Minority government

A minority government, or minority cabinet or minority parliament, is a cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament. 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. In bicameral parliaments, the term relates to the situation in chamber whose confidence is considered most crucial to the continuance in office of the government.

A minority government tends to be much less stable than a majority government because, 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 vote of no confidence.

To deal with situations in parliamentary systems where no clear majority to support a government exists, two or more parties may establish a formal coalition government, commanding a clear majority of the parliamentary members, or a party might enter into less formal alliances or agreements with other parties, or individual members, to allow the minority government to stay in office.

A common situation is governance with "jumping majorities": the cabinet stays as long as it can negotiate support from a majority in the parliament, even though that majority may be differently formed from issue to issue or from bill to bill. On occasion the legislature may permit a minority cabinet to continue in office despite having been defeated on a given vote, and a minority government might even bring on a confidence vote and threaten to resign should the legislature vote against it.

An alternative arrangement is a looser alliance of parties, exemplified by Sweden. There the long-governing Social Democrats have ruled with more or less formal support from other parties – in the mid-20th century from Agrarians, after 1968 from Communists, and more recently from Greens and ex-Communists – and have thus been able to retain executive power and (in practice) legislative initiative. This is also common in Canada, where nine elections from 1921 to 2005 effectively produced minority federal governments. The parties can rarely cooperate enough to establish a formal coalition, but operate under a loose agreement instead.

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