A national unity government, government of national unity (GNU), or national union government is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties (or all major parties) in the legislature, usually formed during a time of war or other national emergency. A unity government according to the principles of consensus democracy lacks opposition, or opposition parties are too small and negligible.
Following the disputed 2014 presidential elections, a National Unity Government (NUG) between both run-off candidates was formed with Ashraf Ghani as President of Afghanistan and Abdullah Abdullah in the new office of Chief Executive of Afghanistan.[1] This power-sharing agreement broke apart after the 2019 Afghan presidential election, after which Ghani abolished the office of Chief Executive while Abdullah again refused to recognize Ghani's presidency and demanded the formation of a new government in northern Afghanistan. Both politicians lost power after the Taliban won the Afghanistan War and recaptured the country.
Israel has had several national unity governments, in which major rival parties formed a ruling coalition. Such coalitions were formed in the days leading up to the Six-Day War in 1967, in the late 1980s and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The 36th government, formed in 2021, was a national unity government that has been frequently described as the most diverse governments in Israeli history, consisting of right-wing, centrist, left-wing and one Arab Islamist political party. Following the Hamasattacks of October 2023, the National Unity party became part of an Israeli war cabinet.[7]
Afterwards, the first government generally recognised as a national unity government was the third Andreotti Cabinet, also known as non-no confidence vote government, as the Italian Communist Party decided to not take part at the confidence vote. The communists voted in favour of the motion of confidence for the following cabinet, still led by Giulio Andreotti.
Since Lebanon is a multireligious state and consensus democracy, having a national unity government is more favorable in this country. Unlike other democracies, no group in Lebanon can govern alone.
The second National Union Government was formed in November 1945, in the aftermath of World War II, which had devastated Luxembourg. It was led by Pierre Dupong, who had been Prime Minister in the government in exile in the war, and included all four parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies. The government lasted until 1947, by which time, a normal coalition between two of the three largest parties had been arranged, thus maintaining the confidence of the legislature.
In addition, Luxembourg had a Liberation Government between November 1944 and November 1945, also under Dupong. It served a similar emergency role to a national government, but included only the two largest parties, the CSV and the LSAP.
After the 2021 Myanmar coup, on 16 April 2021, the exiled Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) announced the formation of a National Unity Government (Burmese: အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရ), pursuant to the Federal Democracy Charter released on 31 March 2021. The National Unity Government re-introduced the position of Prime Minister, and consists of CRPH members and other ethnic leaders.
Following the devastating April 2015 Nepal earthquake, top political parties in Nepal have decided to form a national unity government in order to handle the crisis and draft a constitution that's been long overdue. The major political parties and unified political fronts have agreed to settle the disputed issues of the constitution drafting process by 3 June and to form a national unity government.[12]
The Palestinian Unity Government of June 2014 was a national unity government of the Palestinian National Authority under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formed on 2 June 2014 following the Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation Agreement that had been signed on 23 April 2014. The ministers were nominally independent, but overwhelmingly seen as loyal to President Abbas and his Fatah movement or to smaller leftist factions, none of whom were believed to have close ties to Hamas. However, the Unity Government was not approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council, leading to its legitimacy being questioned. The Unity Government dissolved on 17 June 2015 after President Abbas said it was unable to operate in the Gaza Strip.
Sweden has only had one national unity government; The Hansson III Cabinet during World War II. The government was made up of all parties in the parliament except the Communist party which was considered to be pro-Soviet and hence unreliable. The government consisted of six ministers from the Social Democratic party (including prime minister Per Albin Hansson), three from the Right Wing party, three from the Liberal People's party, three from the Farmer's League and two nonpartisan politicians. The ultimate goal of this government's policy was to keep Sweden out of the war, which they also succeeded with. The Hansson government introduced censorship of press, literature and culture, which was applied to both pro-nazi and pro-communist propaganda. The government also approved departures from the neutrality policy to keep Sweden out of the war.
First-past-the-post voting, the British electoral system, has long increased the likelihood of a single party gaining a majority of Members of Parliament, who have run most departments and the government legislation of the country since the early 20th century.
After the formation of clear political parties in the Lords and Commons, the first national unity government came in response to the Napoleonic Wars. William Pitt the Younger offered to replace Prime Minister Henry Addington's government with a cabinet including all of the major parliamentary leaders such as himself, Charles James Fox, and Lord Grenville. This proved impossible because of irreconcilable policy differences between the factions (including Fox's opposition to the war in general), Fox's intense animosity towards Pitt the Younger, and King George III's refusal to appoint a government including Fox. After the death of Pitt the Younger in 1806, King George finally acquiesced and allowed Grenville and Fox to form a new "Ministry of All the Talents."[17] This ministry had cross-party support, ranging from very socially conservativeTories, and the broad range of Whigs (among them Charles James Fox and the Foxites as well as Grenvillites), selected for their combined broad political support in both Houses of Parliament and known capabilities in a time of crisis. However, the ministry was frustrated in its attempts to make peace with the First French Empire, and despite one major legislative success (the Slave Trade Act 1807 banning the Atlantic slave trade in the British Empire), it fell apart in 1807 over the question of Catholic Emancipation and was replaced following a general election by a Tory ministry led by the Duke of Portland.
The world wars and the long recovery to the Great Depression would be the only further instances of National Governments. The next major government representing all parties came during World War II after the Norway Debate, in which Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his cabinet were condemned for their handling of the war and faced a vote of no confidence in which members of his own party voted with the Opposition against him. The debate also revealed that Winston Churchill, an early opponent of Nazi Germany and appeasement, would be the only Conservative minister under which both Labour and Conservative MPs would join a government. Churchill agreed to form a new government after Chamberlain resigned. The subsequent Churchill war ministry included Churchill as Prime Minister, Labour Party Leader Clement Attlee as Deputy Prime Minister, and Conservative Party Leader Chamberlain as Lord President of the Council.[18][19]
Quasi-national governments
After 10 years of rule by the Liberal Party, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith agreed to form a new coalition ministry with the Conservative Party in response to World War I in 1915. However, the government remained dominated by the Liberals with few Conservatives in important Cabinet posts. Asquith resigned as Conservatives refused to serve in his government in 1916, and David Lloyd George and Conservative Party Leader Bonar Law formed a new coalition government from Conservatives and a minority of Liberals opposed to Asquith's handling of the war, which was opposed by Asquith's Liberals. In the 1918 general election held after the end of the war, Coalition-endorsed candidates won a large majority. Thereafter a coalition that faced few opposition MPs under David Lloyd George lasted until 1922 when his National Liberal Party formally split with the Liberal Party.[20]
In hopes of bridging partisan politics during the American Civil War, Republican Abraham Lincoln ran for his second term under the new National Union Party with Democrat Andrew Johnson as his running mate. The National Union Party allowed members to retain affiliations with other political parties.
Since the Civil War, there has never been a "national unity" government in the United States in the traditional sense. There have been several instances, however, during national disasters or wars, that the two parties have briefly "rallied around the President". Such instances include the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the September 11 attacks, all of which not only had a worldwide effect, but preceded a massive spike in the approval rating of the sitting president.[27]
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade-supporting Peelites, and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.
A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government where political parties enter a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election. A party not having majority is common under proportional representation, but not in nations with majoritarian electoral systems.
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Rishi Sunak since 2022, serves as the elected head of government.
The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prime ministers: Joseph Lyons (1932–1939) and Robert Menzies (1939–1941).
The politics of Norway take place in the framework of a parliamentary, representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the Council of State, the cabinet, led by the prime minister of Norway. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the legislature, the Storting, elected within a multi-party system. The judiciary is independent of the executive branch and the legislature.
A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the legislature. It is sworn into office, with or without the formal support of other parties, enabling a government to be formed. Under such a government, legislation can only be passed with the support or consent of enough other members of the legislature to provide a majority, encouraging multi-partisanship. In bicameral legislatures, the term relates to the situation in the chamber whose confidence is considered most crucial to the continuance in office of the government.
The Unionist Party was a centre-right political party in Canada, composed primarily of former members of the Conservative party with some individual Liberal Members of Parliament. It was formed in 1917 by MPs who supported the "Union government" formed by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War, who formed the government through the final years of the war, and was a proponent of conscription. It was opposed by the remaining Liberal MPs, who sat as the official opposition.
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition has an absolute majority of legislators in a parliament or other legislature. This situation is also known as a balanced parliament, or as a legislature under no overall control (NOC), and can result in a minority government.
The Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, more commonly referred to as the Leader of the Opposition, is the person who leads the Official Opposition in the United Kingdom. The position is seen as the shadow head of government of the United Kingdom and thus the shadow prime minister of the United Kingdom.
A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government.
In the politics of the United Kingdom, a National Government is a coalition of some or all of the major political parties. In a historical sense, it refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931 until 1940.
The Conservative Party is the oldest political party in the United Kingdom and second in the world. The current party was first organised in the 1830s and the name "Conservative" was officially adopted, but the party is still often referred to as the Tory party. The Tories had been a coalition that more often than not formed the government from 1760 until the Reform Act 1832. Modernising reformers said the traditionalistic party of "Throne, Altar and Cottage" was obsolete, but in the face of an expanding electorate 1830s–1860s it held its strength among royalists, devout Anglicans and landlords and their tenants.
This is an overview of United Kingdom general election results since 1922. The 1922 election was the first election in the new United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, after the creation of the Irish Free State removed Southern Ireland from the UK.
In parliamentary democracies based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply is an arrangement in which a party or independent members of a parliament agree to support the government in motions of confidence and appropriation votes. Parties and independent members normally retain the right to otherwise vote in favour of their own policies or on conscience on legislative bills.
The Churchill war ministry was the United Kingdom's coalition government for most of the Second World War from 10 May 1940 to 23 May 1945. It was led by Winston Churchill, who was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by King George VI following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in the aftermath of the Norway Debate.
In parliamentary politics, balance of power is a situation in which one or more members of a parliamentary or similar chamber can by their uncommitted vote enable a party to attain and remain in minority government. The term may also be applied to the members who hold that position. The members holding the balance of power may guarantee their support for a government by either joining it in a coalition government or by an assurance that they will vote against any motion of no confidence in the government or will abstain in such a vote. In return for such a commitment, such members may demand legislative or policy commitments from the party they are to support. A person or party may also hold a balance of power in a chamber without any commitment to government, in which case both the government and opposition groupings may on occasion need to negotiate for that person's or party's support.
The Carlton Club meeting, on 19 October 1922, was a formal meeting of Members of Parliament who belonged to the Conservative Party, called to discuss whether the party should remain in government in coalition with a section of the Liberal Party under the leadership of Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The party leadership favoured continuing, but the party rebels led by Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin argued that participation was damaging the party. The meeting voted decisively against the Coalition, which resulted in its collapse, the resignation of Austen Chamberlain as party leader, and the invitation of Law to form a Government. The Conservatives subsequently won the general election with an overall majority.
The National Liberal Party was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1922 to 1923. It was created as a formal party organisation for those Liberals, led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who supported the Coalition Government (1918–22) and subsequently a revival of the Coalition, after it ceased holding office. It was officially a breakaway from the Liberal Party. The National Liberals ceased to exist in 1923 when Lloyd George agreed to a merger with the Liberal Party.
The Pentapartito, commonly shortened to CAF, refers to the coalition government of five Italian political parties that formed between June 1981 and April 1991. The pro-European and Atlanticist coalition comprised the Christian Democracy (DC), the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI), Italian Liberal Party (PLI), and Italian Republican Party (PRI).
↑ Stroh, Alexander (2010). "Electoral rules of the authoritarian game: undemocratic effects of proportional representation in Rwanda". Journal of Eastern African Studies. 4 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1080/17531050903550066. S2CID154910536.
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