A national election in a country like Estonia involves only one choice -- for party. Parliamentary seats are divided among parties based on the percent of returns for each party, and the party decides which of its candidates sits in Parliament.
Not true. In most European countries (including Estonia), people vote for a candidate, not party. However, seats on a parliament are divided based on shares of votes on paries and/or electoral alliances. The candidates actually selected are then those who got most votes within the party/alliance. The idea behind this approach is to move your vote to party of your candidate, in case he/she isn't elected (so your vote wouldn't be "wasted").
And in most cases, the seats are geographically earmarked, but that is a different story...
The party with the most seats nominates a Prime Minister who then appoints a government, which assumes power provided it has the approval of the Parliament.
If the party with the largest number of votes is unable to persuade the whole assembley to approve its nomination, the chance goes to the party with the next largest share of votes, and so on. Thus you can get some quite strange bedfellows in European coalition governments (like the Red-Green coalition in Germany until recently). But this is all separate and distinct from the voter, who has no say beyond party preference as to how the government is comprised or who the Prime Minister is.
The biggest party doesn't automatically select the prime minister (at least not in Estonia or Germany). The prime minister and the coalition of governmenr is decided in government negotiations (based on agendas of different parties and number of seats in parliament). This can be troublesome with certain voting results and agendas/personalities (as was the case in German elections).
Of course your point still stands: from voting system's point of view the system is simpler in most European democracies (including Estonia). But it is oversimplification to claim that voters only vote for a party and that biggest party names the prime minister.
That brings up a good point. If there were an "abstain" column, then you could show your interest in politics by participating, but also show your disdain for the available candidates, by choosing neither of them.
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Not true. In most European countries (including Estonia), people vote for a candidate, not party. However, seats on a parliament are divided based on shares of votes on paries and/or electoral alliances. The candidates actually selected are then those who got most votes within the party/alliance. The idea behind this approach is to move your vote to party of your candidate, in case he/she isn't elected (so your vote wouldn't be "wasted").
And in most cases, the seats are geographically earmarked, but that is a different story...
The party with the most seats nominates a Prime Minister who then appoints a government, which assumes power provided it has the approval of the Parliament.
If the party with the largest number of votes is unable to persuade the whole assembley to approve its nomination, the chance goes to the party with the next largest share of votes, and so on. Thus you can get some quite strange bedfellows in European coalition governments (like the Red-Green coalition in Germany until recently). But this is all separate and distinct from the voter, who has no say beyond party preference as to how the government is comprised or who the Prime Minister is.
The biggest party doesn't automatically select the prime minister (at least not in Estonia or Germany). The prime minister and the coalition of governmenr is decided in government negotiations (based on agendas of different parties and number of seats in parliament). This can be troublesome with certain voting results and agendas/personalities (as was the case in German elections).
Of course your point still stands: from voting system's point of view the system is simpler in most European democracies (including Estonia). But it is oversimplification to claim that voters only vote for a party and that biggest party names the prime minister.