Last week, I voted in the UK elections. As we all know, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have reached a power-sharing deal to form UK’s first coalition government since Wold War II.

And it has also been announced that the Conservative’s David Cameron is the new British PM with the Liberal-Democrats Nick Klegg as his deputy. There were indeed fears about the possibility of a hung parliament in the weeks leading up to the elections. And true enough, I woke up to the news that indeed the worst case has occurred – there was a hung parliament.

What is a hung parliament? A hung parliament occurs when no one party has an outright majority. In the just concluded elections, the Conservatives secured 306 seats, Labour Party 258, Liberal-Democrats 57 and the rest won by other parties. Although David Cameron’s Conservatives won the largest number of seats, he still fell short of the 326 seat threshold in the 650 seats House of Commons that will enable him to form the government.

I am neither a political scientist nor a political science student, but this is what I have to say after reading and watching the news and talking to my friends.

Technically, Gordon Brown was still the prime minister until it was clear that he doesn’t command the majority support of the House of Commons. Until then, he was like a ‘caretaker’ until the new government is formed. Morally speaking though, he had an obligation to step down and let the Tories run the government and Cameron as the prime minister since they have the largest proportion of seats.

The Liberal-Democrats were the king-makers. Parties from both sides of the divide courted them to secure a majority. Nick Clegg on the other hand, is an honourable man by keeping to his word during his election campaign that in the event of a hung parliament, the party with me most seats has the right to form the government. He formally called upon the Conservatives for talks to resolve the situation before opening up to the Labour.

From my point of view, there were three solutions. First, it is of national interest for the Conservatives and the Liberal-Democrats to team up to form a coalition government. This is the best way to ensure that the people have a stable and reliable government that can make decisive decisions, especially when it comes to the economy.

However, things are not that simple as the Conservatives and the Liberal-Democrats do not have much common ground and these differences have been highlighted in the recent debates.

The second way was for David Cameron to show that he had the support of the majority through mutual agreements between his party and the other parties (which include the Liberal- Democrats). This would have enabled him to form a minority government with the support of the rest. This was not really a viable solution as the government might collapse at any point if a vote of no confidence were to be moved against Cameron.

The third way was for the Labours to form a loose coalition government with the Liberal Democrats and other parties. This is the only way for Gordon Brown to continue being the prime minister. However, the public will lose even more faith in the government as it has been shown that both the Labours and the Liberal Democrats have already lost much support based on the number of seats won and therefore do not have the mandate to rule.

Compare and contrast this to what happened in Perak. In the 2008 Elections, BN won 28 seats, DAP 18, PKR 7 and PAS 6. It is clear that no party held the majority.  DAP, PKR and PAS decided to form a coalition to secure a majority and be the government of the day. This is technically sound. You don’t have to be a formal registered coalition to claim majority.

Although BN is the party the most number seats (which is not entirely true since it’s a coalition of parties as well), it does not automatically translate to a mandate to govern.

Taking a look at the situation in UK, it is like Gordon Brown’s teaming up with the Liberal Democrats and others to secure a majority, denying the Conservatives, which has the most seats, to form the government. I have stated earlier that there will be serious doubts being cast on a government of this sort.

What happened in Perak was that BN lost a significant proportion of seats, which means that the rakyat had signalled that they wanted a change. Although BN still has the most number of seats, allowing them to form a minority government would not serve to strengthen public confidence and reforms.

Brown and Cameron both tried hard to woo Clegg over to their side. Both parties offered electoral reforms which was one of the key points in the Liberal-Democrats’ manifesto, as a carrot to lure them. They didn’t use cash, women, ministerial posts and cars to get MPs to crossover like what happened in Malaysia.

They placed values and national interest first. We, Malaysians, still have a long way to go if we were to achieve a level of democracy as demonstrated in the West.