Coalition government

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate, reducing the dominance of any one party within that coalition. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament. A coalition government might also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis, for example during wartime, or economic crisis, to give a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy, or collective identity it desires while also playing a role in diminishing internal political strife. In such times, parties have formed all-party coalitions (national unity governments, grand coalitions). If a coalition collapses, a confidence vote is held or a motion of no confidence is taken.





Countries which often operate with coalition cabinets include: the Nordic countries, the Benelux countries, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Turkey, Israel, New Zealand, Kosovo, Pakistan, Kenya, Nepal, India, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand and Ukraine. Switzerland has been ruled by a coalition of the four strongest parties in parliament from 1959 to 2008, called the "Magic Formula". The United Kingdom also operates a formal coalition cabinet between the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat parties, but this is unusual because the UK normally has a majority government.

Coalitions composed of few parties[edit]

United Kingdom[edit]

In the United Kingdom, coalition governments (sometimes known as national governments) usually have been appointed only in times of national crisis. The most prominent was the National Government of 1931 to 1940. There were multi-party coalitions during both world wars. Apart from this, when no party has had a majority, minority governments normally have been formed with one or more opposition parties agreeing to vote for the legislation governments need to function, as the Labour government of James Callaghan formed a coalition with the Liberals in 1977 when it lost its narrow majority gained at the October 1974 election. However, in the run-up to the 1997 general election, Labour opposition Tony Blair was in talks with Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown about forming a coalition government if Labour failed to win a majority at the election; however there was never any need for a coalition to be formed as Labour won the election by a landslide.[1] The 2010 general election resulted in a hung parliament (Britain's first for 36 years), following which the Conservatives (led by David Cameron), which had won the largest number of seats, formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in order to gain a parliamentary majority, ending 13 years of Labour government. This was the first time that the Conservatives and Lib Dems had made a power-sharing deal at Westminster.[2] It was also the first full coalition in Britain since 1945, having been formed 70 years virtually to the day after the establishment of Winston Churchill's wartime coalition,[3] although there had been the "Lib-Lab pact", an agreement stopping well short of a coalition between the Labour and Liberal parties, from March 1977 until July 1978, when a series of by-election defeats had eroded Labour's majority of three seats which had been gained at the October 1974 election.



In both countries, grand coalitions of the two large parties also occur, but these are relatively rare and large parties usually prefer to associate with small ones. However, if none of the larger parties can receive enough votes to form their preferred coalition, a grand coalition might be their only choice for forming a government. This was the situation in Germany in 2005 when Angela Merkel became Chancellor: in early elections, the CDU/CSU did not garner enough votes to form a majority coalition with the FDP; similarly the SPD and Greens did not have enough votes to continue on with their formerly ruling coalition. A grand coalition government was subsequently forged between the CDU/CSU and the SPD. Partnerships like these typically involve carefully structured cabinets. The CDU/CSU ended up holding the Chancellory while the SPD took the majority of cabinet posts.


Coalitions composed of many parties[edit]

A coalition government may consist of any number of parties.

Examples of coalitions[edit]


In federal Australian politics, the conservative Liberal, National, Country Liberal and Liberal National parties are united in a coalition, known simply as the Coalition. The Coalition has become so stable, at least at the federal level, that in practice the lower house of Parliament has become a two-party house, with the Coalition and the Labor Party being the major parties. This coalition is also found in the states of New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria. In South Australia and Western Australia the two parties compete separately, while in the Northern Territory and Queensland the two parties have merged, forming the Country Liberal Party, in 1978, and the Liberal National Party, in 2008, respectively.

The other federal coalitions have been:

Coalitions formed at a State/Territory level have included:





According to historian Christopher Moore, coalition governments in Canada became much less possible in 1919 when the leaders of parties were no longer chosen by elected MPs, but instead began to be chosen by party members. That kind of leadership selection process had never been tried in any parliament system before, and remains uncommon in the parliaments of the world today. According to Moore, as long as that kind of leadership selection process remains in place, and concentrates power in the hands of the leader, as opposed to backbenchers, then coalition governments will be very difficult to form. Moore shows that the diffusion of power within a party tends to also lead to a diffusion of power in the parliament in which that party operates, thereby making coalitions more likely.[5]



In Denmark, all governments since 1982 have been coalitions. The first coalition in Danish political history was formed in 1929 by Thorvald Stauning, and consisted of the Social Democrats (Staunings own party) and the Social Liberals. Since then, a number of parties have participated in coalitions.

Excluding the post-WW2 Liberation Cabinets member parties, the following parties have done so: The Centre Democrats, the Christian People's Party, the Conservative People's Party, the Retsforbund, the Social Democrats, the Socialist People's Party, the Social Liberal Party, and Venstre.

The current one consist of the Social Democrats and the Social Liberals, holding a total of 61 seats in the Folketing. A majority of the seats (excluding the North Atlantics) takes 88. These are secured through the Red-Green Alliances 12 seats and the Socialist People's Partys 16, for a total of 89 seats.




At the national level India's first ever coalition government was formed under the Prime Ministership of Morarji Desai which existed from 24 March 1977 to 15 July 1979 headed by the Janata Party.[7] The first successful coalition government in India which completed the whole 5 year term was the BJP Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister from 1999-2004. Then another coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, consists of 13 separate parties ruled India for two terms from 2004-2014. Now after the elections in May 2014, National Democratic Alliance again came into power with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.


As a result of the toppling of Suharto, political freedom is significantly increased. Compared to only three parties allowed to exist in the New Order era, a total of 48 political parties participated in the 1999 election, a total of 24 parties in the 2004 election, and 38 parties in the 2009 election. There are no majority winner of those elections and coalition governments are inevitable. The current government is a coalition of 5 parties led by the Democratic Party.








Post-World War II Japan has historically been dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party but there was a brief coalition government formed after the 1993 election following LDP's first loss of its overall House of Representatives majority since 1955. Japan has had coalition governments since 1994.




Coalition governments have also been criticized[by whom?] for sustaining a consensus on issues when disagreement and the consequent discussion would be more fruitful. To forge a consensus, the leaders of ruling coalition parties can agree to silence their disagreements on an issue to unify the coalition against the opposition. The coalition partners, if they control the parliamentary majority, can collude to make the parliamentary discussion on the issue irrelevant by consistently disregarding the arguments of the opposition and voting against the opposition's proposals — even if there is disagreement within the ruling parties about the issue.



See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Making Minority Government Work:Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for Westminster and Whitehall". 2008-12-02. Retrieved 2009-12-07. 
  2. ^ "Tories and Lib Dems enter full coalition government". The New Statesman. 
  3. ^ Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, David Cameron on 11 May 2010. Churchill formed his War Cabinet on 11 May: Winston S. Churchill (1949) Their Finest Hour.
  4. ^ "Coalition Government: Precedents from around the world". CBC News. 2010-05-13. Retrieved 2009-05-14. 
  5. ^ a b Moore, Christopher (2011). "Come together". Canada's History (June–July 2011): 53–54. 
  7. ^ Kuldip Singh (1995-04-11). "OBITUARY: Morarji Desai". The Independent. Retrieved 2009-06-27.