The Canadian government lost a confidence vote, and they'll have an election in January, less than two years after the last one. Why couldn't this have happened a couple of weeks ago when I was writing about what a wonderful thing the ability of parliament to force early elections was.
Don't rely on the Washington Post to inform you about how government formation works in a parliamentary system though. They write
Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper .... would become prime minister if the Conservatives receive the most seats in Parliament.
Ummm ... not so fast. Yes, generally the party with the most seats in parliament leads the government and the leader is Prime Minister. Obviously if a party wins a majority—as typically happens in plurality single-member district systems—then the leader of the largest party is Prime Minister. But, and this is a significant but, the precise reason the Canadian government lost a no-confidence vote is that no one party has a majority in parliament, and people expect this might be repeated in the upcoming election.
If that's the case, the Governor General typically calls on the largest party to see if they can lead a coalition. But it may be the case that the leader of the second largest party can form a government with other parties. And, of course, the role of the Governor General in politics has had its moments of controversy in Canadian history.
I would put my money on this scenario: the Liberals remain the largest party at the January 2006 election, but can't form a government. Harper leads a short-lived Conservative-led coalition that doesn't last a full-term.
Posted by robe0419 at November 29, 2005 7:36 AM