But if there is enough commonality of interest so that most of your voters would "rather they get seats than the other guys", and if there are regional or local elections that you can contest separately, a coalition list to get some members from each party elected to the parliament can be a good deal both ways.

As far as the second half ~ I've seen that both work and fail on that threshold in the Liberal / National coalition in Australia, where the collapse of the Nats state party representation in state parliaments in New South Wales and Victoria led to a coalition state party, while the dominance of National Party representation at the state level in Queensland meant that the coalition partners in the state retain their individual identities.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.