How India undermined its elections: why was the world’s largest democracy outperformed by one of the smallest?

By Dr. Zaad Mahmood

The 2014 Indian parliamentary election was a historic achievement for the world’s largest democracy. The elections led to an alternation of government and a majority for a single party - the right wing Bhartiya Janata Party - after 3 decades of fragmented electoral outcomes. The polls constituted the biggest election recorded in history with 815 million eligible voters (more than the population of USA and EU together) across roughly one million polling stations (Election Commission of India Various Issues). The logistical requirements were colossal. Over 8 million security forces, 10 million poll workers and 15,000 litres of indelible ink had to be brought to bear (Burke 2014, Badkar 2014). It was estimated by the Centre for Media Studies that the projected cost for the entire election was to be around US$ 5 billion, just second to the US$ 7 billion American Elections of 2012 (Ghosh 2014).

But why is it, that despite the enormous logistical and financial efforts, serious concerns remain about the substantive fairness of elections in India? As the recently released Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) data suggests, Bhutan – India’s tiny neighbour to the North – outdid the world’s largest democracy in terms of overall electoral integrity (Norris et al. 2015). This is all the more surprising since India can look back on several decades of competitive elections, while Bhutan only started experimenting with multi-party democracy in 2008. The simple question is ‘What went wrong in India’s election’?

Electoral Integrity in South Asia

The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) Index developed by the Electoral Integrity Project at Harvard University and University of Sydney provides data to answer this question. It gives an assessment of the quality of elections through expert evaluations. The latest PEI Index (Version 3.5) provides a comparative assessment of all the elections held between 2012 and 2015 for 153 elections across 125 countries (Norris et al. 2015). The index is constructed of 11 different dimensions that are most relevant and critical for elections, namely Election Laws, Constituency Boundaries, Party and Candidate Registration, Campaign Finance, Vote Count, Election Procedure, Campaign Media, Voter Registration, Voting Process, Result transmission and Election Management Bodies (Norris, Frank, and Coma 2014, Norris 2013).

As the index suggests, compared globally, the Indian election ranks above the global average of all elections. However surprisingly Bhutan, a relatively new democracy, outscores India in terms of electoral integrity to have the best elections in South Asia.



Figure 1: Electoral Integrity in South Asia (2012-2015)

As shown in Figure 1, electoral integrity varies across South Asia. Bhutan has the best perception of Electoral Integrity followed by India and Maldives. Bangladesh is the clear laggard in terms of electoral integrity along with Pakistan. The position of Nepal and Sri Lanka are somewhat intermediate in the region even though globally they are below the mean score of PEI.

The PEI Index allows looking in more detail at the electoral cycle to identify problem areas. The overall PEI Index can be divided into eleven sub-dimensions. A comparative analysis of these PEI sub-dimensions suggests that voter registration, media access and campaign finance are key areas, which require improvement despite impressive electoral institutions and procedure in India (laws, election management body, vote counting, result declaration process, election process, party registration).

Table 2 shows a direct comparison of India and Bhutan along the eleven sub-dimensions. Evident from the data is the favourable standing of India in terms of Election Management Bodies, Laws, Electoral procedures, Counting and Result declaration and Party Registration. On most counts the position of India is higher than South Asian as well as Global Mean scores. Most of these issues are under the purview of the Election Commission, which is perhaps the most efficient public body in the country. Even Voting and Voter Registration which clearly require improvement have seen innovation and conscious effort by the Commission (recent online voter list). 

PEI sub-dimension	India	Bhutan	South Asia Mean	Global Mean
Election laws	71.53	52.31	61.92	54.30
EMB	76.33	74.23	75.28	60.95
voting	53.40	57.03	55.21	53.67
counting	72.10	65.45	68.78	68.31
results	67.03	69.32	68.17	64.92
procedures	71.88	74.66	73.27	65.90
voteregistration	40.03	45.38	42.71	51.27
boundaries	58.37	60.11	59.24	53.06
partyregistration	57.21	45.59	51.40	57.53
Media access	55.00	66.09	60.55	47.18
Campaign finance	32.92	55.45	44.19	36.63

Table 1: Electoral Integrity in India and Bhutan compared

However, as Table 2 clearly highlights campaign finance and campaign media as the two areas in which India falls short significantly.

Campaign finance and voter buying
The issue of campaign finance is crucial as it has the ability to undermine equitable party competition, transparency, accountability, inclusive participation, and public confidence in the integrity of the political process. Control of campaign finances by special interests and private entities may have broader ramifications such as damaging the delivery of public services and hurting prospects for economic growth (Norris, Abel van Es, and Fennis 2015).

Despite the enormous progress in ensuring free and fair elections campaign finance remains India’s Achilles heel. Vote buying vitiates political competition and introduces perverse incentives for voters as well as candidates.

Campaign finance was a part of election debate in 2014 as some of the political parties, election monitoring organisations and media repeatedly raised the issue of black or unaccounted money being used to influence voters. The Aam Aadmi Party, a civil society turned political outfit attacked other political parties during elections on the issue of funds (Bagri 2014). The media also played a proactive role in highlighting the role of black money. Consider the harsh review of Indian elections by James Tapper (Tapper 2015), ‘election officials seized 22.5 million litress of illegal alcohol, $52 million in cash and even 400,000 pounds of marijuana and heroin — all used to entice votes…..investigating a further 3,553 allegations that candidates paid newspapers and TV channels to give them positive coverage….” Media and News reports during elections such as, India election: 'Andhra Pradesh leads in vote-buying with $4.97B' (Gulf News, April 20, 2014), Black Money Power (A.T 2014), ‘Cash for votes a way of political life in South India’ (The Hindu, Mar 16, 2011) or ‘India's Election Problem: Votes for Sale (Wall Street Journal, 2014) are replete with news of vote buying.

The impact of voter buying is not limited to specific constituencies or election period but has wider ramifications. In an interesting study by Assocham, a leading busines organisation, it was found that elections had a strong multiplier effect on the Indian economy as parties ‘open their war chests for the investments’ (Choudhury 2014). The expenditure on elections is considered investment, which will yield rich dividends if elected in the form of patronage and future political investment. Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav (Kapur and Vaishnav 2011) have shown that elections in India have a negative impact on the balance sheet of real estate sector. They argue builders often help politicians launder funds, which are then pumped back in at election time and the loss of liquidity causes a temporary downturn in demand for raw materials in the construction industry. Naturally such a distorted electoral incentive leads to institutional nexus between shady business and politics and unfavourable developmental outcomes. A World Bank research has found that prevalence of vote-buying, the direct exchange of “gifts” or money for political support during elections is inversely related to governments investment in pro-poor services (Khemani 2013).

Media regulation

The issue of campaign finance is also related to another weakness of Indian elections namely access to media. The 2014 election has been considered India’s first media election where media (social as well as mainstream) played a pivotal role in political communication. In terms of media access skewed financial resources has implications for level playing field and voter reachout. As Ghosal and Balachandran (Ghoshal and Balachandran 2015) show, the BJP and Congress party spent $115 million and $83 million on election campaign. The campaign expenditure for the BJP alone in 2014 was equal to the combined expenditure of the two parties in 2009 elections. The inflow of big money in campaign in an intensely competitive media market has implications for media access for the political parties. Researchers at CMS Media Lab, an independent, non-partisan media research organisation, found that Mr. Modi of BJP got 33.21 per cent, of the prime-time news telecast followed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal at 10.31 per cent while Rahul Gandhi of Congress came a distant third at 4.33 per cent of news time (Rukmini S. 2014).

What can be done?

Given the serious maladies associated with campaign finance in elections the regulation and control of finance is the most crucial challenge ahead for free and fair elections. The issue for India is not merely regulation of campaign finance for parties but also the use of black money in elections.

The regulation of campaign finance through appropriate legal frameworks and procedures is a challenge for any countries. As Pippa Norris et al (Norris, Es, and Fennis 2015) point out, the most popular campaign finance reforms have been to strengthen disclosure requirements and to establish and/or expand public funding and subsidies to parliamentary parties. Given the complexity and gravity of the issue the Election Commission of India, which is constitutionally mandated to oversee elections has proceeded along the same steps. The typical intervention by the Commission has been in the form of candidate spending limits, disclosure and policing of illegal funds. Recently two key regulations have been implemented, namely candidate affidavit regime requiring political candidates to disclose their criminal, educational and financial details and Election and Other Related Laws Amendment Act, which incentivised transparency for donors by making party contributions 100% tax-deductible, and mandating disclosure of large political contributions (Norris, Es, and Fennis 2015).

However the measures adopted are inadequate as revealed by the PEI index. Even the Election Commission of India recognised the increasing currency of black money for elections but efforts to curb it have been very limited (PTI 2014).

A very promising development in cleaning election funds has been the Right to Information Act passed in 2005. The act, part of access to information movement, obliges public authority to provide requested information to citizens. As Sridharan and Vaishnav point out Court judgment in 2008 based on RTI Act compelling parties to publicly release their income and expenditure records will go a long way in cleaning elections (Norris, Es, and Fennis 2015). Another important step has been the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement that gave Election Commission the power to disqualify candidates found guilty of providing inaccurate expenditure statements.

The issue of regulation of campaign finance cannot be regulated only at the level of electoral cycle. An important step in this regard would be to reform the tax regime in India. A significant linkage of relation between money and politics is the proliferation of black or unaccounted money, which is used to influence election. As such strict implementation of tax rules and constricting the scope of tax avoidance would go a long way in cleaning elections. The introduction of GST with broad tax base, if implemented properly, may alleviate the source of black money. Related to such tax reform a more direct intervention in tax rules for political parties and corporates can also be considered. As per the Companies Act in India corporations can have full deductions on political donations, not above 5 percent of average net profit subject to disclosure in accounts. Clearly some of the corporations find the quid-pro-quo of election financing and subsequent benefits more rewarding than tax benefits. As such removal of any threshold for donation and subsequent tax benefit may be considered. Likewise political parties in India, exempt from tax burden subject to certain conditions may be brought under tax bracket specifically for campaign expenditure. In Australia the campaign finance reform proposal is discussing a policy of tax deductibility of candidates and party election expenses, a thought worth considering in Indian elections.

A more direct intervention can be in the form of introduction of public funding of election. It would act to level the playing field for parties in election. However given the multiplicity of political parties and fragmented nature of Indian polity it is a difficult proposition (PTI 2014).

Finally it has to be recognised that cleaning campaign finance is part of much wider endeavor. The use of money in election is the outcome of nexus between business and politics. As the Indian economy liberalises resources hitherto under the government like mines, spectrum, and natural gas have opened up for the private sector leading to increased rent seeking and patronage politics. Sridharan and Vaishnav have argued that complete withdrawal of the state and relaince on market forces is necessary to put a stop to the system of policy and regulatory favors for payments and anonymous campaign donations (Norris, Es, and Fennis 2015). Another possible solution is the much touted lokpal or ombudsman with capacity of political oversight. Whatever the approach, the path to campaign finance reform remains complicated and difficult, but it is a path that Indian democracy must traverse to remain meaningful and accountable.

References

A.R. 2014. "Why India is so good at organising elections." The Economist.

A.T. 2014. "Campaign finance in India Black money power." The Economist

Badkar, Mamta. 2014. "8 Incredible Facts About India's Massive Elections." Business Insider Australia.

Bagri, Neha T. . 2014. "As Donations Pour In, Aam Aadmi Party Tries to Transform Campaign Finance." The New York Times India Ink.

Burke, Jason. 2014. "India's 550m voters usher in a new era." The Guardian, World.

Choudhury, Chandrahas 2014. "The Economics of India's Election Machine." Bloomberg View.

Election Commission of India. Various Issues. Election results and Statistics. In Election results and Statistics. New Delhi: Election Commission of India.

Ghosh, Palash. 2014. "India’s 2014 Election To Cost $5 Billion, Second Only To Price Tag For 2012 U.S. Presidential Election." International Business Times

Ghoshal, Devjyot , and Manu Balachandran. 2015. "It cost Narendra Modi $100 million to win the Indian election—here’s how he spent it." Quartz India.

Kapur, Devesh, and Milan Vaishnav. 2011. Quid Pro Quo: Builders, Politicians, and Election Finance in India. In Working Paper. Wshington D.C.: Center for Global Development

Khemani, Stuti. 2013. "Buying Votes versus Supplying Public Services." The World Bank Accessed 29 Aug. http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/buying-votes-versus-supplying-public-services.

Mandhana, Niharika , and Vibhuti Agarwal. 2014. "India's Election Problem: Votes for Sale " The Wall Street Journal.

Norris, P. 2013. "The new research agenda studying electoral integrity." Electoral Studies 32 (4):563-575. doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2013.07.015.

Norris, P., R. W. Frank, and F. M. I. Coma. 2014. "Measuring Electoral Integrity around the World: A New Dataset." Ps-Political Science & Politics 47 (4):789-798. doi: 10.1017/S1049096514001061.

Norris, Pippa , Andrea Abel van Es, and Lisa Fennis. 2015. Checkbook Elections: Political Finance in Comparative Perspective. In Money, Politics and Transparency, edited by Pippa Norris. Sydney: Global Integrity, Sunlight Foundation and The Electoral Integrity Project.

Norris, Pippa, Ferran Martínez i Coma, Alessandro Nai, and Max Groemping. 2015. The Expert Survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity. In PEI_3.5. www.electoralintegrityproject.com: http://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/PEI.

PTI. 2014. "Black money major problem in Indian elections, says former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi." Economic Times

Rukmini S. 2014. "Modi got most prime-time coverage: study." The Hindu, Election. http://www.thehindu.com/elections/loksabha2014/modi-got-most-primetime-coverage-study/article5986740.ece.

Subramanian, Samanth. 2014. "The Stunning Result in India’s Elections." The New Yorker.

Tapper, James. 2015. India, The World’s Largest Democracy, Is Also Its Worst. Mintpressnews.

Can Turkey survive another election?

By Elizabeth L. Young

On August 24th, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced snap elections to be held on November 1st for the Grand National Assembly, Turkey’s legislative body. The elections follow the failure to form a coalition government from the four parties that won seats in the June 7th legislative elections.

While the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) finished first in the polls, receiving 40.9% of the vote, it only secured 258 seats out of 550, a decline of 69 seats from the 2011 election. This is the first time the party has lost a parliamentary majority since coming to power in 2002, and the first time that it had to negotiate a coalition among its highly polarized potential government partners. When AKP Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu failed to establish a coalition with the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the runner-up in the elections with 25% of the vote and 132 seats, Erdoğan called for early elections rather than invite another party to attempt to form a government. November elections offer an opportunity for the AKP to potentially gain enough seats to obtain an outright majority and the CHP reports that early elections, rather than a stable coalition government, were always the AKP’s goal throughout negations. While snap elections are relatively common strategies to resolve parliamentary deadlock between electoral cycles, it is rare that elections are called as a result of failed coalition talks before the parliamentary body has even met (Greece in 2012 being another example).

The elections come at a particularly critical moment in Turkish politics as Turkey weighs significant structural changes to its political system. In 2014, Turkey held its first popular presidential election after a constitutional reform shifted this authority away from the Grand National Assembly. Furthermore, the Erdoğan has proposed additional constitutional amendments to create what he dubs a “New Turkey”, which would be a presidential rather than a parliamentary system. While Erdoğan, is required to be non-partisan in his role is President, he is widely seen as actively backing the AKP, which he helped found and led up to his election as President last year, and furthering his own political ambitions. At the same time, Turkey faces continued violence in neighboring Syria and renewed violence in the southeast Kurdish regions, which some commenters suggest will be used strategically by the AKP to increase their support in November.

These concerns of growing executive power, present a democratic retrenchment from the early 2000s when Turkey actively campaigned for EU accession and was seen as a model for democratic governance in a region marked by authoritarian dictatorships. Given the current political situation, can Turkish democracy survive a “do-over” election, both with respect to its institutions and to overall voter confidence?

Current public opinion polling shows Turks roughly split in their views on the AKP government’s performance to-date. In the most recent Eurobarometer survey, conducted just prior to the legislative election, 49% of Turkish respondents answered that they “tend to trust” the government with 44% respondents tending “not to trust” it. The Grand National Assembly fares slightly better with 54% and 39% trusting and not trusting it respectively (1). The next survey wave, to be conducted around the November election, will give a better picture of how much the early elections have impacted voter confidence.

However, we do know that Turkey faces substantial existing issues with the electoral process that serve to undermine the overall integrity of the electoral system. The Electoral Integrity Project, a joint Harvard University and University of Sydney Research Project, has released new data on the Turkish parliamentary elections in the Perception of Electoral Integrity, which surveys electoral experts on key indicators in 11-stages of the electoral process. In the most recent PEI 3.5 data, Turkey ranks 84th of the 125 countries currently covered, the lowest of all OECD countries (behind Hungary at 62 and Mexico at 54). Additionally, Turkey, despite its previous regional reputation, does not stand out among other Middle East and North African countries that have held elections since the PEI started monitoring elections in mid-2012, falling behind both Kuwait and Iran.

The June legislative elections scored particularly low in three key areas of the electoral process: electoral laws, campaign finance, and campaign media, all of which support the assessment that Turkey is on the path towards increased authoritarian tendencies.

Electoral Laws (21.97 / 100): Of the eleven dimensions of electoral integrity measured by the PEI, the legislative elections ranked the lowest with respect to integrity in electoral laws, 21.97. To put this in perspective, of the 153 discrete elections evaluated in the PEI, only ten elections have scored lower in this category (2).

In particular, Turkish electoral experts strongly agreed that electoral laws are unfair to small parties (4.91 on a 1-5 scale where 5 indicates strong agreement) and agreed that electoral laws favored the governing party (4.18). This evaluation comes as little surprise, given that Turkey has the highest, legislated electoral threshold in the world: political parties must obtain at least 10% of the vote to obtain a seat in parliament. Any parties that don’t clear this threshold are excluded from the parliament and the votes are considered “wasted votes”, which range anywhere from 3.71% of the total valid ballots cast as in the most recent election to a staggering 46.33% in the 2002 election.

As a result, the Grand National Assembly has been composed of a small number of parties compared to the total number of parties competing in the election. In the June election, twenty parties contested the election, with only four parties clearing the threshold, the highest number since 1999. One of these parties is the newly founded Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish, leftist party that won 13.12% of the vote and 80 seats. While the threshold, effective since 1983 elections is ostensibly to provide government stability, it is widely viewed as a means of excluding the Kurdish minority from parliament. Given the current violence in the Kurdish regions, the HDP could potentially fall below the 10% threshold in the November elections, which could shift the current parliamentary deadlock and potentially give the AKP a clear majority of seats.

Campaign Media (27.61 / 100): The campaign media environment also scores low among the PEI experts (27.61), with concerns over the impartiality of coverage. In particular, expert strongly agree (4.54) that TV news favored the governing party and disagree (1.45) that parties had fair access to political broadcasts and advertising. These concerns were also noted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in their election observation mission report, which highlighted media freedom as an area of “serious concern” as “media and journalists critical of the ruling party were subject to pressure and intimidation during the campaign” and state media was used in a partisan manner.

Campaign Finance (27.39 / 100): Overall PEI experts disagree that parties had equitable access to political donations (1.90), and strongly agree (4.82) that some state resources were improperly used for campaigning. Again, the OSCE reports notes that President Erdoğan attended numerous public events in an official capacity and used them as “opportunities to campaign in favour of the ruling party and to criticize opposition figures.” Additionally, state resources, such as state television, were used in violation of campaign finance rules.

As seen from the PEI data, Turkey already faces significant challenges in its perceived electoral integrity, particularly to the extent to which the ruling party is seen to be able to manipulate the elections to its favor through electoral laws, such as the threshold, pressure exerted on the media, and use of state resources for campaigns. While it is unlikely that any significant or legal changes will be made prior to the November elections, if citizens are to have any confidence in the outcome of this election and future elections, changes, either in the implementation of existing electoral laws or new ones, must be made.

(1) These levels are comparable to polling that occurred prior to the 2013 Gezi Park protests when distrust for the Parliament and government rose to 56 and 57% respectively.

(2) The countries with electoral laws perceived as lower than Turkey’s are: Turkmenistan (20.89), Bahrain (19.44), Djibouti (18.33), Tajikistan (16.25, 19.44), Malaysia (15.42), Belarus (13.69), Equatorial Guinea (13.33), Ethiopia (10.56), and Syria (9.38).

Electoral reform in Italy: strengthening electoral integrity?

By Dr. Marta Regalia

The issue of electoral reform has been the subject of repeated debate in Italy during recent decades. In most established democracies, major changes to the electoral system have occurred rarely as the status quo prevails among incumbent political parties. By contrast, as illustrated in table 1, Italy has seen four major electoral reforms since 1945 (D'Alimonte, 2005), with the latest passed in May 2015. One might also include the enactment and then the repeal of the Italian legge truffa (“swindle law”), but it never came into operation (Katz, 2005).

Major electoral reforms in Italy (1945–2015)

Table 1: Major electoral reforms in Italy (1945–2015)
Year of reform or debate	Year of first use	New (or proposed) system
1946	1946	PR with preferential voting within lists, national pool, and low threshold
1993	1994	MMM with partial compensation
1994–2001	Not passed	Various schemes to enhance majoritarian character of system
2005	2006	Bonus-adjusted PR
2007–09	Not passed	referendum to apply bonus to largest party rather than largest coalition
2015	2018	Majority-assuring semi-open list PR with eventual second round

Source: Adapted from Renwick (2010, 112) and Baldini (2011)

The first major reform, enacted in 1993, is a significant example of what Renwick (Renwick, 2010) calls elite–mass interaction: actually, a popular referendum played a prominent role. The PR system used since 1946 was identified as one of the main causes of political fragmentation, governmental immobility, the absence of alternation, corruption and clientelism. Electoral reform was then seen as able to contribute to lessening these problems (Donovan, 1995). The result was a mixed-member majoritarian system, which, however, was replaced in 2005 by a PR system with a majority bonus. This reform, an example of elite majority imposed reform, was driven by partisan considerations.

Following the electoral system established in 2005, in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati) 630 members were elected through a closed-list proportional representation system. A pre-election coalition winning a plurality of votes was guaranteed 340 seats. The law had a series of thresholds designed to provide incentives for parties to enter coalitions, thus reducing party fragmentation. In the Senate (Senato della Repubblica), 315 members were elected through a closed-list proportional representation system but thresholds and premium are computed regionally, not nationally.

This system was used to elect lower and upper Chambers in 2006, 2008, and 2013. But it did not generate consensus since the new law was widely denounced immediately after the 2006 election and there were many attempts at further reform in subsequent years.

In December 2013, the Constitutional Court declared the 2005 electoral law unconstitutional for two main reasons: because it did not include a minimum threshold in order to attain the major­ity of seats, and because it had long, closed lists of candidates, so that selection was dominated by party leaders.

Understanding Italy's electoral performance

The immediate effect of the constitutional judgment was to accelerate electoral reform. In May 2015, a new electoral law was passed by parliament. The new proportional election system awards 340 out of 630 seats to any party (coalitions are not allowed) that wins more than 40% of the national vote (not just any plurality). If no party reaches that threshold, there is a second-round run-off between the two parties with the most votes. The electoral reform is expected to come into force in July 2016.

One way to understand this issue is to look at evidence of how independent experts evaluated the 2005 electoral system and comparable contests in post-industrial societies. The expert survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI 3-5) asks experts to evaluate elections using 49 indicators, grouped into eleven categories reflecting the whole electoral cycle. The dataset also includes a summary 100-point PEI Index based on summing all 49 indicators which provides one way to summarize the overall integrity of the election.

We can compare Italy’s performances in the PEI survey (Norris et al., 2015) with the mean of OECD member States. The results show that ranked Italy 21st out of 27 OECD countries, with an overall PEI Index of 67 on a 100-point scale. Italy is also second to last among West European countries.

Figure 1: Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index in OECD member States

Source: Electoral Integrity Project. 2015. The expert survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity, Release 3.5 (PEI-3.5).

Note: Canada, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland are OECD member States not yet covered by PEI survey

To have a clearer understanding of the reasons why Italy performs so badly in the overall Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index, the results can be broken down in more detai, as seen in figure 2.

Apart from boundary delimitation, all the other components of the electoral cycle show values below the OECD mean. The performance of Italy is mainly due to the electoral law[1]. According to the experts, the electoral law favoured the governing party, was unfair to smaller parties, and, above all, restricted citizens’ rights. This result is in line with the sentence of the Constitutional Court and with many of the major criticisms directed to the 2005 Italian electoral law. The long and closed lists of candidates provided party leaders with the power to select, in their “smoke-filled rooms,” the entire parliamentary class, disempowering the citizens. The PEI survey confirms this claim: experts evaluated the 2005 election law as restricting citizens’ rights[2].

Figure 2: Perceptions of Electoral Integrity components – Italy in respect to OECD mean

Source: Electoral Integrity Project. 2015. The expert survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity, Release 3.5 (PEI-3.5).

What about the future? Will the new reform strengthen electoral integrity?

Will the latest reform overcome some of the above-mentioned problems? The next general election will probably be in 2018. Supporters of the new law, called Italicum, claim that voters will now be able to choose their representative through preferential voting (open lists). By contrast, those who criticize the reform highlight the possibility of multiple candidacies in up to 10 districts which will significantly distort the relationship between voters and candidates (Regalia, 2015). Moreover, the majority bonus threshold of 40% will assign the majority of seats to the party collecting the biggest share of votes. It will put this party in the position to elect the President of the Republic on the fourth round of voting (when the absolute majority is sufficient), and to choose all five Constitutional judges and several components of the Higher Judiciary Council. Whether these spill-over effects will affect the integrity of future elections is a matter of opinion.

There is just one point everyone agrees upon: in Italy the electoral law will remain an object of intense and acrimonious debate, thus hindering both electoral integrity and the quality of the Italian democracy.

References

Baldini, G. 2011. The Different Trajectories of Italian

Electoral Reforms. West European Politics, 34, 644–663.

D'Alimonte, R. 2005. Italy: a Case of Fragmented Bipolarism. In: Gallagher, M. & Mitchell, P. (eds.) The Politics of Electoral Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Donovan, M. 1995. The Politics of Electoral Reform in Italy. International Political Science Review, 16, 47-64.

Katz, R. 2005. Why Are There So Many (or So Few) Electoral Reforms? In: Gallagher  M. & Mitchell, P. (eds.) The politics of electoral reforms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Norris, P., Martínez i Coma, F., Nai, A. & Grömping, M. 2015. The expert survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity, Release 3.5, (PEI_3.5). In: www.electoralintegrityproject.com (ed.).

Regalia, M. 2015. Electoral Systems. In: Jones, E. & Pasquino, G. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics. Oxford: Oxfrod University Press.

Renwick, A. 2010. The Politics of Electoral Reform. Changing the rules of democracy, New York, Cambridge University Press.

Notes

[1] This difference of means is statistically significant at the 0.01 level in a 2-tailed independent sample t-test.

[2] This difference of means is statistically significant at the 0.01 level in a 2-tailed independent sample t-test.