Thanks for the explanation. Sweden has a better system that the British PR one, which is as it is because Labour did not want its candidates to compete against each other.

I think it is 8% in elections to riksdagen and the EU parliament, and lower limits to local assemblies.

It should be noted that fixed (and rather high) limit in percentage of the votes has produced some odd results. Consider if one party takes one seat in an area and another takes ten. It is then more likely that the small partys one seat will be filled by someone who has got marked up then it is that the big party gets any candidate marked up. At least this has been the experience in Sweden. How come? Simple, because the limit is high it is seldom candidates reach above it and when there are many prominent candidates (like in the big party) it splits the marks over many candidates.

I would prefer the finnish system were (IIRC) that you place your vote on a candidate, that vote also falls to respective candidates party, seats are distributed to parties according to PR and then party seats are filled with candidates in accordance to number of votes.

But mostly I prefer to have a good and strong referendum instrument like in Switzerland. Then I guess what way you chose the parliament would not matter as much.

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