The unlucky winners. A comparative analysis of Swedish and Belgian non-elected popular candidates

In flexible list systems, two parallel competitions take place: parties compete for the greatest share of seats while candidates run against their co-partisans to obtain their own seat. This paper investigates the intraparty competition pattern by building a four-category typology of electoral candidates according to both their electoral success and their popularity. The aim is to identify the profile of the “unlucky winners”, i.e. those who gathered more preference votes than some of their elected co-partisans but who did not obtain a seat because of a too low list position. These candidates... Mehr ...