Dear Editor:

Words cannot adequately convey my deep sense of dismay and my feeling of complete and utter betrayal over the abandonment of Electoral Reform by our government.

This was an election promise made over and over again without any qualifications of any type.

Clearly this is either a colossal mistake, or naked electoral fraud; in this case, promising something simply in order to get votes, including the votes of large numbers of people who would never ordinarily have voted for them.

The whole point, let us remind ourselves, was to get rid of minority governments who then spend their days in office advancing their minority agenda, forcing it upon the majority of the population, and generally behaving in a dictatorial fashion.

We should also recall that, historically, the entire point of the First Past the Post system was to ensure that the class that had always previously called all the shots would continue to do so, and thus was specifically designed to defeat true democracy. Electoral Commissions have been recommending changes to the voting system since 1928.

Clearly, the present system only favours the existence of two major parties, and anyone whose views are not represented there must apparently resign themselves to forever watching minority governments do things they dont wish for and didnt vote for.

Its a great deal worse than this actually, as it is almost normal for such people to have to vote for some party they dont actually want at all, in order to prevent some other party they want even less from getting into power. It is impossible to refer to being forced to vote for someone you dont want as being democratic.

Clearly, the cause of proportional representation will never gain any traction until a major party does the decent thing and brings it to a proper vote after a suitable period of public debate and education.

The thing that the Liberals as well as everyone must realize is that this is everyones democracy, and not just the democracy of a favoured few.

It is completely unacceptable to have a system where only some votes count.

Sincerely,

Mark Holmes

Edgewater