Constructive vote of no confidence

The constructive vote of no confidence (konstruktives Misstrauensvotum, moción de censura constructiva) is a variation on the motion of no confidence that allows a parliament to withdraw confidence from a head of government only if there is a positive majority for a prospective successor. The principle is intended to ensure governments' stability by making sure that a replacement has enough parliamentary support to govern. The concept was introduced on a national scale in West Germany's 1949 constitution, which remains in force after the German reunification; it has been adopted since the 1970s in other nations like Spain, Hungary, Lesotho, Israel, Poland, Slovenia, Albania, and Belgium. Politics of Germany Governments in the post-WW1 Weimar Republic were very unstable. Since the only election threshold for the Reichstag was that a party had to have received at least 30,000 votes in a single district, it was possible to get a seat with as little as 0.1 percent of the vote (e.g., People's Justice Party in July 1932). This resulted in a fragmented parliament, making it difficult for a government to retain a majority. Furthermore, as the German Empire had not been a parliamentary system, the politicians who had served in the pre-war Reichstag had little experience with coalition governments, which were an absolute necessity given the fractured political landscape. The parties representing the political center-left – the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Centre Party and Progressive People's Party – had come together for the Reichstag Peace Resolution during World War I and had experience with cross-party cooperation through the Inter-Party Committee (:de:Interfraktioneller Ausschuss), but those efforts were directed against the government of the emperor and chancellor, not the work of a coalition of parties supporting a government agenda with difficult Realpolitik considerations. The three parties made up what was called the Weimar Coalition and formed four of the early cabinets under the new Weimar Constitution.

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Related concepts (16)

Constitutional convention (political custom)

A constitutional convention is an informal and uncodified tradition that is followed by the institutions of a state. In some states, notably those Commonwealth of Nations states that follow the Westminster system and whose political systems derive from British constitutional law, most government functions are guided by constitutional convention rather than by a formal written constitution. In these states, actual distribution of power may be markedly different from those the formal constitutional documents describe.

Minority government

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.

Prussia

Prussia (ˈprʌʃə; Preußen, ˈpʁɔʏsn̩, Old Prussian: Prūsa or Prūsija) was a German state located on most of the North European Plain, also occupying southern and eastern regions. It formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army.