[EM] Stable PR governments

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Herman,

you wrote (23 Aug 1999):
> Markus Schulze wrote:
> > The Swedish Method guarantees that the possibility to dissolve
> > the parliament cannot be misused to "corriger la fortune."
>
> Therefore, probably, the Swedish parliament (Riksdagen) has never in
> history been dissolved before the end of its regular mandate period.
> Coalitions just postpone difficult decisions and stumble on until the
> end, sometimes with minority support because one party leaves the
> coalition, rather than investing in costly extraordinary elections
> (extra val) for a mandate that is going to last only 1 or 2 years.
> So in practice, the Swedish method seems to work out the same way as
> the Norwegian one (where extraordinary elections are not possible).

There have been extraordinary elections in Sweden
in 1887, in 1914, in 1958, and in 1970.

Markus Schulze