Unlike in Brazil: elections in the UK – guestpost by Adam Dady

Guest post by Adam Dady

On Thursday 7 May, British voters will vote for our next government. The 2010 elections saw our first coalition government (Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) since 1945. This year’s elections promise to be even more unpredictable by UK standards, with five parties currently receiving more than 5% support in the polls.

In a country with a coalition with over 10 parties, this might make Brazilians smile. But there are reasons why the UK electoral system produced single party governments for so long. The UK is divided up into 650 electoral districts, and at each general election the candidate who receives the most votes in each goes to the House of Commons. So to form a majority government, you just need to be the most popular party in 326 districts. Labour managed this three times in a row between 1997 and 2010, and the Conservative party managed it four times in a row before that.

Unlike in Brazil, where there is a direct vote for President, Brits can’t vote for our Prime Minister. We can only vote to elect our Member of Parliment (MP). This normally ensures close ties between MPs and their constituents, with many MPs working in their district on Fridays to help their voters with problems. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party with a majority, or the leader of the biggest party in a coalition. This means our next Prime Minister will very likely be either current Prime Minister David Cameron (Conservatives) or Ed Miliband (Labour). The Prime Minister would then choose ministers to lead and work in the 22 ministerial departments. All ministers have to be MPs or members of the House of Lords.

There are a few other interesting differences between UK and Brazilians elections. Brazilians vote electronically, Brits vote on paper. In Brazil, voting is obligatory, whereas in the UK it is optional. And 16 year olds can vote in Brazil, whereas in the UK you have to be 18 (when you’re also legally allowed to buy beer). But despite the differences, both our countries are big democracies, and the healthy debate from October’s Brazilian elections will be replicated in the UK over the next three months.