Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Catch-up Mechanics - The Role of the Press, Third Parties, and Money - Extra Politics - Part 3" video.
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+Timothy McLean
Here in Norway we have a population of about 5 million people and 9 political parties in parliament (out of a total of something like 130 different party lists in the election, some only eligible to run in some election circles)
I recently did the math and the two biggest parties in the country recieved 52% of the votes and recieved 55,6% of the seats in our 169 seat parliament.
We have 6 parties with less then 11% of the voters behind them, and those had 48 out of 169 seats or 28,4% of the seats with 894 256 votes combined out of a total of 2 945 352 votes cast in the last parliamentarian election in 2017.
Or in other words they got 28,4% of the seats with 30,3% of the voters behind them.
I also checked what the result would have been if we used the winner takes it all approach to the election like Americans did.
The Labour party here would have recieved 90 seats instead of the 49 seats they actually got, the conservatives would get 76 seats instead of the 45 they actually got and the center party would get 4 seats instead of the 19 they actually got.
Having this many political parties has a lot of positive effects on our political system.
The elections are usually more civil then in countries like for instance the US as attacking other parties leave you vulnerable to counter attacks from parties that can not be targeted by your attacks but that can use your behaviour against you.
The labour party is the biggest party in my country by far and actually increased the number of voters voting for them back when they lost for the first time against the current cabinet.
However they lost the election itself because they failed to compromise sufficiently with the smaller parties they where in a coalition with so voters for those parties like me switched to parties less locked into such a coalition, parties more likely to help the conservatives win or that could swing either way.
Also, the conservatives played their cards well and their leader came across as a mediator that tries to get everyone onboard and to cooperate with everyone instead of lashing out like some parties did.
Something they've done over several years and gained a lot of support for.
In essence when it is impossible to rule alone the type of politicans that ends up being encouraged are the ones that are willing to make compromises with others reducing the risk of gridlocks.
Also, in Norway we do not have re-elections mid-term.
Instead what happens is that if the parliament lose trust in the cabinet or the cabinet feel that they can't rule the country anymore with the power vested in them by the parliament they raise the a cabinet question.
And anyone able to come up with a better cabinet proposal can replace them at any time.
Of course changing allegiance makes you less attractve as a coalition partner so parties don't do so lightly.
And in any case if you can't get a majority for any proposal it's entierly pointless anyway and you only end up making a fool of yourself.
So cabinets are only really switched out when there's major issues happening.
Once it was due to a major mining accident for instance causing the cabinet to resign and be replaced.
In essence our parliament does the job of the electoral college in the US in the sense that they are the ones that actually elect the prime minister and the prime minister choose the other ministers after negotiating with potential partners about what seats those other parties should have or if they don't want to join what policies, laws or other conditions may apply to their support.
And when the prime minister gets the aproval of the parliament he or she takes the proposal to the king who have to approve of it before the new cabinet is valid.
Till that happens the old prime minister and cabinet stays in power.
So the various parties have a insentive to cooperate as they won't get any change otherwise.
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