The end of the preferential vote (hope hope!)

Apparently, the APRA leaders of the Peruvian congress are reading my blog, because as I suggested yesterday in my posting about Peruvian constitutional reform, they've decided to take up the issue of doing away with the preferential vote. If I understand correctly, were this to pass, it would mean the country would be adopting a straight proportional representation electoral rule.

For you non political scientists out there, what this means is that voting districts are big and have more than one representative, and within each big district, congressional seats are allocated to parties based on the percentage of the vote they win. So, for example, the APRA wins 20% of the vote, it gets 20% of the seats, and if the Peruvian Nationalist Party wins 48% of the vote, they get 48% of the seats. Party leaders get to pick who takes a seat in congress, out of their long party list.

This is basically the same as what they do now, except that they have this "preferential vote" thing, in which voters get to indicate on their ballots who they would prefer to be seated from a given party. This sounds like a good idea (more democratic, etc.) but basically means that parties can't hold their representatives responsible for... well... anything, from breaking with the party line in an important vote to accepting bribes or selling government property for personal profit. This is because one of the things that party leaders can do to punish you is just not seat you in congress if they don't get enough votes.

"Sorry, Jaime. You voted against us on the budget, and you've been taking kickbacks on government contracts, and you're accepting narco-cash. So we're going to let somebody who's a little more reliable take your seat."

With the preferential vote, politicians don't need to listen to their party leaders, they just need to get a lot of votes at election time.

The end result is that systems like the one Peru uses now tend to be more corrupt than other systems. They also tend to be more wasteful, but that's a whole other bag of Pirate's Booty.

All of this still doesn't fix the ridiculous local electoral rules, but whatever. These reforms probably won't pass, anyways, but it would be a step in the right direction.

...it's good to be back on the road again...

So, I've about worn out my welcome here in the muni (That is, in the municipal building. In town, people are super-friendly), and I've pretty much gotten the story on the situation here in Carhuaz. Moving on tomorrow back to Huaraz, then on to Chavín de Huantar on Thursday, to continue with the interviews. I've gotten in about 15 interviews here, plus numerous informal conversations, a couple of hikes, a visit to Vicos, and about four hair-raising encounters with angry dogs.

All of the locals think I'm nuts to be carrying a cane, but what can I say? Los perros no les gustan los gringos. Especialmente ellos con bigotes.

The story on Carhuaz is pretty much as follows:

Most of the people I've talked to either think the mayor is (a) incompetent, (b) corrupt, or most likely, (c) both. He got voted in by taking strategic advantage of the nationalist/pro-indigenous tide that swept Peru in the last election, and hasn't done much since, except for print glossy brochures and hire a professional public relations guy.

Okay, I exaggerate, but let it suffice to say that the policy here has not impressed me.

On the other hand, the civil society actors are really on the ball. Which leads me to believe that he'll have a hard time of it the next time around. However, there are two problems:

1. No checks and balances. The Peruvian electoral laws say that the municipal council always consists of at least a majority of the party of which the mayor is a member. This is supposed to generate efficient policy making and less gridlock, but what it seems to do in Carhuaz is make sure that nobody's looking over the Mayor's shoulder.
2. Too many parties, no run off, etc... When the mayor is running against 15 others, he doesn't need a majority to win. In this case, he only needs about 25%. This makes it a lot easier to buy off your cronies and get them to vote for you.

Nevertheless, we'll see what happens. I haven't been impressed by the government here, but as I said, the citizens are quite well informed, at least about their local government, and they seem to be pretty well organized. I'm looking forward to following this municipality in the future!

Man oh man... You all should have seen the sunrise that I just watched out of my window. We'll see if the pictures come out.