In parliamentary politics, balance of power is a situation in which a minority government's survival depends on the cooperation of MPs who are not from the ruling party nor the official opposition. The members holding the balance of power may guarantee their support for a government by either joining it in a coalition government or a confidence and supply agreement. 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.
Australia
House of Representatives
In the 1940 federal election of the 74 seats in the House of Representatives, the United Australia/Country Coalition won 36 seats, the Labor Party won 32, the Non-Communist Labor Party won 4, and there were two independents, leaving the United Australia government of Robert Menzies without a majority in the lower house. The Coalition continued in government with the support of the two independents. The following year, the Non-Communist Labor Party, a breakaway Labor faction associated with former New South Wales premier Jack Lang, was readmitted to the Labor Party, and after the removal of Menzies by his own party, the independents in Parliament switched their support to Labor, allowing Opposition Leader John Curtin to form a minority government until his landslide reelection in 1943.
After the 2010 federal election of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, both the Labor Party and the Liberal/National Coalition held 72 seats, and there was one Greens, one MP was a member of the National Party of Western Australia (which is not part of the Liberal/National Coalition), and four independents. 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 agreements required the non-government party to support the government in a no-confidence motion and on supply bills, in return for the passage of some legislation, such as setting up an emissions trading scheme in the case of the Greens (see Gillard Government § Minority government). The Labor minority government was able to govern for the full term of the house.
Senate
The Senate, which serves as the nation's upper house and as a house of review, was established on the basis of ensuring that the smaller Colonies joining the Commonwealth were given equal representation, as required under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900. Between 1901 and 1918, Senators were elected on a first past the post system, changing to each state voting as one electorate on a preferential system from 1918 until 1948. During this period, the majority party in the lower house also generally had a commanding majority in the Senate. Since 1949, Senators are elected on the basis of achieving a transferable quota in each State or Territory. In more recent years, this method of election has generally resulted in a multi-party mix. In the early years after the establishment of the Commonwealth, Senators were more inclined to vote along State lines, with some exceptions.
The Senate has the power to reject, amend or defer bills passed by the lower house, thus obliging the government of the day to negotiate with minor parties in the Senate (or the opposition) in order to pass its legislation. 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.
Canada
Compared to other Westminster Systems, minority governments are far more common in Canada. Much of this is credited to the relatively uneven electoral demographics of the country, with most national parties relying on regional bases. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, minority Parliaments were quite common in Canada, and produced many subsequent political compromises through political cooperation, mostly between the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party of Canada, which included the Canada Pension Plan and Universal Healthcare during the tenure of Lester B. Pearson. After the 1980 election, minority governments became less common in Canada for the next several decades, but the 2004 general election returned Canada to minority government, and the subsequent general elections of 2005–06 and 2008 would also result in minority governments, but the 2011 general election gave Stephen Harper's Conservatives a clear majority in the House of Commons for the first time since the merging of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance. The 2019, 2021 and 2025 federal elections produced three consecutive Liberal minority governments, the longest unbroken stretch of minority government in federal Canadian history.
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. A notable exception was the political crisis that arose during the 2008–09 Canadian parliamentary dispute, in which the three opposition parties attempted to form a coalition government to oust the Conservative Party of Canada, which held a minority mandate in the House of Commons. This coalition failed, however, due to Governor-General Michaëlle Jean's resulting prorogation of Parliament until January 2009.
At the provincial level, by contrast, coalitions have governed in the provincial Parliaments of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia.
France
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.
1988–1993
President Mitterrand dissolved the lower house following his reelection as President of France in May 1988. After the 1988 French legislative election, the composition of parliament was Socialist Party (and allies) on 275, RPR-UDF on 220, Centrist Union on 41, Communists 25, Others on 14 put of a total of 577. This meant that no party had a majority in parliament.
The election produced a hung parliament with the Socialists emerging as the largest party but falling short of an overall majority. Both the Centrists and the Communists ended up holding the balance of power since either one could allow the government to cling onto power.
Prime Minister Michel Rocard, a centre-left figure, formed a new government after the parliamentary elections, incorporating independent centre-right ministers to attract support from the Centrist Union group. It enabled him to navigate through a fragmented National Assembly, relying alternately on centrist and communist lawmakers to pass significant legislation.
In 1991, Rocard was replaced with Édith Cresson, the first woman to lead a French government in history. 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. The closest vote of no confidence took place on 27 May 1992: it was tabled by centre-right to right-wing opposition lawmakers on the matter of Common Agricultural Policy reform and saw the Bérégovoy government surviving by only 3 votes (286 votes, short of the 289 required).
2022–present 2022 French legislative election Ensemble (centrist presidential coalition) 245, NUPES (left-wing coalition) 131, RN (radical right) 89, LR (centre-right to right-wing) 64, miscellaneous left 22, miscellaneous right 10, regionalists 10, Others 6. Total seats 577.
The parliamentary elections, taking place less than two months after the 2022 presidential election, led to Macron's centrist government losing its majority in the National Assembly, ending up at least 38 short of the crucial 289-threshold needed to command a majority in the Chamber. The balance of power was therefore held by the centre-right to right-wing Republicans (LR), with a parliamentary group of 62 MPs.
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. The talks again failed to produce any meaningful result.
On 4 July, Macron reshuffled the Cabinet and officially formed a minority administration, a change symbolized by the PM's decision not to seek a vote of confidence in the lower house, as permitted by the French Constitution, since the government was likely to fall on such a vote.
As of 18 June 2023, 17 motions of no confidence against Macron's government were defeated since the beginning of the 16th National Assembly: the closest his government came to fall in Parliament (to date) was on 20 March 2023 when a cross-party no-confidence motion failed by only 9 votes, the slimmest margin for any French government since 1992. On this occasion as in several others since July 2022, it was the Republicans' policy of abstention that prevented Macron's government to collapse. Thus, some argue that the Republicans can be considered as granting confidence-and-supply to the executive power, despite no formal agreement being in place.
Nonetheless, precisely because no formal agreement with opposition parties has been signed, the Borne government has had to bargain with opposition groups (mainly with the Republicans' MPs) to get any meaningful legislation through. It also explains why the government has already been defeated on numerous occasions in Parliament, a rare occurrence in the Fifth Republic's history. 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...).
New Zealand