post-1146233