The recent elections in Greece us another opportunity to contrast American elections - and the entire presidential system established in the Constitution - with that of most other democracies. Greece has a parliamentarian system with a legislature selected by proportional representation. Generally this means that people vote for a party - not a person - and the party is awarded seats in the legislature in proportion to its share of the total vote. Often this means that a single party cannot get a majority and cannot therefore control parliament. A coalition has to be put together in order to do so.
That's where Greece seems to be right now. The conservative - pro bailout - party won a plurality of the vote, but now has to put a ruling coalition together in order to government. This cannot happen in a two party system. We will touch on the various differences between the two systems soon.
- Greek Elections.
