Compromise Formula: 75 Multi Member Constituencies, Fully PR Election

Further Compromise: Mixed Election With Reservations (March 10, 2007)
5 Point Demand: Compromise Formula So Elections Can Be Held In June
Compromise: Add 45 Constituencies To The Terai

I tried to forge a Madhesi Alliance by trying to see what would bring together the armed, unarmed and the in-power Madhesi groups.

Madhesi Alliance Needed
Ridiculous Bahun Poudel
Talk To Goit
एक मधेश एक प्रदेश
Bahun Conspiracy To Hijack Constituent Assembly Elections
मधेशी अान्दोलनको गन्तव्य: नभम्बर चुनाव

I figured completely proportional election might do the trick. And now the Maoists have said they want the same. In my formula, the entire country would be one constituency.

Now what could we do to bring the Nepali Congress also on board?

Right now we have not figured out how to divide the 240 constituencies. The first time we tried, the Madhesi MPs shut down the parliament for a month, and for good reason.

The middle ground could be as follows.

Let the 75 districts be the 75 constituencies. They will be multi-member constituencies when a district has been alloted more than one seat. So if Morang has 10 seats, each party will put up a list of 10 candidates for Morang. If the Nepali Congress wins 20% of the vote, the UML another 20%, the Maoists, the MJF and the Sadbhavana 20% each, then each will get two seats each, the first two on their list of 10. If a party were to get less than 10% of the votes, it should be able to trade that with another party in another district. As in, if the MJF gets 5% and the Sadbhavana gets 5% in this case, the MJF could give that to the Sadbhavana in the district for a similar favor by the Sadbhavana to it in another district. But votes can not be carried from one district to another.

Every third name on a party's list must be female.

And this would be the only way to elect members to the constituent assembly. There would be only one ballot. 17 nominations by the cabinet go out the window for being undemocratic. All 480 members would get elected this way. This probably means the number of representatives from each district would double. Better would be to keep the total at 240. Half of those 240 will be in the Terai districts.

Having only one ballot will also be less confusing to the voters.

The majority coalition gets to form the new government after the polls. It is that government that calls the new assembly into session. Bye bye Girija.

The current interim parliament is dissolved before the election campaign is formally launched. That is standard procedure.

This way you are not ignoring geographical representation. But you are also not wasting votes. Otherwise we have had elections where a candidate with 20% of the votes gets the seat, and 80% of the votes go to waste.

This could be a compromise formula between the Madhesi groups and the Nepali Congress.

If we could agree on this, we don't have to declare the country a republic right away. We can wait until after the election. And all the demands the MJF put forth and was disrespected for by the government, the MJF gets to turn into election issues to rally the masses behind it.

On The Web

Proportional representation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How Proportional Representation Elections Work
[PDF] Split-Ticket Patterns in Mixed-Member Proportional Election ...
Voting Systems: Majority Election vs. Proportional Representation

In The News

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‘Obama targeted Pakistan to get boost in polls’ Daily Times
Obama's Tough Talk Newsweek Obama also vowed to go after Osama bin Laden, a position he reiterated in a mass e-mail. ...... "This is not a response to Hillary Clinton or anybody else," says Scott Gration, a Swahili-speaking retired Air Force major general who has emerged as a key Obama adviser (and who recently went to Iowa in an effort to beef up Obama's national-security credentials).
Obama Vs. Clinton Revisited CBS News Obama is rejecting the "our sunuvabitch" strategy of making nice to Musharraf (and, I think, the House of Saud as well). HRC says that's "naive" and "irresponsible." The MSM agreed, until the polling showed that Obama had the country with him. ..... analyzing these recent squabbles is like trying to decipher Kremlin May Day photographs. Enough's enough.
‘Obama wanted to show he’s tougher than Hillary’ Daily Times
Romney attacks Obama over Pakistan warning Washington Post
Pakistanis Rebuke Obama For Military Force Remark Washington Post
Obama Takes Heat On Pakistan New York Times
At YearlyKos, Clinton Defends Lobbyists Atlantic Online as if the presidential candidates had run out of new things to say ..... Hillary Clinton was forced to explain to why she accepts contributions from federal lobbyists. ...... "A lot of those lobbyists whether you like it not, represent real Americans," she said. "They represent nurses, social workers" -- here the audience began to boo -- "and yes, they represent corporations and they employ a lot of people." "I just... I just ask you to look at my record." Never, she said, in her 35 years of public service, had she bowed to the will of a lobbyist. ........ Two hours earlier, Clinton spoke to a convention of police officers in Chicago and might well have pointed out that police officers employ lobbyists; unions in Washington use dozens of them, as do non-profits, colleges, universities, towns and cities. ......... Sen. Barack Obama, who, like Edwards does not take donations from federal lobbyists, jumped in. "I just disagree" with Clinton's notion that lobbyists don't have a disproportionate influence on the system. "Now Hillary, you were talking about your [health care] effort back in 1993, and you can't tell me that money didn't make a difference, and you can't tell me that the money they are spending is just to contribute to the public interest." .......... "As long as we don't have public financing, I think we have to raise money from nurses, teachers and doctors, people who work on Wall Street in New York City." ........ Her platform aims to restore competence to government, to work within government to produce solutions, and to bring the Democratic Party back to power. ....... Barack Obama has placed on a pox on both houses of Congress and both political parties. ..... The Netroots crowd did not want to be condescended to, but their spontaneous applause at predictable, well-worn pander standards suggested that they enjoyed the attention. There was no crowd favorite, although Obama, who turns 46 today, was introduced to the loudest cheers. ..... HIllary Clinton praised Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy, "which was exactly the right thing to do." .... Richardson said the Democratic Party should push for verified paper ballots, same-day voter registration and work to fight Republican attempts to challenge minority voters at the polls.
Clinton Goes First New York Times As her microphone faded, she muttered “right wing conspiracy” as an aside, winning cheers and laughs right off the bat. ....... “I’m aware that not everyone says nice things about me, and it’s a burden I have to bear,” she said, to laughter, and you could feel the audience warming up to her. ....... “What you’ve done is to stand up against the right-wing noise machine,” she said. She said she wished there had been a blogosphere in 1993 when she was trying to pass her health care plan. ..... don’t tell anyone, she said — she said she reads blogs .... She said marriage should be left to the states .... NAFTA did not live up to its promises. ..... “I appreciate everything you’re doing — well, not everything you’re doing,” she said, again drawing laughter. ...... “If we just talk to ourselves we sound really smart.” ...... Her informal, non-campaign mode and the warm response in the room

20 Million Affected by Floods In India, Bangladesh, and Nepal Voice of America
Giuliani Plays Offense On Health Care New York Times
Flood situation in Bihar grim, IAF drops food packets Hindu
Congress splits on terrorism spy bill Seattle Times
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Where Rupert Murdoch Could Fall Short BusinessWeek News Corp. is in the process of updating its printing presses in Europe, which will ready the Journal for a frontal attack on the Financial Times' home turf. .... The Wall Street Journal is—I must have a macro on my keyboard for this sentence by now—one of the world's great newspapers. Which, unfortunately, is something that seems to mean less and less in today's world ...... what it means to be The Wall Street Journal today ...... Murdoch is a fanged beast who eats baby journalists for breakfast ...... an old-school newspaper guy. He has shown tremendous patience with eight-figure losses at papers ranging from The Times of London to the New York Post. ...... putting up with losses can come from aggressive investment in the future or from casually accepting a challenging status quo. The New York Post does not lose money because it's pouring trillions into a bold new strategy to reinvent itself in a Digital Age ....... none of Murdoch's major papers has been reinvented for the Digital Age. It should irk Murdoch that the BBC, which he frequently blasts, has moved much faster than News Corp. to revamp its news operations in interesting ways. ...... an expensive creative process .... a dual-stock structure won't withstand every challenge, and that there is a price to pay for confusing "protecting the journalistic franchise" with "ignoring everything the market says." As for Rupert, if he's wise, he won't let his love for newspapering in the 20th century get in the way of what Dow Jones needs to become in the 21st.
Baby Matt is Bourne Daily Telegraph the arrival of his baby daughter changed his approach to the rigorous training schedule he had undertaken throughout shooting of The Bourne Identity in 2002 and the sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, in 2004 - smash hits ..... "In the past, I didn't realise what little of a life I had. I'd work all day and then I'd go to the gym and get ready for the next day and everything kind of revolved around the next day's work and getting through the next day. ....... Damon's reputation as one of Hollywood's nicest guys is well-earned but he is not concerned with cultivating an image. .... "I try to be polite and maybe a little boring,'' he says.
FCC Ensures Open Access in 700 MHz Auction DailyTech
Besieged Karzai To Meet With Bush Washington Post a two-day meeting with President Bush at Camp David ...... how to secure the release of 21 surviving South Korean hostages, combat the aggressive Taliban insurgency and rein in Afghanistan's flourishing opium poppy trade. ........ in return for providing $10 billion in aid and more than 20,000 troops, U.S. officials may be pushing Karzai to take or accept harsh actions that many Afghans adamantly oppose. ...... Taliban, the once-defeated radical Islamic militia that has roared back to life as a power-hungry, media-savvy guerrilla force ........ moving ever closer to this tense capital in its campaign to drive out foreign troops and restore strict Islamic rule. ....... Taliban officials are demanding the withdrawal of 210 South Korean troops and the release of a group of imprisoned insurgents in exchange for the hostages' lives. ..... the Taliban are already winning the psychological war, delaying the hostage situation to gain time and public attention ....... their psychological presence is everywhere. ..... In recent months, the Taliban has made its presence felt in widening swaths of territory, moving farther out of its traditional base in the south and into provinces ringing the capital. ...... Wardak, a poor region of fields and orchards just southwest of Kabul ...... Taliban fighters hold armed meetings in village mosques and send threatening letters that force girls' schools to shut down. ....... promised roads and schools were never built, local authorities are corrupt and security is abysmal, with as few as four poorly trained policemen per district. ......... "A lot of our boys have no jobs or education. The Taliban pay them and tell them the Americans have come to erase Islam from their country. ....... "If the Taliban get power again in our province, it is only one leap to the capital." ....... a mounting toll of civilian casualties, mostly in bombing raids. The deaths have inflamed public opinion, turned many Afghans against the foreign forces and further strained Karzai's credibility. ......... collateral damage and cultural insensitivity ..... opium poppy cultivation and trafficking. .. the Taliban, which had banned it in 2000 ..... "the tie between insecurity and poppy production is more and more clear," as are the links between the drug crop and the Taliban insurgency.
Ahmadinejad says Iran won't give up nuclear plans
Experts warn Beckham buzz won't last Toronto Star his new home ground was more mall than sporting venue. ...... More important than his athletic prowess, this is what Beckham brings to America: sales, marketing savvy and heat. ..... Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, lured 5 million viewers stateside and was judged a ratings disaster. But it did represent the largest-ever audience for soccer on the U.S.'s main sports network. ....... It was Fuller who announced that Beckham's MLS deal is worth $250 million, providing little detail but sparking enormous interest. .... the whole brand those two have built around themselves ..... take a single property – American Idol, for instance – and spin it into multiple, lucrative streams of revenue. A show, a concert tour, CDs, TV spinoffs etc. ....... prompted Beckham to fire his traditional sports agents, SFX, in 2003 and hire the show biz mogul instead. ...... the Beckhams are main features of American tabloids. Though he has been unable to train for weeks, paparazzi shots of him getting his morning coffee or going out for dinner appear daily. ........ Relative unknowns in America only a year ago, the Beckhams are already being feted by Hollywood's A-List. This is Fuller's doing. ........ make big waves in the small pond of American soccer. ..... Thus far, his marketing prowess has greatly outflanked his performance ...... capitalize on the buzz now, before the public's interest drifts and Beckham's athletic sell-by date expires. ..... You sign them not because you believe they are going to play that long, but in order to spread out your costs ..... "What happened to the NBA after Michael Jordan left? You can't wrap your league around one guy." .... "late investors" in the Beckham phenomenon – the ticket buying public. .... Beckham is here to lure people into the store. It's MLS's job to turn them into repeat customers. ... "He's the cherry on top of the sundae," Quinn said. "He's not the sundae."
Obama remark angers Pakistan Chicago Tribune
Kos on Clinton, DLC, GOP attacks MSNBC the original purpose of the YearlyKos convention when he started it was "to put faces to screen names." ....... The candidates chose this year to speak at the left-leaning blogger convention instead of the once powerful centrist Democratic Leadership Council. ..... "If the DLC had a list of three million people," Moulitsas said, "they would go to that. It's not that they're centrist." ..... "It's that they hate when regular people are involved in the process," Moulitsas said, adding, "They hate Democracy if they hate this conference. It's as simple as that." ....... He said he has not met with the candidates because he's "not interested in being a gatekeeper. They don't need to go through me."
Clinton Will Hold Chat Session With Bloggers After All New York Times
Bill Clinton Steers Clear of Hillary and Obama's Feud FOX News The clearest indication that Hillary's direct and personal attack on Obama last week was a failure is the fact that Bill sounded the retreat in his speech this week at the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). ...... Her strategist, Mark Penn, described her attack as "part of an unfolding strategy." ..... "that little spat" ..... the poll showing that Obama had 55 percent of the Democrats with him as against only 22 percent for Hillary on this issue ....... In so many ways right now, Obama has Hillary on the defensive. His well-aimed shots are having their impact in the early primary states but have yet to affect the national polling numbers. ....... In New Hampshire, the same organization has Hillary's advantage over Obama vanishing entirely. In April, she was 23 points ahead of Obama. In May, her lead dropped to 19. It was only nine points in June and the race was tied at the end of July. In South Carolina, they have Hillary's losing the lead entirely, going from 16 points ahead in June to four points behind in July. ....... Hillary has not bought ads to match Obama so far because she is spooked by his fundraising success. ...... Obama has amassed a 3 to 2 advantage in funds on hand for the primary raised during the first six months of the race. Since he has four times as many donors as Hillary and fewer maxxed out contributors, his edge is likely to grow. ...... Her use of the "experience" issue against the freshman senator is increasingly ineffective as Obama shows himself to be a first class competitor in face-to-face performances. And using the issue puts her at risk of appearing to be a continuation of the same old Bush-Clinton rivalry amid an electorate gasping for change.
Why Pakistanis are easy targets for US candidates Hindustan Times Obama has carefully distinguished between “the wrong war” in Iraq and “the right war” in Afghanistan.
NEWSWEEK Poll: Will it Be Clinton vs. Giuliani? Newsweek the dubious company of Presidents Carter, Nixon and Truman ....... a comfortable 44 percent to 23 percent margin ..... Giuliani leads the field with 30 percent, 8 points ahead of former senator Fred Thompson ..... Roughly one third (34 percent) of all voters and more than half (58 percent) of registered Republicans say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is a strong supporter of gay rights. As mayor of New York City, Giuliani supported civil unions and signed a domestic-partnership bill. ...... a spouse 25 years younger. Fred Thompson is 24 years older than his wife, and Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich married a woman 31 years his junior. ...... In July 2003, not long after the president declared “mission accomplished” in Iraq, roughly two thirds (68 percent) of Americans thought taking military action against Iraq was the “right thing” to do. Today that number is roughly half that (35 percent).
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Report: Google shows phone prototype to manufacturers Washington Post
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Amazon joins Google in assault on eBay's PayPal Register
Review: Google Simple, PayPal Versatile Washington Post
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Local blogs are key to future of politics San Francisco Chronicle, USA the next frontier of political blogging will be led by people like Phillip Anderson. .... Even though his blog gets only about 1,000 visitors a day ..... Nevertheless, the mop-haired New Yorker already has the state party chair asking him for help reaching liberal voters. His allure: Local bloggers can influence the outcome of small elections. ...... bloggers who cover local politics have become the de facto watchdog in some communities and over some areas of government. ..... the rise of local bloggers is another step in the convergence of old and new media. ..... "We definitely rely on their (mainstream news outlet) stories, and they're definitely reading us." ...... The day after Democrats won the midterm congressional election in November, Anderson said to a friend, "Well, the national scene looks OK for now, but our state is really messed up." ...... part journalism, part activism and wholly progressive ..... In January, Anderson heard from Dave Pollak, co-chairman of the New York State Democratic Party. There was a special election coming up in Long Island for a state Senate seat, an election where turnout was expected to be low. Pollak knew blogs like Anderson's are read not only by political junkies but by politicians and their staffs, "so I reached out to the blogs," he said, "because they can get boots on the ground, and that's what the difference is in elections like this." The strategy worked. ........ Pollak says about $100,000 was raised and 40 people volunteered as a result of blogs spreading the word, "and in a small election, that was one of two or three things that helped us win that seat, which had been in Republican hands for a long time." .......... Earlier this year, when Anderson and other bloggers threw a "blograiser" (a fundraiser hosted by bloggers) for a state Senate candidate at a New York bar, not only did Pollak get out the word, he got newly elected Gov. Eliott Spitzer to show up. ...... Three weeks ago, Pollak hosted a meeting of 50 New York state bloggers "just to tell them what we were up to." ...... There is an understanding: Pollak doesn't expect the bloggers to march in lockstep with what the party wants, and the bloggers have no intention of giving any politician a free pass.

Barack Obama, Neocon Wall Street Journal that he should now propose invading a nuclear-armed Muslim country ...... the terror threat won't vanish when the Bush Administration does ...... Following Mr. Musharraf's ill-conceived truce last September with Taliban-connected warlords in the Pakistani province of Waziristan, terrorist raids into neighboring Afghanistan rose threefold. Al Qaeda has also been able to substantially reconstitute itself in the area ....... special forces raids or Predator strikes, or more. ..... Rumsfeld, who in 2005 is reported to have vetoed a U.S. commando raid into Waziristan on grounds that it might have destabilized Mr. Musharraf's government ....... Obama's willingness to draw appropriate conclusions from realities in Pakistan stands in refreshing contrast to his Democratic opponents
Obama Takes Heat On Pakistan New York Times












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