Britain's 'broken' democracy Vs Sri Lanka's system

One of the complaints about Britain’s ongoing process of picking its next prime minister is that the “system is broken”. The cliché is meant to sum up the unrepresentative nature of the process, which is underway right now and basically pitches the two finalists selected by members of parliament (MPs) of the governing Conservative Party — to the party’s couple-hundred-thousand membership out in the country.

This is true. Britain’s next prime minister is the country’s choice, but only metaphorically speaking. The real choice lies in the hands of anywhere between 140,000 and 200,000 Conservative Party members, who are mostly male, white, over 57 years old and resident in London and the south of England.

But the lament about the broken system is also meant to speak to the unrepresentative nature of parliamentary democracy. The head of government (or British prime minister) is chosen by MPs belonging to the governing party. People often say that this first-past-the-post system of electing M…