After several weeks of negotiations, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard eventually retained power after signing separate confidence and supply agreements with the Greens and three of the independents.
The Australian Senate cannot directly bring down a government, though it can pass an indicative motion of no confidence and has the power to defer or block supply bills, as notoriously occurred in the constitutional crisis of 1975 which was precipitated, in part, by the deferment of supply through a manipulated balance of power.
Despite the frequency of minority governments, however, coalitions are rare to nonexistent in Canadian democracy, especially in federal politics, and especially in the modern era.
Mainly due to the two-round system being in use for parliamentary elections, minority governments are extremely uncommon in France: since 1958 and the establishment of the Fifth Republic, France has only produced two hung parliaments and four minority administrations to date: in 1988, with the Socialists as the largest party, and in 2022, with the centrist presidential coalition emerging as the largest bloc in the lower house of Parliament.
It enabled him to navigate through a fragmented National Assembly, relying alternately on centrist and communist lawmakers to pass significant legislation.
Cresson formed a new minority government and, like Rocard, she appointed centrist ministers and, at times, relied on the Communists' support to push legislation through.
In 1992, Pierre Bérégovoy was appointed PM and, as his predecessor did, he formed a minority administration, again incorporating independent figures to Cabinet and bargaining with communist and centrist lawmakers to advance his policies.
Just under a year into his tenure, Bérégovoy led the Socialists into crushing defeat in the 1993 French legislative election and subsequently resigned.
Throughout those five years in hung parliament territory, multiple motions of no confidence were brought forward and some of them failed by razor-thin margins.
On the 21 and 22 June, President Macron held talks with leaders from all parties represented in Parliament, stretching from the far-left to the far-right, in an effort to find common ground and, if possible, secure a majority in the lower house, either by forming a coalition government or by resorting to a national unity government.
Talks eventually failed since no opposition party expressed interest in propelling a Macron-led government or forming a national union cabinet.
At the end on June, Macron's Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, in turn held talks with leaders from all opposition groups of the National Assembly, discussing the possibility of a coalition agreement or some sort of confidence-and-supply deal.
At times, such an unprecedented situation has pushed the Cabinet toward using special constitutional provisions (mostly, the infamous constitutional article 49.3) to break parliamentary gridlock or to prevent failure on major bills (such as on the 2023 Government and Social Security budgets or on the 2023 pension system reform bill...).
Since the implementation of a mixed-member proportional (MMP) and multi-party system, several small parties have commonly held the balance of power following elections in New Zealand.
[4] With Sweden having proportional representation, small parties in the centre of politics often have vast influence over government formation, such as in the 2014 and 2018 election cycles, where the original coalitions could not form majorities in the Riksdag and bipartisan agreements were formed in bids to deny the Sweden Democrats the balance of power that was apparent by both election results.
[5] This required the government to go against several key promises from the campaign regarding no tax cuts for high-income earners due to the coalition lacking a majority to stay otherwise.
[citation needed] The normal UK response to a "hung" or "balanced" parliament is the formation of a minority government.
However, as Gladstone was willing to propose a measure of Home Rule for Ireland which Salisbury opposed, Parnell decided to bring down the Conservative ministry when the new parliament met.
Following the 1892 United Kingdom general election, although the Irish Nationalists were split between pro and anti-Parnellite factions, they all still preferred the pro-Home-Rule Liberals to the anti-Home-Rule Unionists of Salisbury.
As the Liberal Party did not want to join forces with the Conservatives and could not afford a quick general election, they were left in the awkward position of having to vote with the government on measures they had not been consulted about.
This election led to the Conservative government of Edward Heath losing its majority, with Harold Wilson's Labour Party winning four more seats.
The balance of power was held jointly by the Liberals and others (Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party, with the Northern Irish members)—who were unlikely to act together.
In any event, a Conservative-Liberal coalition would have been a minority government and would have needed the support of the Ulster Unionist Party (which had recently broken with the Conservatives) to command a bare majority of seats.
Labour incumbent Gordon Brown and Cameron announced their intentions to enter discussions with the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, open to signing a deal to allow a government to be formed.
However, by 11 May, the possibility of a Lib-Lab deal was looking unlikely as talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continued, and after concluding that he would not be able to form a government, Gordon Brown announced his resignation on the evening of 11 May.
Cameron became Prime Minister and announced his intention to form a coalition government, the first since the Second World War, with the Liberal Democrats.