Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for an early election with the strong belief that his party, the Conservatives, would win. However, he did not take into account the fact that there were numerous structural and institutional constraints, which consequently resulted in a loss for his party in the recent 2015 federal elections . Canada is a parliamentary system, which is a democratic government that is dictated by the legislature (the parliament) alongside the executive power, making the legislature and the executive powers interconnected. Thus, with this system, there are factors that come into play when regarding the timings for elections because there are many key issues that arise if the executive power, which consists of the Crown, prime
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A majority electoral system basically attempts to have a more equal and fair representation in government. It usually consists of a “50%-plus-one-vote.” If there is no majority vote the first time around, then a second ballot is held, typically a week after the first session. This is very common in the United States of America, due to the fact that in order to become president, the candidate must achieve 50%-plus-one-vote electoral votes. Although, the final deciding factor of who is allowed to vote in the Electoral College is based on the plurality system, which is essentially the candidate that attains the plurality of the vote in a specific state, gets all of the state’s votes. This system may have benefited Harper for the simple reason that he was already in a majority party, and therefore if there was to be a majority vote within the system itself, he could have potentially won. It is not entirely true to say that he would definitely have won, but I believe it may have increased his chances. Furthermore, there is also the proportional representation electoral system that fundamentally translates proportionally the votes that a party receives into seats in parliament …show more content…
This system is vastly different from the parliamentary system; for example, the president is voted either directly by the citizens, or people who are solely elected for the purpose of voting and electing a president. However, the Prime Minister is elected from the legislative branch directly. I believe that if Stephen Harper were a candidate in a country where it was a presidential system, he would have had a higher chance of winning. This is due to the fact that the presidential system has a long period of campaigning in which the candidates try to garner the people’s votes, and in order to make a campaign successful, money is a necessity. Thus, hypothetically, if Harper’s campaign had as much money as the conservative party did when Harper called an early election, then he would have had a great chance of winning. Nonetheless, there are some institutional constraints to consider, such as the limit on the number of presidential terms. In the presidential system, one is allowed to be president for two terms (a total of eight years). This would have not benefited Harper, merely because he cannot run for president as many times as he would like to, because after the eight years, a new president must be elected. Therefore Harper would not have the ability to become leader again in the 2015
A majority electoral system basically attempts to have a more equal and fair representation in government. It usually consists of a “50%-plus-one-vote.” If there is no majority vote the first time around, then a second ballot is held, typically a week after the first session. This is very common in the United States of America, due to the fact that in order to become president, the candidate must achieve 50%-plus-one-vote electoral votes. Although, the final deciding factor of who is allowed to vote in the Electoral College is based on the plurality system, which is essentially the candidate that attains the plurality of the vote in a specific state, gets all of the state’s votes. This system may have benefited Harper for the simple reason that he was already in a majority party, and therefore if there was to be a majority vote within the system itself, he could have potentially won. It is not entirely true to say that he would definitely have won, but I believe it may have increased his chances. Furthermore, there is also the proportional representation electoral system that fundamentally translates proportionally the votes that a party receives into seats in parliament …show more content…
This system is vastly different from the parliamentary system; for example, the president is voted either directly by the citizens, or people who are solely elected for the purpose of voting and electing a president. However, the Prime Minister is elected from the legislative branch directly. I believe that if Stephen Harper were a candidate in a country where it was a presidential system, he would have had a higher chance of winning. This is due to the fact that the presidential system has a long period of campaigning in which the candidates try to garner the people’s votes, and in order to make a campaign successful, money is a necessity. Thus, hypothetically, if Harper’s campaign had as much money as the conservative party did when Harper called an early election, then he would have had a great chance of winning. Nonetheless, there are some institutional constraints to consider, such as the limit on the number of presidential terms. In the presidential system, one is allowed to be president for two terms (a total of eight years). This would have not benefited Harper, merely because he cannot run for president as many times as he would like to, because after the eight years, a new president must be elected. Therefore Harper would not have the ability to become leader again in the 2015