Yes, although in this case the two parties are even closer than in most instances of parliamentary (post-electoral) coalitions. I suppose the Liberal and National parties have a non-competition agreement (at least at the federal level) and it’s understood by all that they will work together after the election regardless of the results. They’re not cooperating as much as they would if they were a single party, but more than do parties in coalitions in most non-Westminster parliamentary systems.
Yes, I know you know that; I agree with you and I hope I didn’t come off as implying otherwise. I just wanted to point out that it is in fact true in many cases that the leader of the party with the most seats gets the first shot at forming a government. But not all the time, which was the essence of your post.
The Liberals and Nationals have an agreement not to run candidates against each other in a seat where there is a sitting Coalition member. However, if there is no sitting member in a seat (i.e. the previous member is not standing for re-election) then sometimes both the Liberals and the Nationals will nominate a candidate. At the Commonwealth level this generally doesn’t dilute the non-Labor vote, because full preferential voting is compulsory. Voters who give their first preference to the Liberals generally give their second preference to the Nationals, and vice versa.
There’s another possibility which has often happened in New Zealand recently - a minority government. In this situation a minor party who holds the balance of power promises not to vote against the governing party (or coalition of parties) on confidence and supply matters without formally becoming a part of the coalition.
For an example in the 2005 election the results were (in a 121 seat parliament):
Labour 50
National 48
NZ First 7
Green 6
Maori 4
United Future 3
Act 2
Progressive 1
Labour, NZ First, United Future and Progressive formed a minority coalition with 60 seats, and the Greens remained outside government but promised to support the coalitionon confidence and supply matters. This lasted through to the next General Election.
There is no firm rule or constitutional convention on this point. As a practical matter, if the largest party has a considerable lead over the second party, the politics of the situation usually mean that the largest party forms the government, but it is not constitutionally required. If the second and the third party can reach an agreement, then the leader of one of those parties may become Prime Minister.
The incumbency factor is important as well. Even if the Prime Minister’s party comes in second, there is no constitutional or legal rule that says the Prime Minister ceases to hold office. The post of Prime Minister is an appointed one, as Polycarp notes, so while losing the majority might affect the PM’s political legitimacy, it doesn’t automatically end his/her tenure as Prime Minister.
As hogarth notes, that’s exactly what happened in the 1925 federal election - Prime Minister Mackenzie King and his Liberals came out of the election in second place in the House of Commons (100 seats out of 245), but stayed on as government without interruption, because they had the support of the numerous third parties/independents. Meighen, who was the leader of the Conservatives, stayed as Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, even though the Conservatives had the greatest number of seats (115 out of 245).
More recently, this played out at the provincial level, in the 1985 Ontario election. Premier Miller, leader of the Progressive Conservatives, called an election and lost the majority, but had the greatest number of seats (52 out of 125 seats in the Legislative Assembly). David Peterson’s Liberals came in second (48 out of 125) and Bob Rae’s NDP came in third (21 out of 125). Taken together, Peterson and Rae had a majority, and were able to reach an agreement, so at the first opportunity, they voted non-confidence in the PCs and Peterson became Premier.
There’s also the precedent from the UK of the National Government, during the depths of the Great Depression. Macdonald led the Labour party to government in the 1929 general election, but the party splintered over how to deal with the Depression. Ramsay formed a National Government, with support from both the Conservatives and the Liberals. In the 1931 general elections, the National government was returned to office with a firm majority, but the Conservatives had by far the greatest number of seats:
Macdonald, as leader of the National Labour MPs, was the leader of the smallest party in the coalition, but he stayed on as Prime Minister for four years, only resigning in favour of Baldwin in 1935.
Now, that was obviously a highly unusual situation, to deal with the economic crisis, but it neatly illustrates that there is no rule that the leader of the largest party automatically forms the government.
You just don’t know New York State politics. The Senate majority leader has equal power with that of the governor, especially on budget issues.
The NYS legislature is just two men: the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate majority leader. No bill can be passed if they don’t agree to it. They can stop any bill for any reason – and don’t have to give a reason. The other legislators are only warm bodies supporting the leader, more like an advisory group than actual legislators.
Laws are passed only when they and the Governor agree on it. If any one of them disagrees, the bill goes nowhere. The state has a history of late budgets because one of the three had a particular bill they wanted and refused to work on the budget until they got what they wanted.
that doesn’t make it a parliamentary system - that’s just a system of checks and balances. if it were a parliamentary system, the failure to pass a bill in those circumstances would trigger either a change in the executive, or a general election.
On the question of who get first chance .
I’m more familiar with Australia than the UK, bit it isn’t simply a question of the incumbent getting first chance by convention.
The incumbent is caretaker/acting prime minister. They continue in that role until the new prime minister is appointed by the Governor General (head of state)
After the election if the result is clear they resign and the new broom takes over. That’s why you can claim victory immediately after the count starts, but the critical point is when the incumbent conceeds defeat and resigns.
If the result is unclear, or subject to challenge then they do not concede and remain as caretaker until the parliament is resolved. In theory this could be without limit, but parliament would resolve the matter itself as soon as a leader who could command majority support emerged.
(Which is why the SCOTUS intervention the end the Bush/Gore would not happen in a parliamentary democracy)
After the election without a majority leader emerging the head of state asks the incumbent whether they can form a coalition government with magority support and the capability of getting supply (money bills) passed.
If they can’t they would advise the GG on who they think could form a magority. I don’t believe the GG is obliged to take that advise. The incumbent remains caretaker prime minister.
The GG then approaches alternative political leaders seeking one who would have the confidence of parliament. Once they are found they are appointed/commissioned as Prime Minister. They may be appointed on the basis that if their coalition fractures that they call a second election.
The numbers and electoral system is as outlined by Giles.
The lower house (House of Representative) cannot force the upper house (Senate) without also putting themselves up for re-election.
At every parliamentary election all HoR seats are declared vacant. In conjunction with that there is simultaneously a “half Senate election”. The government whose agenda is frustated by not having control of the Senate, can after due process and triggers call for a “double dissolution election” were all HoR and Senate seate are declared vacant.
Winning a double dissolution election is no sure thing, but if it is won then the government has the mechanism to get it’s contentious legislation through.
The structure of the Senate and it’s voting system is such that always the numbers are tight, especially since the Senate was expanded to 12 per state. There are 76 Senators and by statute there are double that number (156) in the HoR. So there would be a reasonable expectation that the government winning a magority in the HoR would have sufficient numbers to carry the vote in a joint sitting even if they didn’t have a clear majority in the new Senate.
Over the past few decades governments have become adept at negotiating their policies/bills through when they require support of minority parties in the Senate. IMHO governance works better that way than when the government as a clear majority in both houses
Yes. Not sure if there is a precedent in Britain, which hasn’t had many coalition governments, but it has happened in Norway. From October 2001 to October 2005, the Prime Minister of Norway was Kjell Magne Bondevik, from the Christian Democratic Party, in a minority coalition with the Conservative and Liberal Parties. Of these three, the Conservatives had the most seats, but agreed to let Bondevik take the post as PM. The leader of the Conservatives, Jan Petersen, held the position of Foreign Minister. The three parties had quite simply concluded that this arrangement was in their best interest as a coalition.
Yes - see the precedent of Ramsay Macdonald, Prime Minister in the National Government, cited in post #25, where Macdonald’s party was the smallest in the coalition.
Following yesterday’s indecisive election, news reports indicate that Prime Minister Brown is hoping to remain Prime Minister, by entering into an arrangement with Mr. Clegg, leader of the Liberal-Democrats: Brown makes bid to remain British Prime Minister
The same article states that Mr. Clegg is reported to have rebuffed the initial feelers, stating that since the Conservatives got the most seats, they should have first crack at forming a new government.
At the same time, the Conservatives under Mr. Cameron are asserting that they should form the government, based on the their seat count: Tories claim right to govern U.K.
Whatever happens, in my opinion this exchange confirms that there is no set rule that the largest party automatically gets to form a government: the incumbent can try to stay in power, and the outcome will depend on the politics of the situation.
You don’t need to form an opinion on it; you are correct - it’s not exactly a secret! The parties need a majority to guarantee a government (326 seats). If they don’t have that majority, they can try to scrabble to form it by aligning with other parties.
As for what will happen here - unless someting really weird goes wrong, it’ll be a Con-Lib deal, and Cameron will be PM. Brown is gone whatever happens - even if Labour somehow managed to scrape together the seats (and I don’t think that’s mathematically possible), Brown himself will be gone.