--Yeah, sure, a government is legitimate if it was elected according to the present system of "first past the post"...but it isn't legitimate for that government to pretend that it has the support of a majority of the people when it plainly does not...and to behave as if it had a mandate based upon the will of a majority of the people.


I mean to say they shouldn't claim to represent majority opinion.--

.,,. I see the points you are both making, obviously. But would point out that these anomalies in the mandate to govern [or whatever word you might prefer, K] are obviated by the fact that everyone knows that they are subsumed within the system; it is accepted that, having won the election under the system which obtains, they represent what is accepted as the popular will ~~ in the sense that there is manifestly no popular appetite to alter this system, whose results are acceptable to the populace, otherwise there would be such appetite; wouldn't there?

~M~