The July 1932 German federal election resulted in what has been called a "negative majority" which means that the two anti-democratic parties, (namely the communists and the nazis) had a enough seats to make a coalition government of the pro-democratic parties impossible. However, due to extreme ideological differences between the communists and the nazis, a coalition government between them would be impossible as well. Are there plausible examples where this could happen in other countries where it didn't occur in OTL?
More examples of "negative majorities?"
- Thread starter ArKhan
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The Lib Dems (and other small parties) could've refused to join a coalition in 2010 in the UK. A UK expert can enumerate the events after that better than me, but I think the Conservatives get a year or two in power before a no-confidence vote is called and new elections scheduled.
I was thinking Russia would be perfect for this, since all the parties despise each other and all you'd need to do was have United Russia win less than 50% of the seats to create a crisis...but looking it up, apparently that happens a lot. I don't know much about how the Duma works, but it clearly can't be stymied by lack of a majority.
Canada's another one that seems to chug along under a minority all the damn time. Splitting the left into four pieces in a left-leaning country but keeping a semi-first-past-the-post leadership contest will do that.
There's also Belgium, which is OTL, but you could always fiddle with it one way or another. Obviously the breakup of a country is a pretty dramatic consequence of not being able to form a majority in parliament.
I was thinking Russia would be perfect for this, since all the parties despise each other and all you'd need to do was have United Russia win less than 50% of the seats to create a crisis...but looking it up, apparently that happens a lot. I don't know much about how the Duma works, but it clearly can't be stymied by lack of a majority.
Canada's another one that seems to chug along under a minority all the damn time. Splitting the left into four pieces in a left-leaning country but keeping a semi-first-past-the-post leadership contest will do that.
There's also Belgium, which is OTL, but you could always fiddle with it one way or another. Obviously the breakup of a country is a pretty dramatic consequence of not being able to form a majority in parliament.
I know we all hate the Tea Party here, but they don't seem to be actually intent on overthrowing the constitutional order.
That's the subject of some debate amongst politibrits at the moment. Basileus Giorgios has been arguing against the consensus, which currently says that this would lead to a 1974 situation whereby a fresh election would be called in the autumn and the Tories would probably win a majority.
Unless I've misremembered, and BG is in fact arguing for that - but I don't see why he'd need to argue, as it's what most politibrits assume.
He's definitely argued against that, and I can see where he's coming from since there's no real reason to think the outcome of a second quick election would be that much different, unless of course the public feel a majority for them was absolutely necessary. Whether that happens or not would depend on the events.
As to the OP, there were those who thought that the 2010 UK outcome would lead to an inability to have a government with a majority, most of them I think believing the LibDems wouldn't deal with the Conservatives. On the morning after the election I thought that, but for exactly the opposite reason. In reality, neither was the case, but I suppose it might have been with different leaders (though I still think it would be easier for the Tories to refuse to deal than the LibDems. A preference for Labour over the Tories certainly, but I doubt outright rejection of the Conservatives). I think it would be very difficult for a true negative majority to be the result of a UK general election though.
But if you have a majority system its less likely - you might get likely at least one party being able to rule - maybe with a second.
Depends on your views on what happened with the faceoff over the ACA. But I do not wish to sideline things.
