Breaking the Tie
E-Day minus 29
This week’s report on the state of the race:
1. The Conservatives show no signs of movement towards a majority. They continue to be stuck around 30% of the vote and around 120 to 130 projected seats in the next Parliament. You'll recall that a majority is 170. The Globe and Mail Forecaster advises that there is only a 1% chance that any party, including the Conservatives, will get a majority. In other words, there is more than a 99% likelihood that Harper won’t get a majority and will have to resign or be voted out of office in the House of Commons. This isn't likely to change over the next month.
2. The NDP continues to lead the Liberals in projected seats. The average of eight election prediction sites put the NDP and the Conservatives at around 120 seats in the next Commons, and give the Liberals about 100. Half have the NDP with the most seats, half the Conservative. In all of them the NDP leads the Liberals from a low of five (Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker) to as much as 27 (Forum Research). The Globe Forecaster gives the NDP a 46% of winning the most seats, 39% that the CPC will have the most seats and 18% the Liberals.
3. There has been little movement in the parties’ respective share of the vote, except for the inevitable “noise” of variations from poll to poll and day to day. Thursday’s debate didn’t seem to change anything. Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker’s current national averages, with last week’s percentages in brackets, are NDP 31.1% (32), LPC 29.7 (29.4) and CPC 29.5 (29.7). Grenier’s weighting favours Nanos which so far in the election has placed the NDP on the low side. This in turn has Grenier’s NDP – Liberal seat projections closer than other sites. Environics had the NDP at 34%, Liberals 29 and CPC 26.
4. The Liberals remain ahead of the NDP in Ontario, but not enough to overcome the NDP seat lead in the rest of the country. In the past week both the NDP and Liberal vote share in Ontario on average slightly declined, and the CPC moved up a bit, all within the margin of error. The week’s Ontario averages are CPC 33.5%, LPC 34 and NDP 25.
As the campaign moves into its final weeks, the instinct to "come home" to one’s traditional political tribe kicks in. Much of this process has already happened. Polling reports indicate that more and more voters are committed to voting and are committed to their choices. Odds are there won’t be much change in the final four weeks.
From one perspective, a minority Parliament is a tie. Yet is it really?
With the prospect of another Harper majority fading, let’s look at how a minority Parliament will shake out. How will the tie be broken and who will end up as Prime Minister in a minority Parliament?
If the Conservatives win the most seats, Harper will be entitled to meet Parliament and try to hold on. For him to stay in office, one or the other parties must abstain in a vote of confidence in the Conservative Government at the outset of a new Parliament.
So the discussions between the NDP and the Liberals will begin in earnest October 20. They will focus on how to govern and who will do it. The option of allowing Harper to continue will be an anathema to the supporters of both parties, so the pressure will be on to find a basis for agreement in the post-Harper era.
Once Harper is defeated, the leader of the second party in these circumstances will be asked by the Governor General to try to form a government. To succeed, that leader will need to get third party support in a new confidence vote. Discussion will focus on the option of a formal coalition with seats in cabinet for the third party. Policies that matter to the third party and on which it can subsequently campaign will be discussed. Structural changes on which the two parties can agree, such as proportional representation, will be attractive to both. The alternative to agreement is either continuation of Harper in office or an early election. Therefore, the lead party will be in the driver’s seat during negotiations, but the third party will have much to bring to the table including a measure of parliamentary stability.
An alternative to coalition is a formal working arrangement, as in Ontario in 1985, in which the lead party -- the Liberals -- won two years in office in return for adopting policies and procedural changes favoured by the NDP, the third party.
A third possibility is an informal arrangement like the one Pierre Trudeau worked out with David Lewis and the NDP when he found himself in a minority situation in 1972. That year, the NDP negotiated well and won a number of important advances including election financing reforms enabling the NDP to build its strength in Parliament over ensuing years.
If Harper doesn’t win the greatest number of seats, he has signaled that he will resign immediately. The leader of the party with the most seats, the NDP or the Liberals, will be asked to form a government before Parliament meets. In that situation, the discussions between the two will take place but without the same intensity. The new Prime Minister only needs the third party to abstain on the initial confidence vote. Because a vote against the new government will lead to an early run-off election, abstention will be attractive, perhaps essential, to the third party. Their only bargaining chip will be to offer stability to the new government. It should be possible to build agreement on a program that will win that stability.
In this scenario, October 19 will be the end of one act and the beginning of the next in an ongoing political drama about the nature of the country -- and its future.
1. The Conservatives show no signs of movement towards a majority. They continue to be stuck around 30% of the vote and around 120 to 130 projected seats in the next Parliament. You'll recall that a majority is 170. The Globe and Mail Forecaster advises that there is only a 1% chance that any party, including the Conservatives, will get a majority. In other words, there is more than a 99% likelihood that Harper won’t get a majority and will have to resign or be voted out of office in the House of Commons. This isn't likely to change over the next month.
2. The NDP continues to lead the Liberals in projected seats. The average of eight election prediction sites put the NDP and the Conservatives at around 120 seats in the next Commons, and give the Liberals about 100. Half have the NDP with the most seats, half the Conservative. In all of them the NDP leads the Liberals from a low of five (Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker) to as much as 27 (Forum Research). The Globe Forecaster gives the NDP a 46% of winning the most seats, 39% that the CPC will have the most seats and 18% the Liberals.
3. There has been little movement in the parties’ respective share of the vote, except for the inevitable “noise” of variations from poll to poll and day to day. Thursday’s debate didn’t seem to change anything. Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker’s current national averages, with last week’s percentages in brackets, are NDP 31.1% (32), LPC 29.7 (29.4) and CPC 29.5 (29.7). Grenier’s weighting favours Nanos which so far in the election has placed the NDP on the low side. This in turn has Grenier’s NDP – Liberal seat projections closer than other sites. Environics had the NDP at 34%, Liberals 29 and CPC 26.
4. The Liberals remain ahead of the NDP in Ontario, but not enough to overcome the NDP seat lead in the rest of the country. In the past week both the NDP and Liberal vote share in Ontario on average slightly declined, and the CPC moved up a bit, all within the margin of error. The week’s Ontario averages are CPC 33.5%, LPC 34 and NDP 25.
As the campaign moves into its final weeks, the instinct to "come home" to one’s traditional political tribe kicks in. Much of this process has already happened. Polling reports indicate that more and more voters are committed to voting and are committed to their choices. Odds are there won’t be much change in the final four weeks.
From one perspective, a minority Parliament is a tie. Yet is it really?
With the prospect of another Harper majority fading, let’s look at how a minority Parliament will shake out. How will the tie be broken and who will end up as Prime Minister in a minority Parliament?
If the Conservatives win the most seats, Harper will be entitled to meet Parliament and try to hold on. For him to stay in office, one or the other parties must abstain in a vote of confidence in the Conservative Government at the outset of a new Parliament.
So the discussions between the NDP and the Liberals will begin in earnest October 20. They will focus on how to govern and who will do it. The option of allowing Harper to continue will be an anathema to the supporters of both parties, so the pressure will be on to find a basis for agreement in the post-Harper era.
Once Harper is defeated, the leader of the second party in these circumstances will be asked by the Governor General to try to form a government. To succeed, that leader will need to get third party support in a new confidence vote. Discussion will focus on the option of a formal coalition with seats in cabinet for the third party. Policies that matter to the third party and on which it can subsequently campaign will be discussed. Structural changes on which the two parties can agree, such as proportional representation, will be attractive to both. The alternative to agreement is either continuation of Harper in office or an early election. Therefore, the lead party will be in the driver’s seat during negotiations, but the third party will have much to bring to the table including a measure of parliamentary stability.
An alternative to coalition is a formal working arrangement, as in Ontario in 1985, in which the lead party -- the Liberals -- won two years in office in return for adopting policies and procedural changes favoured by the NDP, the third party.
A third possibility is an informal arrangement like the one Pierre Trudeau worked out with David Lewis and the NDP when he found himself in a minority situation in 1972. That year, the NDP negotiated well and won a number of important advances including election financing reforms enabling the NDP to build its strength in Parliament over ensuing years.
If Harper doesn’t win the greatest number of seats, he has signaled that he will resign immediately. The leader of the party with the most seats, the NDP or the Liberals, will be asked to form a government before Parliament meets. In that situation, the discussions between the two will take place but without the same intensity. The new Prime Minister only needs the third party to abstain on the initial confidence vote. Because a vote against the new government will lead to an early run-off election, abstention will be attractive, perhaps essential, to the third party. Their only bargaining chip will be to offer stability to the new government. It should be possible to build agreement on a program that will win that stability.
In this scenario, October 19 will be the end of one act and the beginning of the next in an ongoing political drama about the nature of the country -- and its future.
Comments
Post a Comment