Coalition monkey? Yes, coalition monkey? It was so hot it was a key twitter theme http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23coalitionmonkey).
I do understand what Ignatieff is saying--don't waste your votes on parties that cannot get a majority, vote for the Liberals. Why? Because the Conservatives suck, but Iggy cannot explain why the Liberals would suck less. But if there are no coalitions, then voting for the Greens, Bloc or NDP would be wasting their votes. So, vote Liberal. On the other hand, if coalitions are fair game, then vote Green or NDP (nobody will form a coalition with the Bloc--sorry*). Which would guarantee that the Liberals do not gain a majority. But the funny thing is that there is no way that the Liberals will win a majority. Iggy is just not that popular nor is his party. Perhaps the calculation is that, in a first-past-the-post system, voting for smaller parties might mean that the Conservatives win enough seats to gain a majority whereas voting strategically (voting Liberal and not wasting votes) might mean another minority government and, perhaps, a coalition.
* Ok, I am not sorry. I do not want to see the Bloc have more influence. Perhaps if they stood for stuff that I liked, but they don't. And I do get it why parties at the federal level would find it anathema to coalesce with a party that seeks to secede.
The Conservatives are trying to tie Iggy to the old threatened coalition of Liberals, NDP and Bloc, but I don't see why a coalition of Liberals and NDP or Liberals, NDP and Greens would not be possible. Sure, exclude the Bloc, but there might be math that works for the others.
I tweeted when I heard that Ignatieff had ruled out a coalition that he was a lousy political scientist. That he was causing folks to think that "those who can, do; those who cannot, teach." But, to be fair:
a) he is not a political scientist but an historian as far as I can tell. He has taught in multidisciplinary programs, but his training is as an historian.The problem with opposing coalitions now is that it will reduce/eliminate his options when (not if, but when) the Liberals fall short as will the Conservatives. If he tries to form a coalition after the election, he will be accused of being a liar.
b) opposing a coalition, as I suggested above, may not be entirely bad politics now. He wants Canadians to vote strategically by voting for whichever party will doom the Conservatives. The reality is that this varies from riding to riding (district to district). In some ridings, the best chance to deny the Conservatives a win would be to vote NDP or to vote Green or to vote Bloc Quebecois. In many, the best chance is to vote Liberal, but not all of them. If Ignatieff was really a strategic political scientist, he would not run Liberals in ridings where Liberals would likely lose AND where their votes might otherwise go to parties might beat the Conservatives. Or he would at least only send out weak candidates with weak support to these places. Indeed, he might be doing the latter, but I have no idea (interesting question for enterprising political scientists who study Canadian politics).
Which gets to the core question: given what we know about the polls, the ONLY chance for Liberals to get into power after the election would be to form a coalition beforehand with the NDP and perhaps the Greens and coordinate their campaigns (agree who will run where and bargain about the issues ahead of time). This is what parties do elsewhere. Sure, it is new to Westminister systems, but coalitions are not so new to such systems anymore (see NZ, Australia and now the UK). Wake up and smell the coalition coffee!
So, my view, as a non-Canadianist, is that this is the last election that Ignatieff will have worry about, as he will lose and then go back to the academy. Not a great outcome since we have too few jobs as it is. But the bright side is that failing folks seem to get heaps of media time these days (Cheney, Palin, etc.).
Oh, if I am wrong about how this election plays out, then I promise that I will stop speculating about Canadian elections. Until the next time.
8 comments:
Canada has had some very successful minority governments without any coalitions. They simply sought support on individual issues from different parties. This allows the parties to put forward election platforms with the idea that they will try to follow them.
It seems coalitions can work well in other countries, but there may also be backroom wheeling and dealing between parties AFTER an election, where parts of their platforms fall by the wayside as deals are made. Governing with a minority and seeking support on specific issues allows this to be more open and transparent to Canadians and has served us well in the past. Many of our greatest programs, such as national health care, were brought in that way by minority governments.
Not all countries have to do exactly the same thing, although I understand if you are used to a different system you might look at the way Canadians do politics critically.
Also, I should add that in Canada, we elect individual representatives for our own riding. Each MP represents their constituents. While, over the years, parties have tried to impose more party discipline on MPs, I don't think it is something to encourage more of. It seems coalitions are more about party politics than the individual case-by-case issue-based support model, which allows MPs to decide to support the minority government on a specific issue, while giving them a pass on other issues.
"If Ignatieff was really a strategic political scientist, he would not run Liberals in ridings where Liberals would likely lose AND where their votes might otherwise go to parties might beat the Conservatives. Or he would at least only send out weak candidates with weak support to these places. Indeed, he might be doing the latter, but I have no idea (interesting question for enterprising political scientists who study Canadian politics)."
Enterprising political scientists who study Canadian politics know that Canadian parties have decentralized nomination processes and that leaders can select candidates in only a very small number of constituencies.
Ok, so I don't know that much about Canadian politics. Still seems to me that the parties could coordinate pre-election or do some subtle stuff to try to defeat the Conservatives. Instead, all Iggy can do is plead for strategic voting....Sounds like a bad strategy to me.
The UK case is indeed instructive. It is not as if the parties were openly talking about a coalition before the election, even though most polls throughout the campaign pointed to there being no single-party majority. Clegg talked vaguely about "doing things differently this time," Cameron said over and over again that a vote for the LibDems was a vote for 5 more year of Gordon Brown, and Brown was just downright evasive.
You mention Australia, but there is no coalition government there. The current government is a minority single-party Labor government, with somewhat formalized support agreements with the Greens (1 seat in lower house) and a few independents. Australia does, of course, have a permanent pre-election Coalition (with a capital 'c'), but the small extent to which it's any different from the union of Canada's Western Reform with the old PCs that made up today's Conservative Party is explained by the existence of the Alternative Vote as opposed to FPTP.
Of course, New Zealand never had coalitions prior to electoral reform. Despite a strong third party in voting in the 1970s and 1980s, one party always won a majority of seats (even if twice in a row that was a party with the second most votes).
Then there is India, with its pre-election coalitions involving each of the main national parties and a slew of "BQs". It took a decade or so of minority and unstable governments before the tendency towards coalitions was cemented, but the extreme regionalism of India makes Canada's regional differences look like child's play. It is only vaguely relevant for Canada, other than as a reminder of how unlikely open talk about coalitions, in a favorable light, would be.
The reasons why coalitions are politically unpalatable in Canada really boil down to FPTP and the BQ.
Of course, that does not mean one can't happen, if Harper falls well short of a majority. But no one is likely to raise the matter in the campaign, except to ay how awful and un-Canadian it would be.
I guess I am not just a bad CAnadian but a bad Canadianist. Mathew is the expert on electoral institutions, so take him far more seriously than me.
Two follow-ups:
1. When I called the regional parties in India many "BQs" I meant only in the sense of being parties that only care about one or a small number of states, rather than having a national presence. None of the state-based parties in the Congress or BJP-led pre-electoral coalitions is actually separatist in any way. That presumably makes a huge difference in the willingness of national parties to work with them openly (that and the sheer numbers, of course).
2. The Greens think they can win a seat this time, and have nominated their leader, Elizabeth May, in Saanich-Gulf Islands, BC.
"If Ignatieff was really a strategic political scientist, he would not run Liberals in ridings where Liberals would likely lose AND where their votes might otherwise go to parties might beat the Conservatives. Or he would at least only send out weak candidates with weak support to these places."
The other problem with the approach is that this would effectively mean that there would be no Liberals (or only weak ones) running in many of the Western constituencies (for example in Alberta and Saskatchewan) where the race is largely between the Conservatives and NDP. A large number of westerners feel that the Liberals just don't represent them, and reducing their presence there does not seem to be a wise long-term strategy. The Liberals are very unlikely to win this election, but if they want to appear as though they represent all of Canada and improve their chances of winning future elections they need to increase, not reduce, their efforts in these areas.
Post a Comment