How many parties are there in your parliament?

Can you count them or are they just a couple?

This curiosity comes from the Italian situation which sees, since the birth of the Republic I would say, an incredible number of parties represented in the parliament [overall in the Chamber where, despite a population of about 60,000,000 of inhabitants there are more than 600 representative, imagine how many should they be in the United States!].

Personally I've got serious difficulties to count how many parties are there in Italian parliament today [I have to check on the sites of the chambers!].

Which the situation in your country?

 

I'm not sure a poll is the best way to answer this question as obviously multiple people from the same country could respond.

In the UK there are three "major" parties plus a couple of smaller parties who can only achieve a couple of seats if that. There are lots of other little parties but none with any chance of getting a seat at the national level (or even local level), especially with our current first-past-the-post electoral system.

In practice majorities have swung between the two biggest parties (Conservatives or Labour) but in recent years it's become a little more fragmented with a two-party coalition and a smaller party or two picking up momentum. Whether this is leading to a longer term shift in the political environment or it will fall back to the two-party dominance will be interesting to see.

 

You're right about the poll, but it allows to make a graphic representation of a statistic related to the number of represented parties in the parliaments.

 

I live in 3 countries, so it is a little hard to answer for me.
Slovenia is between 7 to 10 depending how long they maintain a government running before there are some sorts of reelections...
Austria is at 6. Quite stable government actually...
And I have no idea what's going on in Croatia, since the people are the same but if polls say their party might not get reelected the just jump ship and join the party which is most likely to get elected. So while the parties change the people in office pretty much remain the same

 

Eight parties at the moment, but the elections are comming up so that might change. In the EU election Sweden sent a feminist party to the parliament for the first time, feminist innitiative (Fi). Our Riksdag has a minimum 4% threshold requirement in order to get seats, and Fi was around 4% during the EU election. Fortunately, they have dropped to around 2% and if they keep that level they will just end up siphoning votes from the left block, which in my view, is very good. After the last riksdag election a nationalist populist dissent party entered the riksdag at around 5%, and they are currently around 10-15% in the polls. The other older parties, with the exceptions of the greens and the leftist party, are continuing their slow decline. The current ruling coalition consists of four parties, and all have suffered big losses. The main party, the moderates, are currently some 7% below their result from the last election. The agrarian centre party and the christian democrats are barely keeping themselves above the 4% threshold, and the liberals are only about 5%.

The opposition has not yet, despite there being only weeks until election day, entered into any kind of coalition co-operation. But despite that, the social democrats and the greens combined are bigger than all the whole centre-right black combined. The leftist opposition are divided on many issues, from nuclear energy, to defense, to welfare issues. These issues are important for these parties, and they don't want to negotiate much, which explains why they haven't been very successfull at forming a coalition alternative. As it looks now, neither block will gain an absolute majority, and co-operation with the nationalists is required to get a majority. Both blocks however, refuse to co-operate with the nationalists. As it seems now, we're going for parliamentary chaos.

 

I have checked on the site of the Chamber [low chamber of Italian Parliament].

Well, I can count 15 represented parties and 7 representatives not member of any party [!].

http://www.camera.it/leg17/46

 

8 parties in the parliament, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail (Civil war parties), Labour which predates the state and is the largest left wing party, Sinn Fein the only cross border party, and a scattering of small socialist parties (internecine warfare is the curse of the left)

The smaller parties must band together with independents in order to form a "technical group" allowing them speaking rights in the dail and the ability to ask leaders questions.

Wiki tells me their are 5 other parties which have an elected representative in the country, all on local councils, one of these the Greens were a significant minority party in the last dail (parliament) and formed part of a three party coalition government with Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats (a now disbanded fairly right of center (economically at least) party). The financial crash and subsequent bail out hit government parties very hard in the next election.

 

I think the party concept is much like board governance. Too many and too few are too impractical.

5 would be my max.

 

Well, just to be more accurate in describing Italian Low Chamber [Camera]:

in descending order of number of representatives ....

Total members of the Chamber: 630
1° party: Democrat Party = 296 members [46,98%]
2° party: 5 Stars Movement = 104 members [16,51%]
3° party: Forza Italia - Berlusconi = 69 members [10,95%]
4° group: Mixed Group [made by representatives without party] = 34 members [5,40%]
5° party: New Right Center = 28 members [4,44%]

.... and the others ...

Today the government is substantially sustained by the Democrat Party and the New Right Center with some further support from single representatives.

 

6 parties, the more the merrier

 

In a parliamentary democracy fragmentation in parties can be problematic, better have some flexibility within parties than be unable to form a steady government.

 

Quite a few minor parties, but after the last election resulted in more votes for them than the major parties liked, they're looking at reforming the electoral process to make it even more of a binary choice between two entirely unacceptable alternatives.

We have 11 parties with seats in Parliament, 4 of them in a Coalition currently holding government, although they're all pretty much the same party and have been for several decades.

 

That's the history of Italian Republic. Despite some Prodi and Berlusconi governments lasted for 4 years, since 1946 at Rome we have seen 63 governments!!!

- - - Updated - - -

That reminds the Italian situation. How do you elect the government? Is it elected by the electors or by the representatives in the Parliament?

 

We have a majoritarian system - the Prime Minister serves on the confidence of Parliament. If the representatives no longer support the government, or the Senate cannot pass supply - then we get a new executive.

I dislike it. If I have to have a government, I prefer a more decentralized confederation where the national government exists solely to carry out very specific national responsibilities. I can't imagine such a central government seizing more than 5% of GDP in taxation. All internal policy and spending would be provided by the federal bodies - the states and territories.

 

Also in Italy it works in that way. In fact, present Prime Minister, Renzi, has never been elected at national level [he even wasn't a member of the Parliament]: he was the major of Florence and after getting the charge of secretary of the majoritarian party [Democrat Party] he has been voted by the Parliament to become the new Prime Minister [substituting an other PM from his own party ...].

 

Current state of the parties within the UK government;

Conservative 304
Labour 256
Liberal Democrat 56
Democratic Unionist 8
Scottish National 6
Sinn Fein 5
Independent 3
Plaid Cymru 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party 3
Alliance 1
Green 1
Respect 1
Speaker 1
Vacant 2
Total number of seats 650
Current working Government Majority 79

You can find a complete list of political parties for the UK here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_Kingdom

biggest beef I have is the first past the post issue, for me it should be proportional representation.

 

Useful information and the number of 650 seats allow to be less negative about the quantity of representatives in the Italian Chamber [UK is comparable as for population to Italy and we've got 630 representatives in the low Chamber].

 

Does Italy operate a list system for MPs? It seems less ethically problematic than if there are constituencies with individual candidates.

Here the Taoiseach (PM) must be a TD (MP) but 2 ministers can be Senators and the Taoiseach has the power to nominate 12 Senators so it is possible, though very rare, to have a technocratic minister who has no electoral mandate but the backing of the Taoiseach.

 

Well, no, here we have even had a real technocratic government [elected by the parliament, but made by professors and professionals, leaded by Mario Monti]. In the last decade the Democrat party has begun to run primary elections to chose the candidate to the seat of PM, but actually that's not ruled, so they could stop now and nothing would happen.

 

Does it work? Are Italians happy with the system?

 

You also have to add to that our House of Lords the unelected "Second Chamber" or "Upper House" which consists (at the moment) of 774 members (+54 peers on leave of absence or otherwise disqualified from sitting ie Sir Bob Geldof is disqualified from sitting as he is an Irish National), the House of Lords can block or propose legislation.

 

The House of Lords has seen as a historical curiosity in Republics where aristocracy has got no more assemblies of representatives [like Italy, France, Germany ...]. You know, it's a pure British matter, until it works and it's functional to the life of the Kingdom ... if it disrupts the activity of the elected chamber or of the government ... well, may be something should be done about ...

 

While it could be seen as a disruption, it also acts as a check system that stops governments simply enacting what ever laws they wish. There have been numerous occasions where the 'commons' (the government) have been defeated in the House of Lords and have had to re-visit the legislation they wish to enact.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/parliament/house-of-lords/lords-defeats

 

Until that chamber has got a functional role in the institutional system of UK there are no theoretical problems to discuss.
Regarding its composition, its membership today is hereditary or the Lords are selected or elected in some way?

 

The house of lords does have a function which is to review and ratify bills passed in the house of commons.

Membership is composed of MP's, speakers, bishops and just about anybody else who is formally a part of the politics of the UK and selection comes from that of the a public and independent committee.

Also since 1999 hereditary peerages have been disallowed.