A list MP is a member of parliament (MP) elected from a party list rather than a geographic

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

. The place in Parliament is due to the number of votes the party won, not to votes received by the MP personally. This occurs only in countries with an electoral system based wholly or partly on

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...

Different systems

In some countries, seats in a

legislative chamber A legislative chamber or house is a deliberative assembly within a legislature which generally meets and votes separately from the legislature's other chambers. Legislatures are usually unicameral, consisting of only one chamber, or bicamer ...

are filled solely in accordance with the share of votes won by each individual party. Thus, all

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

(MKs) members in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

are list members. Under this system, MKs are appointed from lists of candidates created by each party until the party has reached its allocated number. In other countries, a more complicated system is used. In the method used in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, some seats are filled using party lists, while others are filled by the "traditional"

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

(FPP) voting system. Under the

mixed member proportional Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral systems which combine local winner-take-all elections with a compensatory tier with party lists, in a way that produces p ...

(MMP) system, the method used in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, a merger of party-list representation and geographic representation is employed — parties contest geographic seats (districts) but are then "topped up" with members from a party list.

New Zealand

New Zealand has at least 120 members of Parliament (MPs), out of which there are 72

electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district ...

seats elected using FPP, and the other MPs are selected from the party lists. The number of list MPs each party receives is the difference between a party's proportional allocation of parliamentary seats and its number of electorate MPs. Since the introduction of the list of MPs, New Zealand parliaments have been more proportionate.

Controversies

The existence of a list of MPs has caused controversy in some countries. It is sometimes complained that because list MPs do not have a geographic electorate, they are not properly accountable to anyone. In addition, the methods used to create party lists are sometimes criticised as undemocratic — in a

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

system, the public has no way of influencing the composition of a party list. In this situation, the public cannot support one candidate without supporting other candidates from the same party. Supporters of party-list proportional representation sometimes retort that the public often has little control over the selection of local candidates, either — if a voter's preferred party selects a poor candidate, the voter is forced to either vote for a candidate they dislike or vote for a party they dislike. Under a party list system, voters can support their preferred party even if they are unwilling to vote for its local candidate. An

open list Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a Political party, party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists ...

system, however, may go some way to addressing the concern that voters can only support all the candidates the party proposed. A notable example of this was in the

2006 Dutch general election General elections were held in the Netherlands on 22 November 2006, following the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet. The election proved relatively successful for the Third Balkenende cabinet, governing Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) which ...

. The VVD had chosen

Mark Rutte Mark Rutte (; born 14 February 1967) is a Dutch politician who has served as the 14th Secretary General of NATO, secretary general of NATO since October 2024. He previously served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, prime minister of the Neth ...

as their list puller ( lijsttrekker). In the Netherlands, the party leader usually gets a large majority of the votes for that party, but in 2006, the number 2 on the list, Rita Verdonk, got over 10% more votes than Mark Rutte. This eventually led to Rita Verdonk leaving the VVD and starting her own party. There is also debate about the right of a list MP to switch parties. Because list MPs gain their seats by virtue of being on a party list rather than by winning votes personally, some contend that the party, not the MP, is the rightful "owner" of the seat. In

, there have been several controversies regarding list MPs who left their parties — Alamein Kopu, elected from the

Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

list, controversially became an independent, and

Donna Awatere Huata Donna Lynn Awatere Huata (sometimes written Awatere-Huata, previously known as Donna Awatere; born 1949) is a former member of the New Zealand Parliament for the ACT New Zealand Party, activist for Māori people, Māori causes, and convicted fra ...

, elected from the ACT list, similarly became an independent. In the latter case, Awatere Huata's former party went to the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

to expel her from Parliament under so-called waka-jumping or "party-hopping"

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

. ACT alleged that it was ACT, not Awatere Huata, who was awarded the seat in the last election and that when Awatere Huata left ACT, she should not have been able to take the seat with her. ACT's view was accepted, and Awatere Huata was expelled from Parliament.

References

{{reflist Legislators Proportional representation electoral systems