Coalition payouts

Political theorists are critical of absolute parliamentary majorities. For Aristotle, majoritarian democracy – in which a political majority rules – is a deviant constitution because it produces a “defective and perverted form” of the majority. Similarly, Arend Lijphart emphasizes consociational democracy, in which a consensus is developed on the division of power among the elites of divided political cultures.

In parliamentary systems, the executive receives its mandate from parliament, which also has the constitutional power to dismiss the executive at any time through a vote of no confidence. When no party achieves a simple majority, it leads many parties to form a coalition government in parliamentary democracies. The norm of coalition government is practiced in Western European political cultures, where proportional representation is practiced to accommodate ethno-regional and socio-political divisions in central legislatures. In the UK, the Cameron-Clegg coalition – a coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – was the first coalition government since Churchill’s interim ministry in 1945. In India, a coalition government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee successfully completed its five-year term from 1999 to 2004.

Apart from the peaceful transfer of power, the emergence of a divided mandate following the most tortuous parliamentary elections in February 2024 has generated interesting trends in Pakistan’s electoral politics. First, although post-Eighteenth Amendment parliamentary governance technically passed the Huntington “two combined revolutions” test, the large question mark around the notion of free and fair elections suggests that Pakistan’s democracy is far from consolidated. Second, there has been an unprecedented political response to anti-democratic forces in the country. Third, the emergence of an ever-evolving and increasingly competitive political landscape has indicated the separation of conventional status quo politics. And fourth, this divided parliamentary mandate led to a hung parliament, which forced the main parties to form a coalition government. Such a fragmented mandate confirmed that a coalition government was – by both necessity and choice – the only option available for continuing parliamentary rule in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led a minority government that now controls a parliamentary majority, forming a coalition. However, the formation of this coalition – consisting of two ideologically different parties, the PML-N and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPPP) parliamentarians – heralds the emergence of a toxic binary competition between the two parties. The new multi-party coalition format resembles “changes motivated by personal interests” rather than a permanent and stable coalition necessary to ensure economic and political stability for the country. This power-sharing format, combined with patronage politics, reduces the chances that government policies will be held politically accountable by parliament.

The ideological divide creates the risk of serious political disagreements that could result in the dismissal of the current government through a vote of no confidence

The representation paradox that has emerged from the 2024 polls potentially calls into question the political integrity of the politicians involved and the complexity of this parliamentary coalition. First, doubts about the election results have created a perceived deficit in the coalition’s democratic legitimacy, as coalition parties seek to barter for a greater share of power than what they achieved in the polls. Secondly, pre-election manifestos have largely lost their importance because a multi-party coalition government reduces the chances of implementing conflicting political positions. The loose agreement between the two main political parties to form a coalition government seems to be a betrayal of both their pre-election manifestos and the electorate, which has virtually abandoned its promises to voters and its principles in favor of taking political office. And finally, the ideological split – combined with the non-monotonic relations between the political partners of this coalition – creates the risk of serious political disagreements that may end in the dismissal of the current government through a vote of no confidence.

In addition to academic criticism of coalition governments, their effectiveness can be measured by looking at the completion of their three-stage life cycle: government formation, coalition management, and government termination. Its first stage begins with the division of political offices between political partners. The second stage of the coalition life cycle involves coalition management, during which political partners support each other in the government’s work in the field of legislative and non-legislative policies. The third and final stage of coalition governments is their end, which occurs either as a result of a political dispute between the political partners, which results in the dismissal of the government through a vote of no confidence, or when the coalition government manages to complete its term in parliament.

The first stage ended informally with the division of political offices between the PML-N and the PPPP. By securing constitutional offices such as the presidency, the Senate chairmanship, and provincial governors’ seats, the PPPP signals its intention not to share collective ministerial responsibility in the federal government, a fundamental feature of a coalition government. This decline in the division of ministerial responsibilities predicts the inherent inability of a modern multi-party coalition to make difficult policy decisions under the guise of economic and political instability in the country. It also highlights how wisely one of the main policy partners, the PPPP, avoided sharing the benefits of the policy.

The PPPP obtained constitutional offices, indicating its intention not to share collective ministerial responsibility in the federal government

The sustainability of the second stage varies depending on the coalition management model. The literature on coalition management proposes three models: a prime minister-dominated model, in which the prime minister single-handedly dominates political decisions; a model of ministerial autonomy, in which ministers responsible for individual ministries enjoy considerable autonomy in setting the agenda; and the coalition compromise model, in which political partners agree on policy decisions, departing from their original party positions in order to ensure democratic governance.

If the PML-N-led coalition government tries to impose a government model dominated by the prime minister, the chances of completing the five-year term will be minimal as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif does not have a surplus parliamentary majority. The current coalition also cannot afford a model of ministerial autonomy, which would result in divergent policy decisions made by cabinet members of at least two parties, the PML-N and the Muttahida Qaumi-Pakistan Movement (MQM-P), both with divergent and, most importantly, sometimes contradictory positions political.

It is therefore advisable to implement a coalition model of compromise governance, in which all political partners – regardless of whether they joined the federal cabinet, as in the case of MQM-P, or resigned from ministerial positions, as in the case of PPPP – must reach a consensus on policies designed to ensure democratic governance and to prevent any approach to a stage in the coalition’s life cycle where failure to agree on policy would result in its premature end. It is likely that the successful completion of the life cycle of this multi-party coalition government potentially depends on how its political partners work together towards democratic governance of the coalition.