Timeline for Do parliamentary systems necessarily have episodes when replacement leaders can assume and keep power with very limited popular mandates and appeal?
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| Oct 20, 2022 at 22:53 | comment | added | Paŭlo Ebermann | @xyldke Maybe a better way than "leader of the strongest party" would be "The strongest of the parties which agree on a coalition will (usually) send the chancellor". Often this coincides, but some parties separate party leadership from government leader positions, and for some parties this oscillates. | |
| Oct 20, 2022 at 19:27 | comment | added | deep64blue | @Rich - the UK has fair elections, we form our coalitions in advance and submit them to the electorate for approval! | |
| Oct 20, 2022 at 11:37 | comment | added | xyldke | @DJClayworth Germany is the one I'm most familiar with. CDU/CSU are the strongest party but the current chancellor comes from the SPD. More importantly, Olaf Scholz is not leader of the SPD (those being Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil, who are not part of the government at all). For the last years of her chancellorship, Angela Merkel was not leader of the CDU either. I think the latter is especially important, because while the new CDU leaders have all faced internal opposition, Merkel's chancellorship remained unaffected. | |
| Oct 20, 2022 at 9:15 | comment | added | Denis Nardin | @DJClayworth In Italy the leader is almost always chosen by a post-electoral coalition - it basically never happens that a party gets enough votes to just elect the prime minister (IIRC it happened exactly once, with Alcide de Gaspari). In particular if the coalition changes during the same parlament, a former opposition politiician can easily become prime minister without new elections. | |
| Oct 19, 2022 at 20:16 | comment | added | Rich | @xyldke right, but this is a factor of FPP. If the UK had fair voting, the government would have a coalition partner (per the last election, the Lib Dems) and that partner would have to accept the new leader or trigger a fresh election. | |
| Oct 19, 2022 at 18:08 | comment | added | DJClayworth | In every legislature I'm aware of the leader of the largest party is the one normally chosen as Prime Minister, or in the case of a coalition a leader by agreement. Do you have an example of a place where this is done differently? | |
| Oct 19, 2022 at 16:07 | comment | added | xyldke | You assume that the head of government is selected by the biggest party. That is true for the UK but there are countries where the head of government is elected by parliament. In these countries, they would need the support of a majority of elected MPs from all parties which would increase their legitimacy. | |
| Oct 19, 2022 at 9:35 | comment | added | Eric Nolan | How much of a flaw it is depends on how often it happens in my opinion. In Ireland for example this sort of thing seems to have happened only three times in the last 50 years. You could also make an argument that the possibility of the leader being replaced factors in when people vote (effectively) for a leader with personal attributes meaning they are likely to have to resign. You can vote for someone who you know is corrupt or a creeper or a pathological liar but you should know they may be forced to resign when something you knew they were doing is actually proved. | |
| Oct 19, 2022 at 0:20 | history | edited | DJClayworth | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 18, 2022 at 18:57 | history | edited | DJClayworth | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 18, 2022 at 18:49 | history | edited | DJClayworth | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 18, 2022 at 18:41 | history | answered | DJClayworth | CC BY-SA 4.0 |