As is the case with respect to international standards, the legal design, reform, and implementation of an electoral system, cannot disregard the cultural, economic, legal, social, and political reality or context. The application and interpretation of constitutional, legal, and regulatory regimes must agree with the context. This is true whether the system is supranational or regional (European Union or Central American Parliament), national (of each country), state, autonomous, departmental, municipal, cantonal, or of a county.
There is not one unique or perfect electoral model, but different electoral systems used to accomplish the objectives established by the citizenship and political actors as determined at a particular place and time. A system will be adequate when it is consistent with the degree of democratic development of the community in which it is applied or when it is capable of facilitating the community’s transition to democracy or democratic consolidation itself.
System design can provoke certain results, such as an easier construction of majorities or can serve to reflect in a more reliable or proportional way the existence of different political groups. However, the truth is that other factors which are not necessarily derived from technical electoral elements are the ones that can result in the existence of “artificial” or circumstantial majorities. Such influencing factors can include the legislative body size, the correlation of forces among the diverse political parties and the consequent construction of coalitions or alliances, the geographical distribution of the electorate, electoral pacts or agreements, etcetera.
An inclusive and representative democratic model which is politically viable and with high standards of legitimacy, must consider, and even accommodate the different expectations and political ideologies of each of the political actors (citizens, political parties, citizens organizations, pressure groups, etcetera) regardless of the coincidence, convergence, proximity, or even diametrical divergence of their positions in certain topics of the political agenda. Electoral systems are a product of political agreements. They are the way in which the aggregation of political groups’ interests is shown. Those interests shall not be ignored by juridical figures except when they are opposite to the existence of free and fair electoral processes.
The choice of a concrete electoral model (direct or indirect elections), its development (majority system, proportional representation, or either mixed or segmented) and its characteristics or combination of elements (simple, absolute or qualified majority; pure or impure proportional representation; or with a governability clause) must be decisions based on consent or majority. However, not even the majority’s agreement nor wide consent shall exclude minorities’ possibility of representation or voice in the government’s functioning whether in parliaments, congresses or legislative chambers, executive or administrative organs (town or city councils).
In order to prevent electoral systems from becoming theoretical, inefficient or inoperative formulas, political agreement, the social context, and the circumstantial aspects are important and will be further discussed. However, those aspects cannot annihilate or proscribe the principles which inform free and fair electoral processes: the human right of a passive and active vote; the celebration of periodical and authentic elections; universal, secret, and equal suffrage; respect for human rights; neutrality of the electoral administration regarding other State apparatus and political actors; and jurisdictional control of the electoral acts’ application.
