British voters head to the polls Thursday to vote in their first general election in five years. With polls predicting a close race and no clear majority, it will likely be days, if not weeks, until we know who the prime minister will be.
Polls in the United Kingdom close at 10 p.m. local time, with the first results announced around 6 p.m. EDT Thursday. Unlike in the United States, the winner in each district will be announced only once all the votes have been counted. Results will continue rolling in overnight, with all but seven constituencies expected to announce results by 2 a.m. EDT.
The real drama starts after that. At least six election forecasts are predicting a hung parliament, in which no party is able to form a clear majority.
This was the case in 2010, when the Conservative Party won 306 seats, 20 short of what’s needed for a clear majority. A coalition government was formed with the major centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, which had 57 seats.
This election, the picture is much more complicated.
Although Conservatives are expected to earn a few more seats than Labour, they’ll have to climb a higher mountain than they did in 2010 to form a coalition government. The Lib Dems are expected to have their seat count cut in half, so a coalition with either major party would still fall short of a majority.
Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party’s seat count is expected to rise from just six in 2010 to more than 50 this election. A coalition of the SNP and either the Conservative or Labour Party would get close to a majority, but the leaders of both major parties have ruled out that option given their big differences with the SNP. Prime Minister David Cameron even used a possible Labour-SNP coalition as an attack against Labour, until party leader Ed Miliband explicitly ruled it out. Because SNP is expected to win so many seats, it’s going to be nearly impossible to form a coalition government without them.
Nobody really knows what’s going to happen if a coalition government isn’t formed. Just because the Conservative Party wins the most seats does not mean it is entitled to lead the government.
“Any government needs to be able to command the confidence of the House of Commons,” according to the BBC. “This means that a single party needs to have enough votes in the bag from other parties to stave off defeat in a no-confidence motion.” As the incumbent party and the likely winner of the most seats in parliament, the Conservative Party will get the first attempt at forming a new government.
How long will that take? In 2010, it took almost a week for the Conservative and Liberal-Democrat parties to reach a coalition deal. With more parties involved and a murky path to a majority, a deal could take much longer this time. It’s possible one of the major parties will seek to adopt the policy positions of some of the smaller parties in exchange for support in a vote that would give the major party power without explicitly forming a coalition government.
If no majority coalition is formed, Cameron has said his preference is to run a minority government, assuming the Conservatives get the most seats in parliament. That might lead to the House of Commons voting for another general election to be called later this year, in hopes that voters will rethink votes for marginal parties and throw their support behind one of the main parties to sort out the mess.
And you thought the Electoral College was complicated.
Whatever happens, Americans should be thankful that the Constitution clearly spells out the electoral process for Congress and the presidency. Even the debate over Al Gore and eventual-President George W. Bush in 2000 probably won’t be as bad as the confusion expected to occur over the British election results.
For Americans, U.K. general elections are one of the most important foreign elections because the U.K. is one of our closest allies. Whoever emerges as prime minister will set the tone for U.S.-U.K. relations for the rest of the decade. Although U.K. elections don’t take place on a strict schedule, the prime minister will probably hold office for five years, until May 7, 2020, the latest possible date for the next general election. That would be the rest of President Obama’s time in office plus nearly the entire first term of the next president.
