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Clegg pressed to make decision on next UK government

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, May 11, IRNA – Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron said Tuesday it was "decision time for the Liberal Democrats" over which party they will back to form the next British government.

In response, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said that his party’s separate power-sharing discussions with the Conservatives and Labour had “reached a critical and final phase."

"I really hope that we will be to make an announcement soon, so we can clear up everything and explain to people exactly what our thinking is as quickly as possible," the Lib Dem leader told reporters outside his London home.

The dilemma faced by Clegg was the stark choice of two governments that are likely to be unstable; a coalition with the ideologically different Conservatives that would have a majority or a minority coalition with Labour depending on support of nationalist MPs.

The choice includs separate offers towards a change from Britain’s simple first-past-the-post voting system, which traditionally has tended to produce one-party governments at the expense of smaller parties being less represented.

According to figures calculated by the Electoral Reform Society and obtained by IRNA, a fairer voting system would have prevented the current deadlock in the UK elections and produced a more representative democracy.

“Once again First-Past-the-Post has generated results that stretch the idea of ‘representative’ democracy to breaking point,” said ERS chief executive Ken Ritchie.

Under the Alternate Vote model, which ranks candidates, last week’s elections would have resulted in the Lib Dems gaining 22 more MPs and with Labour could have formed a much more stable and majority coalition government.

Under a Single Transferable Voting System, the outcome would have been even more balanced on proportionate representation with the Lib Dems gaining over 100 more seats.

These contrast with the actual result, when the Conservatives took 36% of national vote but ended up with 49% of the 650 parliamentary seats, Labour 29% of vote and 42% of the seats and the Lib Dems only 9% of the seats despite winning 23 per cent of the vote.

Under coalition proposals, Labour has offered legislation for an Alternative Vote model, which will still need to be passed by parliament, while the Conservatives have pledged only to hold a referendum to change the system.