By Neophytos Loizides, University of Warwick
Following the recent parliamentary elections, public debate understandably focused on the paradox of a candidacy that finished seventh in Paphos securing one of the district’s five seats with a minimal number of preference votes. The problem, however, is not the individual candidate. The problem was already known.
In 2021, I publicly warned that the Cypriot electoral system contains structural weaknesses. In three districts – Nicosia, Kyrenia and Larnaca – the second‑placed party won more seats than the first, while in Paphos the leading party, with more than double the votes, secured the same number of seats as the fourth. Such contradictions occur frequently when systems rely on remainders (see the Alabama paradox), but in Cyprus they are exacerbated when remainders are transferred from one district to another.
Lawmakers should have been aware of these problems, as they are well documented in the academic literature and have also been used in negotiations on the Cyprus problem. The debate, therefore, is not whether distortions exist. It is whether we finally want to correct them.
My core proposal is simple and easy to understand: Cyprus should abandon the logic of electoral ‘quotients’ and remainders and move to a more internationally established system of seat allocation using Sainte‑Laguë divisors at constituency level.
Why Sainte‑Laguë?
First, because divisor systems are today more widely used internationally than systems based on quotients and remainders. Mature proportional democracies in Europe rely on variants of divisor systems – either D’Hondt or Sainte‑Laguë – because they are more stable, more transparent and reduce the paradoxical outcomes produced by artificial transfers of remainders.
Second, because Sainte‑Laguë is more proportional and neutral than D’Hondt, which favours larger parties. At a time of political fragmentation, democratic legitimacy requires a system that translates citizens’ votes as fairly as possible into representation.
How does it work? In each constituency, the votes of each party are successively divided by a sequence of numbers. The highest resulting figures are awarded the available seats in that constituency. Technically, the system operates with successive divisors (1, 3, 5, 7…). After each seat is allocated, a party’s electoral strength is recalculated, meaning that each additional seat must be justified in comparison with the other parties.
A party with double or triple the votes of another continues to have an advantage, but not to the extent that a small difference in votes is converted into disproportionate over‑representation.
The case of Nicosia
Let us consider Nicosia, the largest electoral district. Under the current system, seat allocation can be heavily influenced by who does or does not reach the electoral quota, by remainders and by technical corrections that the average citizen finds difficult to understand. The result is often significant discrepancies between vote share and final parliamentary representation.
Under a Sainte‑Laguë system in Nicosia, each party would compete on equal terms for every seat through a continuous mathematical process. Excessive ‘bonuses’ would be reduced, as would unfair losses of representation. Smaller and medium‑sized parties with meaningful support would be represented more fairly, while larger parties would not be unduly penalised.
Beyond the numbers – but starting with them
Of course, an electoral system is not only about mathematics. There are other important issues that deserve discussion: the threshold for entry into parliament (internationally more reasonable at 2-3 per cent), the balance between governability and proportionality, the relationship between preference votes and party lists, horizontal voting, postal voting, better representation of the diaspora – and even potential national‑level corrective mechanisms such as compensatory seats.
Modified versions of Sainte‑Laguë, as used in some Scandinavian countries to avoid excessive fragmentation, could also be examined.
But before opening all these debates, there is one basic priority: first, fix the maths.
When an electoral system produces results that citizens perceive as paradoxical or unfair, trust in institutions erodes. If we want a more representative and less distorted democracy, reform must begin where we often avoid looking: with the numbers themselves.
