How do minority governments work in Europe and elsewhere?

Advisers supporting the negotiating teams for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have spent the last eight weeks scurrying around doing in-depth research on how grand coalitions and minority governments have fared elsewhere.

Both parties have looked at the usual suspects — Denmark being the principal one — but have also looked at arrangements in countries as far-flung as New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Scotland.

Fine Gael Ministers were particularly interested in an article written by former Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond on how his minority government lasted a full term.

Fianna Fáil has read research papers prepared by the British political scientist Tim Bale (who has spoken as a guest contributor at two of the party’s ard fheiseanna) on the experiences of parties who supported government from outside, particularly in Sweden and New Zealand. Bale has described the phenomenon as being “in governance but not in government”.

Party leader Micheál Martin has studied material about how entering grand coalition in Germany resulted in a precipitous drop in support for the Social Democrats in a a subsequent election.

Denmark

It's grand-daddy of minority governments, as famously depicted in the political TV drama Borgen. Only once since the second World War has there been a single party government and all but four of the administrations have been minority ones.

The current government is the smallest minority government in modern political history. The Liberal Party holds only 34 of the 179 seats and leads a four-party centre-right bloc, including the right-wing Danish People’s Party which has more seats than it.

Because it is so engrained, this has become the natural form of government. Governments tend to last an average of two years and while there are blocs, flexible deals are brokered with non-supporting parties on specific pieces of legislation.

New Zealand

Although on the other side of the world, it has become one of the strongest comparitors and Fianna Fáil, in particular, has closely examined the arrangements that have been put in place.

Until 1996, New Zealand’s electoral system was like Westminster but it changed to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which involves proportional representation plus lists. It has led to no clear winner and in all of the elections since then, creative arrangements have had to be brokered.

After the election in 1996, it took eight weeks for a government to be formed.

In 2002, Labour went into an alliance with United Future with the Greens offering support on a confidence and supply basis from outside government.

In 2005, there was an even more nuanced deal involving Labour in a four-party arrangement with United Future, New Zealand First and the Greens.

Some parties were accommodated in unusual ways. One party swore never to take the “baubles of office”. Its MPs were allowed to take newly-created ministerial positions that were outside Cabinet. Collective responsibility only kicked in when their portfolios were involved.

The Green Party, likewise, was not in government but it was allowed to develop its own policies and speak as a “spokesperson” for the government on certain key policy issues.

The arrangement was unusual but the coalition was considered a success.

Canada

Canada is a country which has had a surprisingly high number of minority administrations despite the perception among politicians, media and the public they are aberrations and temporary.

They have lasted 1.5 years on average but some were very effective. A good example was an arrangement between the Liberal Party and the National Democratic Party (similar in outlook) that legalised same sex marriage in 2005.

The two minority governments from 2006 led by the Conservative prime minster Steve Harper were very interesting. They relied on no one party or group but instead did deals with all three opposition parties.

On controversial issues such a increased involvement in Afghanistan, the government relied on the approval of the whole of parliament after the issue was examined by an expert committee (much the same as is being proposed here in relation to water charges). Like elsewhere, it had to forge “deals” with smaller parties in order to get its budgets through.

After early successes, Harper became emboldened and started indulging in brinkmanship, threatening to call an election any time a vote looked like being lost. It proved an effective ploy in the short term.

Scotland

An opinion article by former SNP leader Alex Salmon in The Irish Times earlier this month was one of the most closely read by senior politicians in both parties, Fine Gael in particular.

He wrote of how in 2007, the SNP won 47 of the 129 seats in the Holyrood parliament, only one more than Labour. Yet, he led a minority government that lasted its full term and easily won the subsequent election.

Salmond’s government forged a deal with the Greens. But they had only two seats so they gave little more than a comfort blanket. By a mixture of charm and threat, the government not only survived but, according to Salmon, thrived.

“My advice for minority leaders is to make friends, and make them quickly,” wrote Salmond. “They are entering a world where daily deals and sacrifices are essential to ensure political survival.”

He also warned the government not to overplay its hand – as Charlie Haughey did in 1989, “allowing his government to fall on a relatively minor matter in the hope of gaining a majority”.

A senior Fine Gael Minister noted that such an arrangement works only when the party’s support is rising. It will make the first three months of the new Irish government critical in terms of seeing which party captures the public mood.

Germany

The Social Democrats entered a grand coalition with the Christian Democrats in 2005. Angela Merkel was chancellor. Even though the smaller party got an equal number of cabinet seats and implemented many of its policies, it took a pasting in the 2009 elections, seeing its support levels fall from 35 per cent to 23 per cent. Despite the bruising experience — and a period in opposition — it has reentered a similar arrangement with Merkel, now based on a much bigger political programme.