Proportional representation is an obligation

Perhaps the most obvious and immediate voting system is the first past the post system where members of parliament are simply the candidate with the most votes in each constituency. There is no immediate contradiction with this system… it is only natural that the most popular candidate is elected but we find from experience that it tends to result in a two-party system which is harmful to democracy. If there is only one winner then voters will realise that voting for a lesser-known candidate will be detrimental to their interests because their vote will have no bearing on the outcome… so voters will seek to retain the value of their vote by choosing amongst established candidates. Whilst this system is clearly less democratic than other (proportional) systems there is a certain stability to this arrangement because voters cannot register their displeasure… by definition the system protects the ‘centrist’ parties which are tolerant of the fptp system. Voters cannot easily register their displeasure either at the two main parties or the system. But the state and the voters themselves have an obligation to make sure full democracy is being offered to (other) voters. We have an obligation to make sure we are not participating in or giving a mandate to an undemocratic system and so then we have an obligation to reject first past the post and to support only parties which support proportional representation. We should reject a party which doesn’t support proportional representation for that reason alone irrespective of its other policies. If a party doesn’t support proportional representation that alone should be sufficient for it to be unsuitable for consideration. We should consider only parties which support proportional representation and we have an obligation to reject parties which tolerate or even endorse fptp.