{"id":83234,"date":"2018-11-14T15:56:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T22:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=83234"},"modified":"2018-11-14T15:56:54","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T22:56:54","slug":"it-it-uncommon-to-have-a-minority-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/11\/14\/it-it-uncommon-to-have-a-minority-government\/","title":{"rendered":"It it uncommon to have a Minority government ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0minority government<\/b>, or\u00a0minority cabinet<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0minority parliament<\/b>, is a\u00a0cabinet<\/a>\u00a0formed in a\u00a0parliamentary system<\/a>\u00a0when a political party or\u00a0coalition<\/a>\u00a0of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the\u00a0parliament<\/a>. It is sworn into office, with or without the formal support of other parties, to enable a government to be formed. Under such a government, legislation can only be passed with the support of enough other members of the legislature to provide a majority, encouraging multi-partisanship.<\/p>\n

A minority government tends to be much less stable than a\u00a0majority government<\/a>\u00a0because if they can unite for the purpose, opposing parliamentary members have the numbers to vote against legislation, or even bring down the government with a\u00a0vote of no confidence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In most\u00a0Westminster system<\/a>\u00a0nations, each constituency elects one member of parliament by simple plurality voting. This system heavily biases the vote towards increasing the number of seats of the top two parties and reducing the seats of smaller parties, a principle known in political science as\u00a0Duverger’s law<\/a>, and thus minority governments are relatively uncommon. Advocates of this system see this as one of its advantages. A party with less than 40% of the popular vote can often win an outright majority of the seats. (For instance, in the\u00a02005 UK General Election<\/a>, the governing Labour party won by a majority of 66 seats in the House of Commons with only 35.2% of the popular vote.) If support for some parties is regionally concentrated, however, then Duverger’s law applies separately to each region, and so it is quite possible for no party to be sufficiently dominant in each region so as to receive a majority of the seats. This was the situation in Canada in the\u00a02004<\/a>,\u00a02006<\/a>, and\u00a02008<\/a>\u00a0federal elections, with no party obtaining a majority due in part to the dominance of the\u00a0Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois<\/a>\u00a0in the province of\u00a0Quebec<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There have been few occasions since 1900 when a single party has not commanded a parliamentary majority. The 2010\u20132015\u00a0Conservative<\/a>\/Liberal Democrat<\/a>\u00a0coalition government<\/a>\u00a0was the first of its type in Britain since the\u00a0National Government<\/a>\u00a0between 1931 and 1945.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Labour Party<\/a>, led by\u00a0Harold Wilson<\/a>, formed a minority government for seven months after the\u00a0General Election of February 1974<\/a>. That situation lasted until the prime minister called another election in\u00a0October that year<\/a>, following which the Labour Government obtained a tiny majority of three.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

The following administration also became a minority government after the collapse of the\u00a0Lib\u2013Lab pact<\/a>\u00a0in 1977, and the then\u00a0British Prime Minister<\/a>\u00a0James Callaghan’s<\/a>\u00a0Government fell in March 1979 as the result of a\u00a0vote of no confidence<\/a>\u00a0which was carried by a single vote.<\/p>\n

A minority Government held power in the UK between December 1996 and\u00a0the general election in May 1997<\/a>. The\u00a0Conservative Party<\/a>, led by\u00a0John Major<\/a>, had won the\u00a01992 General Election<\/a>\u00a0with an absolute majority of 21 seats over all other parties. That majority was progressively whittled away through defections and by-elections defeats, the most notable of the latter including those in\u00a0Newbury<\/a>,\u00a0South East Staffordshire<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Wirral South<\/a>, resulting in the eventual loss of the Major government’s majority in Parliament. However, the Conservatives maintained support from\u00a0Northern Ireland<\/a>‘s\u00a0Ulster Unionist Party<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Democratic Unionist Party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Westminster<\/a>\u00a0and the British media tend to perceive minority governments as unstable and ineffective, possibly because recent examples of minority governments (Callaghan and Major) occurred as the result of governments in decline.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In the\u00a02010 General Election<\/a>, the Conservatives won the most seats and votes, but only a minority of seats in parliament. There was some discussion after the election of the possibility of creating a Conservative minority government and, because the then Prime Minister\u00a0Gordon Brown<\/a>\u00a0had the first opportunity to form a government, there were also talks about creating some sort of alliance between the\u00a0Labour Party<\/a>, the\u00a0Liberal Democrats<\/a>\u00a0and other smaller parties. However Brown waived his right, acknowledging that because the Conservative Party had won the largest number of seats in the\u00a0House of Commons<\/a>, it should have the first opportunity to form a government. Further discussions then led to the establishment of a formal coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, which enabled the formation of a\u00a0majority government<\/a>, because it was thought that would ensure more stability.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a02017 General Election<\/a>, the Conservatives won the most seats and votes, but lost their majority in the House of Commons. The\u00a0Conservative Party<\/a>, led by\u00a0Theresa May<\/a>, formed a minority government, with 317 seats, on 9 June 2017. On 10 June, the\u00a0Prime Minister’s Office<\/a>\u00a0announced a deal with the\u00a0Democratic Unionist Party<\/a>\u00a0which would see the DUP support the Conservative government on a\u00a0confidence and supply<\/a>\u00a0arrangement.[3]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0However, the DUP later announced that no such deal had been reached.[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0This remained the case until 26 June 2017, when\u00a0a deal<\/a>\u00a0was agreed and announced between the two parties.[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Canada<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
Main article:\u00a0Federal minority governments in Canada<\/a><\/div>\n

During the history of Canadian politics there have been twelve minority governments on the federal level, in eleven separate minority parliaments (there were two minority governments during the life of 15th Parliament). One of these minorities, the 14th Parliament, was only a minority for half of its duration owing to\u00a0floor-crossings<\/a>\u00a0and by-elections. The tenth and eleventh were elected twice in Canadian federal elections of\u00a02006<\/a>\u00a0and again in the\u00a02008 election<\/a>. There have also been numerous minority governments in provincial legislatures, particularly in provinces such as\u00a0Ontario<\/a>\u00a0where there are strong third parties.<\/p>\n

At the federal level, the party which has won the most seats in a general election has formed the government in all but the\u00a015th Parliament<\/a>.[6]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0There have also been instances of parties which did not win a plurality forming the government at the provincial level (notably under\u00a0David Peterson<\/a>). For information about minority governments at both the federal and provincial levels see\u00a0Minority governments in Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Denmark<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Since 1982 most of the coalition government in\u00a0Denmark<\/a>\u00a0are in minority, that the minority government coalition need to make deals and reach support with the opposition parties.<\/p>\n

Estonia<\/span>[<\/span>edit<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Estonia<\/a>\u00a0has had several minority governments. A minority cabinet can occur:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. when the governing coalition loses support due to a coalition member leaving the governing coalition (V\u00e4hi II and Ansip II cabinets);<\/li>\n
  2. when MPs leave party factions (Ratas cabinet);<\/li>\n
  3. when a minority government is appointed with additional parliamentary support (T\u00f5nisson IV, V\u00e4hi Interim, Siimann and Kallas cabinets); or<\/li>\n
  4. when the government is voted into office with a plurality and some MPs abstain from voting (Birk, T\u00f5nisson II, Piip and Akel cabinets).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Additional support is possible also because MPs leaving a party faction are not allowed to officially join another faction until the next elections. A government can be a minority government either throughout its term or just a part of its term, usually the later part. A list of minority cabinets:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A\u00a0minority government, or\u00a0minority cabinet\u00a0or\u00a0minority parliament, is a\u00a0cabinet\u00a0formed in a\u00a0parliamentary system\u00a0when a political party or\u00a0coalition\u00a0of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the\u00a0parliament. It is sworn into office, with or without the formal support of other parties, to enable a government to be formed. Under such a government, legislation can only be passed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}