Oh, too many things to react to. Anyway...
Shannar, Sealord wrote:
How many depends on what state you live in actually. In Michigan we had 5, others had more. And if you include the primary round we had at least 9 more. But yes, we do tend to follow our election laws reasonably well- for the most part.
That is one thing I do not understand on US elections. Shouldn't a candidate for the highest position of all the federation be available as a choice in every state? What would happen, if, say, Florida, elected different president?
Aicanor wrote:
These presidential elections were invented because Czech politicians do not want to vote for a law that would enable general referendum.
I guess this is the reason for the hype made about them when the Parliament accepted them. However, I think that the reason for making this election direct is, that in current situation, none of parties in Parliament would be be able to push its candidate through in the former system.
RE.Lee wrote:
I read Fischer and Zeman are leading?
That is what opinion polls are saying. However, in last elections (regional), opinion polls were sometimes so distorted that there were accusations of manipulation - i.e., that media supported certain parties by using polls made on unrepresentative groups of people. AFAIK the issue is still not resolved. After all, if you look on the title of presidential debates in Czech TV (
http://www.blisty.cz/art/66802.html ), it doesn't look like that all candidates are equal.
RE.Lee wrote:
Personally, I'd go with Schwarzenberg probably.
He is part of current government, which according to some people, is the worst we have had since 1950, and I am inclined to believe it. He is also known not to shy from corruption, and to insist that you vote the person, not the program (i.e., the program is not important for him once he is elected). Political differences aside, I think that he is too old for any high government position.
Myself, I am considering Fischerová or Dienstbier. Both seem to be able to keep their promises and respect constitution (unlike current president). Both of them are also in opposition to current destructive government policy.
Teledor wrote:
Back on topic though, I think we're arguing over a 'which came first: chicken v. egg' sort of situation here. You think, or at least this is the way I've interpreted it so correct me if I am wrong, that people are apathetic about the primary process, don't vote in primaries and then complain about the candidates in the general election. While I am arguing that people are disenfranchised from the primary process, don't like the candidates in the primaries resulting in less participation and complain about that throughout the process. I think the general apathy is a result of poor candidates vs. the poor candidates as the result of general apathy. Like I said, I think we're arguing over the classic chicken or the egg.
I've just always found it interesting that countries with "winner take all/first past the post" kind of systems which typically are dominated mainly by two parties (U.S. & U.K., although the UK has other viable parties than Tories and Labour) tend to have much lower voter turnout than that of the proportional systems. Which in the U.S., leads us back towards primaries and the greater polarization of the parties vs. the general populace.
I think that the majority system may be part of the problem. Its upside is, that it is easy, its downside that it forces people to vote for lesser evil. I will probably have to abandon a candidate which might be more interesting in favor of the one who has higher chance to make it into second round.
Now, I don't know what is the situation in USA, but judging by our situation, low membership of parties might be part of the problem. I don't have problem with primaries run inside a party. After all, it means that the choice is made by interested people. However, if the party is small, then you get candidates who don't necessarily offer what most of people want. (For comparison, our biggest party - communist - has about 50 000 members, which is about 0.5% of population, and they are oscilating between 10 - 20% of votes in elections. This suggests that more successful parties should have more members. But they don't.) My point is, that people have generally forgotten, that if they want politics to yield acceptable results, they have to participate in it.