Derec
Contributor
I would say these instabilities are more reflective of the divisions in the society than reflective of the PR system itself.
And FPTP can introduce artificial majorities. For example, in the last UK election, Tories got 43.6% of the vote, a minority, but 56% of the seats. Liberal Democrats increased their vote share from 7.4 to 11.6%, but actually lost a seat. 11/650 seats is also <2% of the seats.
This is a good example how FPTP grossly distorts election results.
There are also ways to reduce the susceptibility of PR to having too many factions. Germany, wanting to prevent the instability of the Weimar Republic, introduced the 5% threshold for a party to move into the Bundestag, the lower house of the parliament. This prevents tiny parties from moving in with a seat or two, but it is not a hurdle that is too high for a reasonably popular party.
PR has many advantages over FPTP, but nothing is a panacea.
Also, if we were to implement PR in elections to the House of Representatives, there is no need to implement the full parliamentary system with prime minister as head of government elected by the parliament. We can maintain the presidential system, which will lead to stability. There would be no need for coalitions in the sense of parliamentary system. Alliances could be formed on a bill by bill basis. Unlike in a parliamentary system, the ruling government could not get anything it wants through the parliament (maintaining checks and balances) but unlike now, a single party could not block any legislation either.
