I’ve been very interested in the coverage of the German election results, where it looks like the two main parties will be tied for seats in the Bundestag. One thing that was stated was that if neither the CDU/CSU or SPD can cobble together enough smaller parties to get a majority of votes in the Bundestag (or agree to form a "grand coalition) after three attempts, then the President could ask the party with the largest plurality of the actual vote (in this case, the CDU) to form a “minority government”.
How would this work? Would all the ministers come from the CDU? Would this government have to be endorsed by a majority vote in the Bundestag, or is a vote waived in this instance? And wouldn’t they just get slapped down on everything they tried to pass?
If no candidate achieves an absolute majority, the President can make the candidate with the plurality Chancellor or dissolve the Bundestag.
I doubt it. A minority government would try to be as close as possible to a majority of their own and each party would want some ministers. However there is no formal rule on where the ministers come from. This is just the result of negotiations between the parties in the coalition.
The Chancellor was “approved” by the plurality and ministers aren’t approved anyway. They require a signature from the president, but since we assume that he is the one who thinks that a reelection isn’t neccessary, this isn’t a problem.
That’s possible and that’s why this isn’t automatic. The president is supposed to decide if the government has a chance to find majorities for its proposals.
Note that all this only applies if the Bundestag doeasn’t elect a Chancellor with a majority. In our parliamentary system, they can elect anyone at any time.