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Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
Just curious, but is that how it is done in other countries where coalitions are the norm? It's hard to imagine that it is as any party that openly campaigns for a coalition is pretty much admitting that they don't think they can win a majority. It seems like a self-defeating strategy.
As mentioned previously in this thread, people don't elect governments; they elect parliaments, and the parliament we elect chooses how to form the government. A government led by a minority party is no more or less democratic than one led by a coalition. Unless the argument is simply that the leaders were not forthcoming about it before the election, in which case I don't think there has ever been a democratically eleced leader ever.
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The only one I can speak for is Turkey, as I have a co-worker from there. Apparently for them, coalitions are the norm, due to the number of political parties. While their system works essentially the same as ours (elect someone in a riding, party with most elected members forms the government), the major difference is that the government is not defeated by being voted against. If something is voted down, it just doesn't happen. Under no circumstances can the party with the most seats be overthrown by the rest of parliment. If the party leading can't get anything passed over time (ie. unwilling to cooperate) there will be an early election. It usually takes at least a year for this to happen though. My co-worker was actually quite taken aback that our system would allow the minority parties to band together to form the government (although she might have still been recovering from the CTV do-over interview with Dion).