Elections not involving the US?

[Rath]

Mummelmann said:

Pineapple said:

Rath said:

Mummelmann said:
Ah, coalition governments... They really get nothing done, being towed and tugged every which way and never fully committing or deciding.

That's not true - several countries have been governed very effectively through coalitions for a while now. Germany, Finland and New Zealand are all examples.

It's only when you get awkward coalitions that make no sense on paper (eg. Lib Dems and the Conservatives in the UK) that things don't work.

We currently have a coalition government in Norway that isn't working out too well. The socialistic side are in control with a three-party coalition, but one party is by far the largest. You have our version of Labour, one party a few nothces more socialist than that and one party for the farmers and district people. The Labour's company got roughly 35% of the total votes in 2009, while the other ones both got 6-7%.

Effectively, this has caused the situation to be that Labour's controls most stuff, while the two smaller ones control their voters special interests. Whihc, essentially, has resulted in the two smaller ones both directly and indirectly giving more money to their voters than everybody else. This has spurred a wave of corruption scandals in the Norwegian government, and the leader of the most social party had to leave due to corruption.

There's always been a resentment in Norway for coalition governments, and it's only been strengthened by the horrible stuff this government has done. I really have no idea why there's a resentment for coalition governments in Norway, though. The last time we had a government that wasn't a coalition was in 1961, so we've had nothing but coalition governments for over 50 years now.

Precisely. My view on coalition governments comes from domestic policies and mistakes.

Rath; I know that they can work, but they often don't. The Norwegian government is a perfect example, it is comprised of two parties with socialist roots with one being near fanatic about environment and having no clue how the real world works, one that used to be fairly left wing but which has turned more and more right and a third that houses a lot of people with interests and engagements in rural regions.

Ap (labor party) are pro-centralization and boring for oil basically everywhere and care little for infrastructure.

Sv (socialist left party) are against boring for oil basically everywhere, have no mind for infrastructure and want schools to be extensions of kindergarden with little to no focus on individual skills and performance and any form for competition.

Sp (central party) are neither for nor against boring for oil but want fishing and agriculture to once again become primary industries and main focus, the are against centralization and involved in infrastructure.

Put simply, the above doesn't work. There are other differences as well and one trait that especially AP and SV share is that they want a vast part of the population employed within the public sector and within management and administration and in supervisor functions, basically creating nothing of value. Norway has an administration fit for running a country the size of Germany which houses about 16-17 times as many people... And there is, of course, no contingency plan for when we run out of oil.

While coalitions may not be working out for you they work out for other countries, it sounds like your coalition is one of those that clearly wasn't going to work out very well that I was talking about.