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Recently, the Dutch party PVV left the cabinet, leaving a demissionary cabinet. Usually, when that happens, there are new general elections, and based on the results, a new cabinet is formed.

I'm wondering if this is actually necessary though. Could the party that left simply be replaced by another without a new election? Or perhaps just lead to a re-negotiation of the coalition that ultimately leads to a new coalition with the same parties.

Has this ever happened in other parliamentary democratic systems?

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  • Don't know about if this could legally be done. But in the current setup it is impossible. Only GL-PVDA has enough seats to replace the PVV (or you will need to combine the 5 largest parties after that who all can't work together), and the remaining coalition has less in common with them than the PVV. And again, the PVV is hard lining on immigration, so the only feasible way a renegotiation would succeed if the other coalition members submit to those demands. Commented Jun 6, 2025 at 13:02
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    Is this specific to the Netherlands or generally about parliamentary democracies and the Netherlands are just an example? Also by "election" do you mean general election and/or election of parliament or do you mean a vote in parliament? Commented Jun 6, 2025 at 14:44
  • @haxor789 Netherlands is just an example Commented Jun 6, 2025 at 17:48
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    @mousetail All political systems are unique (unless they've been recently copied from an existing one) but the precise position of the Cabinet in the Netherlands is definitely not typical. In other systems they are usually derived from the head of government more directly. Commented Jun 6, 2025 at 19:20
  • I don't think you mean "cabinet". A cabinet is a collection of ministers, and they get changed all the time without any thought of an election. I think the word you are looking for is "coalition" - an agreement between two or more parties to form a government. Commented Dec 26, 2025 at 21:39

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In theory, they can. This happened in 1965 where after the fall of the Marijnen Cabinet, a centre-right coalition (KVP, ARP, CHU, VVD) a centre-left coalition was formed instead (KVP, ARP, PvdA). This was done because multiple parties believed new elections would focus on the introduction of commercial television, which also caused the collapse of the previous coalition.

However, restarts were already relatively rare (only four times since 1900), and this particular one was somewhat controversial, given the switch from right to left without voter input, something which also resulted in the formation of the party D66 at least partially in response to this.

This eventually created a convention that after a cabinet collapsed a snap election is required, to gain new input from the electorate.

In this case, trying to form a new cabinet would have likely been highly controversial, given that current parliament composition would likely require working together with PvdA-GL, a left-wing party. Meanwhile, as for renegotiating the cabinet, this would have the issue that the original issues still persist.

Also, for renegotiation, to some extent the reason the cabinet failed was actually a refusal from parties to renegotiate. In this case the PVV wanted the other parties to commit to a series of policy points against immigration, which had already been rejected and negotiated differently during the coalition formation. Meaning it was in essence an attempt to force renegotiation or having the cabinet fall.

So, to summarize, forming a new cabinet is legal, but against long-standing convention (which in parliamentary politics can carry at least as much weight as the law), and practically speaking it wasn't possible anyway, given ideological conflicts with alternate options.

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Outside of the Netherlands, for countries following the Westminster system, this formally happens whenever a new Prime Minister is chosen, regardless of it being via a General Election or a change in leader of the majority party, since the the constitutional system doesn't formally recognise parties as a part of the process of deciding an executive. MPs are elected in isolation as representatives of individual areas, and in theory a cabinet can consist of "the great and the good" regardless of affiliation.

The best practical examples probably surround the various National Governments in the United Kingdom before and during the Second World War (although that period also throws up a number of other governments driven as much by expediency as ideology.

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    Not only does it happen but it's very common and the Netherlands system seems very strange! Commented Jun 6, 2025 at 20:19
  • @deep64blue Changing cabinet members can and does happen. It's just not as common, because positions are divided based on coalition agreements (which are fairly common in parliamentary systems with first-past-the-post voting where single party majorities are rare). So swapping positions around requires agreement from all coalition parties. In this case, for example, the farmers party held the ministry of agriculture, and swapping another party into the spot would have probably severely pissed off the farmer's party. Commented Jun 10, 2025 at 6:39
  • @user3553031 For the Dutch system, cabinet positions are normally divided during coalition talks, so it requires agreement from all parties to swap ministers (unless a party is just changing who occupies their own seat). That said, in this case there's a difference between a cabinet shuffle and a cabinet fall. A cabinet fall is specifically one or more parties dropping out and leaving the government without a majority. In this case forming a new cabinet with other parties leaves you with a very weak mandate, similar to the UK Tories recently. An election is customary in this case to avoid this Commented Jun 10, 2025 at 10:39
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In the UK, this happens all the time:

If you add the condition that the Head of Government must also change, then yes that also happens:

If you also want the HoG to be from a different party, then that has also happened:

It was also standard for changes of Prime Minister to not correlate with elections before 1801.

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    Partial cabinet reshuffles with the same prime minister really do not count. Change of prime minister within the same party with the new cabinet drawn from the same party/parties is slightly closer to the whole cabinet resigning but not really. So the most recent examples in the UK may be the wartime coalitions and the national governments in the 1930s. Commented Jun 7, 2025 at 15:58
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    @Henry the question just says "new cabinet", which all of these are. That's also why I added restrictions they may have had in mind. There are also likely more examples beyond those I have listed, but a single example would be sufficient to answer the question. Commented Jun 7, 2025 at 17:06
  • @Henry So what does count as a 'new' cabinet? Because under the UK system, the ministerial appointments are purely at the discretion of the PM, and thus tend to go to those who are prominent in the PMs political party (who also tend to hold party safe seats). So even after a general election cabinets don't tend to change that much, often less than reshuffles under the same PM. Commented Jun 9, 2025 at 0:16
  • @user1937198 Indeed - it mean what somebody using the phrase wants it to mean. In the UK the Cabinet is a sub-committee of the Privy Council and those the Prime Minister wants to invite are those who attend (and if they are not already privy councillors then they are made so). Clearly there is a new cabinet when the party in power changes as everyone is replaced, but after that it is shades of grey: some people would say only with a new PM, but even then with PMs from the same party some individuals may remain in the same post; others might say any change in effect creates a new cabinet. Commented Jun 9, 2025 at 0:28
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    The 1895-1905 Unionist goverment is also an example of a change of party outside an election. Commented Jun 9, 2025 at 8:03
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This sounds like just another Tuesday in . If you check the columns "Government" and "Legislature" in this table on Wikipedia, whenever there are multiple governments in the same legislature it means they formed a new cabinet without elections. The present government has an unusually large majority and appears very stable, but in the past few legislatures we had respectively 3 and 2 different governments. After the 1953 elections, we had six different prime ministers before the next popular vote.

When a prime minister resigns, the law states that it is up to the President of the Republic to decide whether to appoint a new one (to be then approved by the parliament) or have early elections. In theory a government can last up to 5 years, from an election to the next regularly scheduled one, but this never happened once in the history of the Italian Republic. We like a little drama in our politics.

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Every country's system and laws are different. The scenario you describe is possible in many countries. In some parliamentary democracies, the head of state has the ceremonial duty to ask the leader of the party with the most seats to form the cabinet. If the current government "loses the confidence of the parliament" as in your example, he would ask the leader of the majority to form another cabinet. He can then form a different coalition with a different party or may be able to convince the parliament to accept a minority government. In some countries, he would even "decline" the invitation to form the cabinet so that the head of the state can ask another party leader who might be able to form a coalition. In many systems, calling for an election is also a common option.

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This did happen in New Zealand in 1997, in what has been described as a carefully planned coup. The Prime Minister was ousted and one coalition partner was dumped; the new Prime Minister cobbled together a new coalition, by including elements of the opposition.

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This happens in Ireland (and the United Kingdom is similar). The Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) can appoint and fire ministers at any time. In Ireland, it's common to have a major cabinet reshuffle about once per term of the Dáil (Irish parliament), and replacement of an individual minister is likely to happen a bit more often.

A whole new government can be formed if the current Taoiseach ceases to have the support of a majority of the parliament, and the parliament elects another one. For example, in 1994, the smaller party in a two-party coalition withdrew from government, and a new coalition was formed, consisting of that party and two others.

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Forming the cabinet (the Executive / government), without necessarily holding elections is a feature of Parliamentary democracy. In a Parliamentary democracy, the people vote to elect members to the legislature (the Parliament). And these members then form the Executive government from amongst themselves (usually the majority political party or based on multi-party alliance).

Sometimes, a majority party can become a minority (when certain members quit it and join another party or form a new one). Or a multi-party alliance can lose majority when 1 or more party quits it. In such cases, the existing elected Parliament members can try and form a new alliance amongst themselves (based on party lines or by forging new political alliances with other parties and / or members) to get a majority and form a new government.

Elections are only held when the Members of Parliament cannot reach an agreement to form another government (or when a government completes its term).

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