As Oana discusses briefly, Scotland just had its elections the other day. They turned into a fiasco as the machines that counted the ballots ate them and the ballots themselves were too complex and ill laid-out. I heard from my Scottish friends that there were two ballots: one for the national parliament and the other for the local council (like the county council in the States). The parliament ballots were a "choose one" style and the other was "give your preference in a 1-2-3" style. Also, one of my friends reported that the top ballot was split down the middle so that it was two ballots. The second sheet was the third ballot. As you can now imagine, there was mass confusion by the voters. This has cause thousands of "spoiled ballots" and Labour is now legally challenging at least one of the seats.
The outcome is that the Scottish National Party is the majority party in parliament. To form a government, however, they will need the Liberal Democrats to pad their majority. What the challenge by Labour will do is put Labour back into government with the Scottish National Party with a large and powerful critical check on Labour and the possibility of throwing another election if they can get a vote of no confidence with the Liberal Democrats or the Green party. One of my friends said that this will probably result in a hung parliament. This could possibly cause a holding pattern in the budget so probably no new huge construction or social projects but you never know.
We will have to wait and see how this turns out. There will be a formal inquiry into it. This could be lots of fun!
posted by Chris #11:07 AM | 0 comments |
