Posted by Dr Rob Aitken
The Conservative party political broadcast portrays a hung parliament as producing an endless round of self-serving politicians haggling over the spoils and failing to govern effectively. This is undoubtedly Tory scaremongering as they are afraid they will not achieve an overall majority that they took for granted. However, it also reflects a lack of experience in negotiating stable coalition governments in balanced parliaments, despite the recent experience in Scotland, Wales and local government. In contrast in the Netherlands, like most European countries, coalition governments and coalition formation are regular features of politics without it seeming to cause the sort of political meltdown that the Tory’s portray.
After a Dutch election – the next one is due in June – a senior politician is appointed by the Queen as an informateur. The informateur meets with all party leaders to discuss their policy priorities and their views on potential coalitions. The informateur then reports to the Queen on what group of parties is most likely to be able to form a stable government and key areas of policy similarities between them. The informateur then leads a process of negotiation between the parties to form the basis of a coalition government. Once the basis of a governing agreement is reached the Queen appoints a formateur to put together a government. While coalition negotiations take place, the existing government remains in office as a demissionaire government without the power to initiate new policy.
Coalition negotiations take a number of weeks or months, as the aim is to produce a detailed programme of government for the next four years. This covers details of spending plans, major policy initiatives and even agreements on how the government would respond to changing economic circumstances – eg the balance between tax cuts and spending increases if the economy does well (or vice versa). Once the politicians have reached agreement on a programme of government each party then calls a national conference. Each party has to agree to allow their politicians to enter a coalition based on this programme of government. Only then does a new government take office.
There are two important points here. First, that there is a shared understanding of the process and (informal) principles of coalition formation. Second, that the aim of the negotiations is to form a stable government based on an agreed four year programme. This can take a little while but has the advantage that the government takes power with a clear programme of government that has been agreed and approved by the parties involved, not just politicians in dark rooms. Furthermore this is a government based on parties that won the backing of a majority of voters in the election unlike any British government since the Second World War.
