وجنة
صاحبة الإمتياز و الملكية
العمل/الترفيه : english teacher
رقم العضوية : 2
تاريخ التسجيل : 17/10/2009
عدد المساهمات : 1445
 |  موضوع: The UK political system explained  الثلاثاء 27 أبريل 2010 - 20:59 | |
| var clickExpire = "-1"; var clickExpire = "-1"; [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة] When does an election happen? The UK has no
written constitution. Instead the country's electoral system is based on
a series of parliamentary acts dating back to the 17th century, when
men wore the sort of tights and wigs still donned on ceremonial
occasions by some officials of the Houses of Parliament. A
general election is when voters nationwide choose lawmakers who will sit
in the House of Commons, the lower chamber which initiates and approves
legislation. An election must take place, by law, at least every
five years. That said, governments can call an election at any time
during their term. They could also be forced into an election if they
lose a majority of lawmakers in the Commons.
Who calls an election?
The starting gun in a general election is
traditionally fired when the prime minister travels to Buckingham Palace
to ask the queen, the UK's head of state, to dissolve parliament by
royal proclamation. An election must then take place within
weeks. Since 1979, elections have been held between April and June. It
is customary for an election to be held on a Thursday. The vote
is conducted through the "first past the post" system whereby the
candidate in each constituency with the most votes wins the seat. If
the queen is the head of state, then how come the UK a democracy?
Although the UK is a monarchy, the powers of the reigning head of
state have gradually dwindled since King Charles I was beheaded in 1649
following the English Civil War between Royalists and Parliamentarians.
Today, the monarch's role is largely ceremonial and mostly
restricted to state functions and appearing on stamps and banknotes. But
the monarch still retains formal powers and opens parliament each year.
How does parliament function? The job of parliament is
to make laws, scrutinize the actions of the government and debate
issues of the day. The Commons -- which has green benches -- currently
consists of 650 directly elected lawmakers known as Members of
Parliament or MPs who each represent a geographical constituency. The
upper house, the Lords -- which has red benches -- is mostly appointed
by the government with members serving for life. Its main duty is to
vote on legislation passed by the Commons and, when necessary, to send
it back for further debate. In certain circumstances the
government can force through legislation passed by the Commons but
rejected by the Lords. How is an election decided? Voters
do not elect the prime minister, or head of government, directly.
Rather, they vote to elect a candidate representing a particular party
to serve as their local MP. The leader of the party which wins the most
seats is then asked by the Queen to form a government. The leader of the
second largest party in the Commons becomes the "Leader of Her
Majesty's Opposition."
MPs are elected by a plurality, rather
than a majority, of votes. This means that a party can win a majority of
seats in the Commons without achieving an overall majority in the
overall popular vote. In fact, because there are three main parties in
the UK it is extremely rare for a party to win an outright majority.
The last prime minister elected by an outright majority was Stanley
Baldwin, the Conservative Party leader, in 1931. In 2005, Tony Blair's
Labour Party won just 35 percent of the vote but still controlled a
66-seat majority in the House of Commons.
So who can I vote
for? For most of the past century, British politics has been
dominated by two parties, the left-wing Labour Party and the right-wing
Conservative Party. That said, the boundaries between left and right
have been blurred as each has strived to occupy the strategically
important center ground.
A third party, the centrist Liberal
Democrats, usually picks up around 20 percent of votes but wins far
fewer seats because it is squeezed between the two main parties. Parties
from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also send small numbers of
lawmakers to Westminster.
Full
guide to UK political parties
What happens if a party
doesn't win a majority of seats?
If no party wins an
overall majority -- a "hung parliament" --- then the leader of the party
which takes the most seats will usually be invited by the monarch to
form a government. But its powers will be limited because it cannot
control a majority of votes in the Commons. The party will usually call
another election within months in a fresh attempt to secure a majority.
What
would a hung parliament mean in 2010?
The
last time this happened was in 1974, when an election in February
resulted in a hung parliament. A second election followed in October of
the same year. Many opinion pollsters and observers believe that the
2010 general election will result in a hung parliament. | |
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