What a week it was!

We're just over 2 weeks away from the United Kingdom general election. This time, the Brits did something they never did before - hold a leaders debate. Up until February, it was nearly certain that the unpopular Labour government would be ousted by the Conservatives, and quite possibly in a landslide. Then, the polls narrowed, but the picture was still the same - the Conservatives would win.

But then the debate happened and turned the entire campaign on its head. Immediately after the debate last week, it was evident that third party Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg had scored a decisive victory. So we thought, it probably might let him hold on to the votes he had last time, and maybe snag a bit more. What followed in the week to come was beyond even the wildest imagination. The Lib-Dems didn't just rise in the polls; they soared. While Labour and Conservative faltered, the Lib-Dems surge propelled them first into second ahead of Labour, then at times into first place. When the dust settled, there was no clear election winner anymore. The only thing that was certain: Labour is now embarassingly in third place. But only in vote share. Thanks to the quirks in first past the post (FPTP), Labour would still be ahead of the Lib-Dems in terms of seats, and could even "win" the election, as conventional wisdom tells us.

This brings another dimension into the campaign: electoral reform. With such blatant unfairness in the current political system, should the current situation unfold on election night, it would be pretty darn hard for anybody to defend FPTP, and the Lib-Dems have had electoral reform on their plank for ages. Doubtless, a strengthened Lib-Dem caucus, or perhaps even a shock Lib-Dem government, would push for change to a more equitable electoral system.

There are still 2 more leaders debates to follow in the coming weeks until election day on May 6, and as this week has shown us, anything can happen. What started off as a formality with a foregone conclusion has turned into a three-way race, and may well end up as the most exciting British election of the 21st century. On the 7th of May, what sort of Parliament might we be waking up to?