Disproportionality in Maltese Elections

An enduring problem in electoral systems is that of "disproportionality," i.e., the mismatch between a party's percentage of the popular vote and its percentage of legislative seats. Such disproportionality is quite common and extreme cases are easy to find in the real word. To give just one example, the Liberal Party in Britain polled 13.8% of the national vote in 1979 but was rewarded with only 1.7% of the seats in Parliament. The Conservatives, with 43.9% of the vote in the same election, received 53.4% of the seats and were able to form the Government.