Minority Government

A minority government exists when the cabinet is drawn from parties that together control less than a majority of seats in the legislature's confidence chamber. Because it lacks an automatic majority, the government survives only as long as enough non-government legislators are willing to either support it or abstain on confidence votes and key bills such as the budget.

Minority governments typically operate through one of several arrangements:

• Confidence-and-supply agreements, in which one or more outside parties commit in writing to back the government on confidence motions and budgets but remain free on other votes. The 2017–2019 deal between the UK Conservatives under Theresa May and the Democratic Unionist Party is a well-known example.
• Ad hoc legislative coalitions, where the cabinet negotiates support bill-by-bill with different parties, a pattern long associated with Scandinavian politics, particularly Denmark and Sweden.
• Tolerated minorities, where opposition parties abstain rather than vote down the government, often to avoid triggering an election they do not want.

Minority governments are common in parliamentary systems with proportional representation or fragmented party systems. Canada has had several at the federal level, including the Liberal governments led by Justin Trudeau after the 2019 and 2021 elections, the latter supported by a confidence-and-supply agreement with the New Democratic Party signed in March 2022. Spain, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have also produced minority cabinets.

Advantages cited by political scientists include greater legislative bargaining, more amendments accepted from opposition parties, and stronger committee scrutiny. Drawbacks include policy instability, shorter average tenure, and the risk of being defeated on a confidence vote, which in Westminster systems typically triggers either a new government or an early election.

Minority governments should be distinguished from coalition governments, which command a formal majority through a multi-party cabinet, and from caretaker governments, which hold office only until a successor is formed.