The Italian referendum in 1993, leading to a change to a Mixed Member Proportional System for the elections the following year, marked the beginning of a series of significant changes in electoral systems all over the world. In the vast majority of the cases, changes have been made on the margins, with a new seat allocation formula, a new number of electoral districts, or an extra few appointed members in the legislature; but many countries have also gone through reform processes that have altered their electoral system completely. For instance, after the coups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar, elections were held after a transitional period under a Parallel System in 2006 and 2013, respectively. Another example is Fiji with its 2014 elections held under a Proportional Representation System after experiencing coups in 1987, 2000 and 2006.
There are some other cases where an electoral system was unsuccessfully replaced only to be used again, such as in Kyrgyzstan and more recently in Bulgaria, where a Mixed system was used in the 2009 election instead of one of Proportional Representation System, which was then reinstated in 2013.
As Table 1 shows, the trend is rather clear. Most countries that have changed electoral systems have done so in the direction of more proportionality, either by adding a PR element to a plurality system (making it a Parallel or MMP system) or by completely replacing their old system with List PR. The most common switch has been from a plurality/majority system to a mixed system, and there is not one example of a change in the opposite direction. The new plurality/majority systems all come from within the same family.
The debate about reforming the electoral systems as a way to achieve greater representation is still in many countries´ agendas. Such is the case of the United Kingdom, where a referendum on the voting system was held in 2011; however, the proposal was rejected with 67.90% (13’013,123) of the votes cast against it and 32.10% (6’152,607) in favour.
*Bhutan held elections for the first time in 2008 under the First Past the Post System and under the Two-Round System in 2013.
*The Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) held elections for the first time in 2006 under a Mixed electoral system.
*Madagascar adopted a Parallel system in 2013.
*Bulgaria changed from a Proportional Representation system to a Mixed electoral system in 2009 and back to PR in 2013.
