Houla Massacre 2012 - Opposing Perspectives

Houla massacre 2012 from opposing perspectives:

The situation - on 25 May 2012, at least 92 people including at least 32 children are massacred in Syria. Beyond that fact, sources don't all agree.

Al Jazeera, pro opposition:

"This appalling and brutal crime, involving indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force, is a flagrant violation of international law and of the commitments of the Syrian government to cease the use of heavy weapons in population centres and violence in all its forms"

RT News, pro regime:

"Syrian state TV meanwhile reported that the attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups [...]

So far, there were no official statements blaming any particular party for the deadly attack [...]

Although there was no confirmation of the Syrian government's involvement in the attack, international media and world leaders rushed to accuse the Assad regime of being behind the bloodshed."

My perspective: RT's claims are looking more and more far-fetched each time, and the scarcity of journalists actually inside Syria counts against the regime in a big way. It's like a denial that any of their claims stack up. Though I note that this time, RT has stepped back from actually denying the regime probably did it.

Where is the Pirate Party strong in NZ?

This only includes the first 150 members, while the current membership count is more like 175.

The Pirate Party gets 0.54% in the New Zealand Election

The Pirate Party ran 2 candidates in Hamilton East and Wellington Central.

In Hamilton East, Pirate Party Candidate Bruce Kingsbury won 0.41% of the vote with 122 votes, placing him 7th out of 8 candidates.

In Wellington Central, Pirate Party Candidate Gynn Rickerby won 0.67% of the vote with 210 votes, placing him 7th out of 12 candidates.

On average this was 0.54%, better than the Spanish Pirate Party’s result last weekend (0.41%) but not as good as the Catalonian Pirate Party’s result in the same election (0.63%). It is also better than the party vote for any party except the 8 which received seats and the Conservatives.

If the Pirate Party received this share of votes nationwide in the party vote, and there was no threshold for representation, the Pirate Party would have won 1 seat.

Spanish Election Results

The results will start coming in in about an hour.

The Guardian will be tracking them as they come in on this site. It defaults to the 2008 election, so you have to navigate to the 2011 results.

Hopefully they will include the votes for the Spanish Pirate Party and Catalonian Pirate Party.

A 44% Absolute Majority & the NZ Referendum

And the results are now in! Spain now joins Scotland in the club of countries which call 44% an absolute majority. In May, the Scottish National Party won 53.5% of the seats in the Scottish parliament with 44.0% of the vote, and now the Spanish People's Party won 53.1% of the seats in the Spanish Congress of Deputies with 44.6% of the vote.

Somewhat surprisingly, and relevant to the Voting System Referendum in NZ this Saturday, both Scotland and Spain have supposedly proportional voting systems. Scotland uses MMP, and Spain uses Party List Proportional, which is what the list seats will be under SM as proposed in the referendum.

Why do these two countries' voting systems, despite being proportional systems, give disproportional results? One word. Regions. New Zealand would fall into the same trap with STV (though it would still be better than SM, PV, FPP). One lesson to draw from this though is that, once the referendum is over, there will still be much to be decided about the voting system in the next 3 years. The journey doesn't end on Saturday, there will still be lobbying and submissions on the little details for years to come. "Little details", as we see in Scotland and Spain, make big differences.

Pirate Parties in the Spanish Election

More importantly however, we now have data on the plight of the Spanish and Catalonian Pirate Parties... or should that be the Catalonian and Spanish Pirate Parties.

Pirates of Catalonia (0.63%)

The Pirate Party of Catalonia (PPCat) did very well. Not by Swedish or German standards, where Pirate Party candidates have actually been elected, but among the other ~38 Pirate Parties, a result like the 0.63% PPCat got is considered a good result. This equates to 0.09% of all votes in Spain.

PPCat has only been around for just over a year - only 3 months longer than New Zealand's own Pirate Party - and the number I have heard in Pirate circles is that a typical result for a Pirate Party in their first General Election is 0.2%. PPCat did contest a State election last November, where they got 0.21%, and local council elections in May, where they got results between 0.77% and 1.19%, but general elections are always harder, and voters are normally less willing to risk "wasting" their vote on a Party that is unlikely to get elected, so Pirate Parties normally poll lower in National elections than in Local, State and European Union elections.

The Pirate Party of Spain (0.41%)

The Spanish Pirate Party (PPEs) didn't do quite as well. If you count all votes in Spain, they only got 0.016%, however they did not contest the vote in every Region or Province. Their best Region was Navarra, where they got 52.6% of all the votes cast for PPEs anywhere in Spain, which amounts to 0.54%. This is also a respectable result, though PPEs has been around since 2006 - much longer than PPCat.

PPEs only ran in 4 Provinces: Navarre, Huesca, Teruel, Castellon. (this is out of 46 in Spain excluding Catalonia). All of them are in the North East and 3 of them border Catalonia. The results in each Province ranged from 0.28% to 0.54%. They only contested the vote in 3.39% of Spain (measured by votes), which is 3.95% of Spain excluding Catalonia. Of this, they got 0.41%. That's not a bad percentage, but it's a shame they didn't contest more Provinces. For comparison, Catalonia is 14.23% of Spain, 4.2 times more than the area PPEs contested the vote in.

If you average PPEs and PPCat together, they got 0.104% of all votes, and 0.59% of the votes they contested. If they got the same average over the rest of the country, and the Spanish parliament was perfectly proportional, PPEs/PPCat would get 2 seats between them.

Senate Elections (0.98%)

Parallel to the above election, Spain also held elections to its Senate. The Senate election uses a slightly peculiar system - each Province elects 4 Senators, but voters have 3 votes and each Party can only stand 3 Candidates. The results can't be compared to elections in other countries, but they are still interesting.

PPCat's candidates in Barcelona all got more votes than the Party's share in the Parliamentary election - 1.18%, 0.92%, 0.75%. In Total, PPCat Candidates received 0.96% of the votes in Barcelona, which I guess is the figure you would use if you wanted to compare anything. In the 3 other Provinces in Catalonia, they only stood 1 Candidate. Of these, the best result was 1.51% and the lowest was 1.12%. If you consider that PPCat is only contesting 1 vote per voter in these provinces, the total number of Senate votes PPCat got in all Catalonia was 1.00% of the total votes they contested. (with less rounding, it comes just under 1%: 0.9969%. It would have taken another 85 people to vote for 3 PPCat Candidates to cross the 1% mark)

One PPEs Candidate that I can tell so far also broke the 1% milestone in Navarra, with 1.05%. Out of all the votes contested by 3 PPEs Candidates in Navarre and Castello, they got 0.86%. Averaging PPEs and PPCat together, Spanish Pirate Parties won 0.98% of all Senate votes they contested. With 208 directly elected Senate seats, this is the same proportion as 2 seats out of all Spain.

Electoral System Referendum

Just writing down a few predictions about the referendum between MMP FPP STV SM PV.

1. I think MMP will probably win the first question

2. I think FPP will win the second question

3. I think STV will come the closest to beating FPP (despite the 'vote for change' campaign targeting SM)

4. I think that, if MMP wins the first question and there is a review, the 5% threshold will be reduced to 3 or 4%, and will generally be more proportional than the current MMP system

5. I think there will be MMP supporters who vote for FPP in the second question, despite that being their least preferred option, because they think it has the least risk of beating MMP in a second referendum

6. I think that, If MMP loses the first question, and FPP wins the second question, that FPP supporters will run a much larger and more expensive campaign in 2014, and come close to winning.

If it's not clear, I am an MMP / PR supporter. I intend to vote for MMP and for STV, because STV is the next best (proportional) option after MMP, and because it has the best chance of beating FPP.

On the Campaign Trail

The campaign itinerary for a small party like the Pirate Party is... well... small. Still, campaign 2011 is an improvement on the Botany By-election campaign.

In the Botany By-election campaign, the campaign started late. And by late I mean... the night before polling day. This time, we managed a few thousand percent better. We started a whole week before polling day. We also had vastly more people involved this time. As in, 7 people, as opposed to 4.

We got a lot of good reactions too, though we we're not entirely sure that's not just because they don't realize we're a real party :p

It sounds funny, but this toy-sized campaign in Hamilton beat my expectations.

More info and pics to come later this week.

No points for guessing where this one is

Oh, and did I mention, good luck to the Spanish and Catalonian Pirate Parties today. The polls are now open in Spain! Their campaign has been much better, and they even got #votopirata trending on twitter. no doubt I'll post on the election results.

Winston Peters' Plague on Both Your Houses

In response to kiwiblog's post.

Winston Peters said:

New Zealand First is not going with National.

New Zealand First is not going with Labour either. We are making that clear here today.

New Zealand First is not going with the Greens or the Maori Party. …

MMP is criticized by those who believe they have been born to rule but since this system was introduced, the party with the most votes has always formed the government.

We believe that the party that gets the most votes should try to form the next government.

But there’s one condition – the one safeguard that voters have – the one get out of jail card.

And that is do not let any political party in New Zealand govern alone under any circumstances. It is too dangerous!

To be fair, this is rather unusual, though we expect that from him. The aim for minor parties such as NZ 1st in parliament is to get some of their own laws through and to get some money put into their preferred areas by making deals with the major party leading the government. Note that this involves both influencing the legislature and influencing the executive, but not trying to become the executive.

To help explain my perspective about the mixing of legislature and executive in New Zealand, I'll mention a place where the two aren't mixed: Washington DC. Over there, the President is elected separately to the legislature, and appoints all the "ministers" (called Heads of Federal Executive Departments). The executive (government) sometimes has to negotiate with the legislature (can be the opposition) to pass a budget. I call this "the government acting within the law", as opposed to making up the law as they go along.

Now, in New Zealand, we have a mixed legislature and executive, or rather the legislature not only decides the law, but also elects the executive. This is where things can go wrong. Unlike in Presidential elections, where there is always one person who is clearly the winner in the election, electing a Prime Minister via the legislature comes down not to the election, but to the negotiations afterwards.

To clarify my position, I think it's a good thing if the legislature is proportional, and if the government must negotiate with a majority of the legislature to pass a budget. My only beef is with the way a majority of the legislature has to agree on one person before there even is a government, and that the Prime Minister appointed my the majority of the legislature can be the other one of the two main contenders than the majority of voters preferred. (think of voters for all the parties that could go with either Labour or National - NZ 1st, Maori, UF, Greens - they each have a preference between John Key and Phil Goff, and not always the one the party goes with)

Back to the story, so a minor party's aim is to influence the legislature and executive by making deals, and there are 2 ways they can make such a deal - one is by offering to vote with the govt on parts of their legislative agenda, and the other is by offering to vote for the govt on "confidence" i.e. to vote for their Prime Ministerial candidate. (this includes formal coalitions)

So far the culture in the New Zealand parliament has been to combine and confuse confidence and supply, so whoever has the executive votes to become the government automatically has the legislative votes to pass their budget. In a hung parliament, this is almost allowing them to make up the law as they go along. This makes the election of the executive particularly important, and means that emotions can run high for minor party voters when the topic of "which way they will go" is discussed. This also means that the more popular and effective of the two ways to get the influence a minor party wants is to get concessions from a major party in exchange for picking their candidate for Prime Minister. Offering votes on parts of the government's legislative agenda takes second place and isn't rated very highly in public opinion - there is a perception that "you can't anything outside of government" and the distinction between executive and legislature is not really recognized.

I'll write more about this later, but basically my point is that what Winston Peters is doing is separating the legislature and executive. He is saying he will still try to achieve influence on legislation and spending, but he will only do that by offering votes on legislation (including supply), but not votes on electing the executive.

Some more of other people's quotes on this follow.

Idiot/Savant:

Winston Peters has announced that he will not back either main party on confidence and supply, and will refuse to support any arrangement involving the Greens or Maori Party. So, that’s it then. Labour’s dream of cobbling together a coalition government if it does well enough (already a forlorn hope) is now dead. The issue now is not whether John Key or Phil Goff is Prime Minister, but whether Key gets to rule with an absolute majority.

Kiwiblog:

But Winston has not in fact said definitely what he will do. At best he seems to be saying he will oppose both National and Labour. That could mean if NZ First did make 5% and hold the balance of power, he would force a new election by voting against supply and confidence.

A Government can only govern if it has supply and confidence. All Winston has said that the party with the most votes should try to form the next Government. Nowhere has he said he will allow them to.

Winston has left massive wriggle room, so he can do in 2011 what he did in 2005. The question that media should ask him is “Will he vote for confidence and supply for the largest party, against confidence and supply, or abstain?”. A related question is “What conditions will be attached to that”.

He has said NZ first is not going with the Greens or the Maori Party. That doesn’t answer the question of what if National needs (unlikely but possible) both NZ First and Maori Party to govern. Is he saying he will vote against if there are Maori Part Ministers but vote for if they are not Ministers?

Overall the only conclusion I can draw is that a Winston saying he will oppose whomever forms the Govt, and his apparent conditions on which other parties can be involved just makes new elections likely if they make 5%. Political instability is the last thing we need as Europe totters on the brink of economic disaster.

Some more rubbish from kiwiblog:

Presumably this means Idiot/Savant is calling on voters to vote ACT. Because that is the best way to have a National-led minority Government. I/S has said that the Government will be National-led. That means that extra votes for Labour, Greens, NZ First or Mana will just be wasted as none of them would support a National-led Government.

A vote for the Maori Party will not work, as they are highly likely to have an overhang.

That leaves United Future and ACT. Now those parties need 1.2% to get an second MP and 0.45 to avoid overhang. United Future is looking like it will be an over-hang seat. So the best way for people to have a minority National-led Government is hence to give ACT the party vote.

Now personally I do not endorse ACT, as Idiot/Savant has done. If the voters vote to give John Key a majority, he has already said he will offer to share Government with the Maori Party, United Future and ACT – and at a minimum a policy co-operation agreement with the Greens.

Some of my comment at kiwiblog on this particular interpretation:

as long as a vote goes towards giving seats to someone other than National, it goes towards forcing them to work with someone. It doesn’t matter whether ACT has 2 seats or 12, National is only forced to work with them if they have 60 or less on their own. I agree that parties with an overhang or no hope of getting into parliament don’t help, but nor in fact do parties with only a 63% chance of getting into parliament at all, so that rules ACT out. (or whatever the current number is on ipredict)

In conclusion, the parties Idiot/Savant is supporting by his statement, are the Greens, MANA and Labour. Maybe UF if Dunne looks better in Ohariu and their polling goes up.

I think you [kiwiblog] mistook “the government WILL be National-led” for “the government SHOULD be National-led”.

More Later. [UPDATE: No, flag that. you'll have to imagine the rest.]