Power Sharing versus Winner Takes All (Dr. Ghany, April 2006)

"As the issue of constitutional reform, as expressed in the draft constitution by the Principles of Fairness Group, continues to attract attention, one area that must be considered is the question of power-sharing, as opposed to the system of winner takes all.That is essentially a split between a consensual model of democracy (where competing political interests hold power in different parts of the system and negotiate with each other to arrive at compromises), and the majoritarian model (where only one of the competing political interests earns the right to control the entire political system to the exclusion of all others).The prospect of voters having two votes (one for the executive branch and one for the legislative branch) opens the door to a range of possibilities that will permit new levels of participation in the political process that did not previously exist.Such a change will bring with it a fundamental revision of the way in which institutional accountability and political competition will integrate with each other."