This “loser” language bothers me because it perpetuates a most seats = government idea that simply doesn’t exist in parliamentary systems. At least not the ones I’m familiar with. You’ve only really “lost” if you can’t pass a confidence motion. Is this different in the Austrian context?
no, you’re getting it exactly right, Austria uses a party-list proportional representation system and the FPÖ came in 1st place but got less than 30% of the vote and hence less than 30% of the seats, so an ÖVP+SPÖ+either Greens or NEOS coalition is a perfectly legitimate thing to now happen.
I think it’s more of a tradition in most countries that the party with the most seats tries to form a government or is asked by their president (if they have one, or equivalent) to do so, but if nobody has an absolute majority then there is obviously no winner. That applies to Austrian Nazis the same as it applies to the French Left.
Here in Canada the last government is asked first, if there is no clear majority anyway.
I’d also argue that the concurrency mindset diminishes cooperative mindsets.
Northern European systems for example are built on much more trust, i.e. collective negotiations instead of minimum wages and minority governments in proportional representation instead of ruler succession in majority representation.
The majority representation mindset used here simply doesn’t apply to proportional representation.
