Political parties may establish collaboration agreements on a wide variety of issues:
- to take part in elections jointly
- to form a government after the elections
- to give external support to an existing government
- several parties joining forces to overturn another party
- to modify elements of the political system or jointly determine specific policies
For the purposes of an electoral process, alliances are of interest in such cases.
Alliances among parties can take on very different forms and degrees.
First, they can form coalitions whose lists include candidates from each one of them or that are independent, identifying themselves as such a coalition for the entire electoral area and process and excluding independent candidacies from the parties in the constituencies affected by the coalition.
Second, they may decide to alternatively put up lists of either of the parties in each of the constituencies with the object of optimising the electoral support that they envisage for each other. This is common practice in mature party systems, thus ensuring maximum effectiveness of their campaigns and avoiding the negative effects of the dispersal of votes on themselves or on the parties from which they can expect certain support or co-operation.
Lastly, they can agree on the withdrawal of the candidacy which has obtained the least votes in the first round and request their supporters to back the candidacy of the allied party.
At the same time, these agreements can be applied to very different areas:
- to all the constituencies or only to some
- to presidential, general or municipal elections or for a given or undetermined period
The legal effects of these agreements are generally limited, as befits the freedom that should govern the strategic and political actions of the parties in a democratic system.
As a rule, it is recognised that the coalitions formed for a given electoral process, and registered as such the moment candidacies are put forward, do have legal effects. These basically affect two aspects of the process:
- the relevant public aid received
- the prohibition on the presentation of independent candidacies by the groups that make up the coalition
Added to these is the imposition of a higher electoral barrier than on the parties in some of the East European countries, like Croatia and the Czech Republic.
On the contrary, the withdrawal agreements of the candidacies receiving the fewest votes, and even more so, those referring to post-electoral conduct of the parties or the candidates elected, only have political relevance, and any party or representative deciding not to fulfil them cannot be obliged to do so.
