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 reveal a tricky feature of the representative democracy and of flexible list systems where personalisation is encouraged but does not really pay off. The paper studies Sweden and Belgium, two countries whose electoral systems provide that the electoral popularity does not automatically lead to the election. On the basis of a database of Swedish and Belgian candidates running for the last legislative elections held in their respective countries (i.e. in 2014 for both), the paper quantitatively assesses the profile of these candidates swimming against the tide and who would benefit from a more personalised system