The interview with the former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi has given us an insider’s perspective (The Wednesday Interview “‘It is time to have a debate on proportional representation’,” March 7). Of particular significance were his views on the need to initiate a debate on proportional representation, or PR. The existing first-past-the-post system has considerably diluted the representative nature of democracy by creating a mismatch between the percentage of votes polled and the outcomes. That a party polling 20% of votes should draw a blank in the final tally of seats is a travesty and trivialises the voting preferences of a sizeable section of the population.

The introduction of proportional representation could facilitate the formation of coalition governments with smaller parties getting seats in proportion to their vote share. The success or failure of coalition governments depends on how the partners work together based on a common programme without being hampered by the agendas of individual parties. Proportional representation is a double-edged sword. It would also be unproductive to speculate on the impact of a major electoral reform without actually experimenting with it.

V.N. Mukundarajan,

Thiruvananthapuram