Cabinet reshuffle

A cabinet reshuffle (sometimes called governmental rehandling ) is a modification partial of the composition of a Gouvernement before the official term of its mandate.

Causes

There exist three leading causes with a cabinet reshuffle:

Resignation : the resignation of a Ministre (or, more rarely, of a Secretary of State) obliges the chief of the Government to appoint him a substitute. Generally, one speaks about technical rehandling, except when this resignation is due to a scandal or a great unpopularity.
Unpopularity : when the government is in difficulty, after strong popular disputes, a failure with the Parlement (which does not call into question the confidence which was granted to him) or of the lost elections (senatorial, local, European…), the chief of the Government can decide to alter its team in order to exclude the most disputed members from them and to include there at the same time new heads and important executives of the left (or Coalition) to the capacity having already great political experience.
Renewal : when the government is in functions for a certain time (generally two thirds of its mandate), its chief can decide, to give again breath with its political action, to replace certain ministers in fields little exploited during the legislature. This type of rehandling can make it possible to exclude from the disputed members, without to do it under the pressure of unpopularity.

Extension of the term

With the clean direction of the term, a rehandling means that the government did not finish its mandate yet when it is decided to modify its composition. But when a chief of the Government is renewed in its functions after elections gained by its party (or its Coalition), it modifies partially the composition of its government to take account of the new political situation generated by the electoral results. In this case also one speaks about cabinet reshuffle .

Random links: