Monday, September 19, 2011

Ontario Election, Minority Government, What Happens?

With polls having the Tories and Grits relatively close in the Ontario election and the NDP highest since Bob Rae's majority, the possibility of a minority goverment looms large. If Dalton McGuinty wins the most seats, I don't really see him forming a formal coalition with the NDP, but rather attempting to govern like Stephen Harper during his recent minority period. I don't think that's inherently stable, especially with weak second and third quarter GDP growth causing problems. Hudak and Horwath coming together as a coalition is obviously very unlikely in this scenario.

What's more interesting is if Tim Hudak wins the most seats, but not a majority. Do McGuinty and Horwath form a premptive coaltion and deny Hudak a turn as premier, or do they lie in wait to eventually usurp Huday like Stephen attempted to do a couple of years ago federally?

I think for McGuinty, coming off of eight years of majority government, allowing Hudak to even be premier for a little while is problematic. A minority premier isn't all powerful, but there's probably a lot of skeletons in the Liberal closet that come out if McGuinty is not premier so there's considerable incentive for McGuinty and Horwath to do a deal.

Vote splits versus seat counts could also factor. If Hudak is close to a majority and has a lot more seats than McGuinty, than a NDP Liberal coalition will be more difficult. If the Liberals win more seats than the Tories, but lose the popular vote than things get interesting.

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