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Government & Cabinet

The cabinet is a country's executive government — the Prime Minister and ministers. After an election, parties form a government by nominating their activists to these posts. This guide covers how that works.

What the cabinet is

A cabinet is a set of positions — Prime Minister (or equivalent) plus ministers for finance, foreign affairs, defence, health, and so on. The exact roles and their number vary by country; check your country's cabinet template.

Cabinet posts are mostly symbolic

Legislative power in Lawmaker comes from seats and votes, not cabinet posts. Holding office gives your party prestige and visibility, and boosts the appointed activist's authority and follower growth — but it doesn't grant direct power over laws. (The exception: a constitution can assign specific powers to a named cabinet position.) Treat the cabinet as recognition and long-term character development rather than a lever over legislation.

If a cabinet position is the country's head of government (a Prime Minister, for example), the party holding it can also call a Constitutional Convention for 75 PP: a year of cheaper constitutional change with no cooldown between packages.

Forming a government

graph TD
    A[Election] --> B[A party proposes a cabinet]
    B --> C[All parties vote, 60 days]
    C --> D{Majority support?}
    D -->|Yes| E[Government forms, activists appointed]
    D -->|No| F[Proposal fails, try again]

A party proposes a cabinet for 30 PP — or 10 PP when every cabinet post is vacant, since there is no sitting government to replace — nominating an activist for every position. All parties then vote (weighted by seats, over a 60-day window), and the cabinet forms if Yes votes reach a majority of the legislature's total seats — not just a majority of the seats that voted, so empty or non-voting seats can't hand a minority party control. Nominees can come from any party, which is what makes coalition governments possible.

Where the constitution has an elected office (such as a presidency) appoint the cabinet, only the party holding that office can propose one, and no cabinet can be formed while the office is vacant. A formation vote fails as soon as its proposer no longer holds the office — whether it fell vacant mid-vote or changed hands — and it is withdrawn after any election for that office.

You can build your proposed cabinet as a draft first (this is free and stays private to your party) and only pay when you open it for voting. The price is set at that moment, so a draft made while the cabinet was empty costs the full 30 PP if a government has formed by the time you open it. Only one formation vote can run at a time per country, so a draft never blocks other parties — but opening yours is held until any vote already underway has resolved.

Coalitions

Because proportional representation rarely hands one party a majority, governments are usually coalitions, and cabinet positions are the bargaining chips. To build one, you offer posts to partners in rough proportion to the seats they bring, agree on a shared agenda, and coordinate your votes.

Be fair, or it fails

A party that grabs most of the cabinet without the seats to justify it will simply be voted down. Distribute positions roughly in line with each partner's contribution.

Two less common shapes are worth knowing: a minority government (under 50% of seats, surviving on case-by-case opposition support — workable but unstable) and a grand coalition (ideologically opposed parties governing together, usually in a crisis).

The detailed tactics of who to partner with, when to lead versus join, and how to keep a coalition together live in the Strategy Guide.

Partial and vacant cabinets

A cabinet doesn't only change through a full formation vote — a single position can fall vacant on its own, for example when the Supreme Court removes a minister from office, the governing party is banned or disbanded, or the Crown fills cabinet posts one at a time. When that happens, the country page shows an Incomplete Cabinet notice instead of treating the government as having collapsed.

The ministers still in post remain genuinely in office: they keep their constitutional powers, can still be targeted by executive actions, and their character page still shows their title. Only the empty positions are marked Vacant. A country only shows the "no cabinet formed" empty state once every position is unfilled — as long as at least one minister remains, the country page and dashboard cabinet card list who's still serving alongside the vacant chairs, until a new formation vote fills the cabinet again.

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