ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have shown that when voters did not grant political parties a majority in the parliament, the elites by-passed the obstacle by means of party mergers or coalition-building. All of this was aimed at enlarging the base of support of the government in the parliament. However artificially attained majority rule proved to be short-lived, and under the converging pressures of intra-party factionalism and regionalism in the electoral process, the government returned to its minority status.
