Court of parliamentarians, who reduces democracy to a matter of numbers is in bad faith

by Giuliano Checchi

Let’s clarify immediately that this post does not want to take sides with “Yes” or “No”, much less convince someone (without prejudice to freedom of interpretation). This post aims to clear up the completely misconception that has been around for days. Not only on social media, but also in the press.

Often by the mouth of people, whose proven competence in the matter, is an aggravation of the wrong message that they end up transmitting. What message? The making of representation of voters, a fact of dry numbers. Reducing the democracy representative, to a kind of mathematical theorem, according to which one representative for every 2000 voters represents more than one in 4000. And therefore, by eliminating 345 deputies, representation is eliminated. It is a big mistake.

It is reducing everything to the first layer of the surface. Very often in bad faith. Bad faith that leads, at times, to put on the same level elective bodies with those who are not elective; and therefore, with representativeness, they have nothing to do with it. How to mix cherries with artichokes. Steps for those who are not experts, but those who are should only be ashamed. What does “represent” mean?

It means having a mandate by a community of people, to act to protect and manage a series of rights and interests. So, what parameters must elected representatives respect for their representation to be effective? Just being in as many as possible? The more reps, the better? It all comes down to this? Certainly not.

Because, beyond the result that not even 2,000 parliamentarians would be enough for representation, the parameters that are truly important for representative democracy would move to second place (if not third or fourth); the consecrated in constitutional principles, and that go far beyond a mere figure.

Parameters such as being elected directly by an adequate number of voters (and not by party secretariats); parameters such as residing and knowing the territory in which they are elected (instead of electing Lombard candidates in Calabria or Tuscan candidates in Bolzano); parameters how to guarantee minorities adequate representation, subject of course to the appropriate limits to avoid excessive fragmentation.

In brutal terms: are 945 MPs elected under the most representative blocked list system, or 600 MPs elected under the old system of preferences? Are 945 parliamentarians elected in the most representative non-resident Colleges, or 600 parliamentarians elected in their territories? It is the raw number that counts, or does the parameter representation at the base? The answer seems obvious to me.

The representation parameters are established and fixed with the electoral laws. The approval of which provides for a process that can be carried out in a relatively short time. If political and governmental bodies really care about representative democracy, and not about the division of seats, they only have to intervene with a electoral law appropriate.

Which I am always on time for; both before and after the vote of referendum. Why don’t so many politicians and constitutionalists push for this? Why do they prefer, instead, to pass on the absurd idea that representative democracy is nothing more than a numerical indicator?

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