„Combination” - a mixed electoral system as a way to strengthen major political parties on the example of Lithuania

Abstract

With the exception of the first transitional elections, sińce 1992 a mixed electoral system has been used in Lithuanian elections to parliament, in a variant called the combination or superposition. Half of the seats are filled according to the absolute majority formuła, and the other half according to a proportional formuła. The voter has two votes. The paper also describes other elements of the electoral system and its evolution. The main ąuestion in the survey, however, is whether the results of the elections in the proportional part bring more parties to the parliament than the majority part of the election results. It tums out that more parties and smaller parties get into parliament thanks to the majority formuła. This contradicts the widespread thesis that the majoritarian formuła helps reduce the fragmentation of parliament and facilitates a majority govemment. Moreover, the numbers show that the second round, used in the majoritarian part of the election, in 75% of districts confirms the victory of the candidate who came first in the first round.