This section deals with political parties and candidates in the legislature. Political parties and candidates stand in elections and engage in electoral campaign in order to win seats in the legislature. Legislation and or internal party rules may deal with certain issues concerning parties and candidates in the legislature, such as the ties between elected representatives and their political party or rules concerning building of party factions and caucuses in the legislature.
After the elections are held, parties need - depending on the electoral result - to engage in government formation processes, or to form the parliamentary opposition. The following section focuses on the process of government formation, analyzing coalition talks, bargaining processes and portfolio allocation between the political parties.
Political parties inside the legislature often form parliamentary groups or caucuses. These party groups function differently from the part of the political parties mainly acting outside the parliament.Issues as joint voting, party discipline and policy formulation are often dealt with in the party caucus.
This section also discusses what happens when Members of Parliament want to leave their party and what happens to the seat. There are different ways that legislation can deal with this, one will be to allow the Members of Parliament to keep their seat and to cross the floor, others to let the party keep the seat and fill it with another person, or to hold a by-election for the seat.
