1959 Dryicoran constitutional crisis

A constitutional crisis occurred in Dryicor in November and December 1959. While the last election in 1957 had yielded a majority for the DAP, defections and an eventual split in the party had made it lose its majority and force it to go into a coalition with the DKP.

By 14 November 1959, the DAP had 19 seats in the 75-seat Parliament, which at the time was elected solely by constituencies, and the DKP had 14. They were now ruling as a minority government, and a split was beginning to open between members of the cabinet and backbenchers. It came to a head that, after the infamous Hartikainen scandal, involving a tax incentive scheme for foreign investors when Prime Minister Petteri Hartikainen was Development Minister, left-wing DAP rebels were prepared to bring down their government by bringing an impeachment case against their cabinet.

The Constitution of Dryicor notes that while Parliament can unilaterally vote to impeach a member of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister must be held accountable directly to the populace. Thus, the left-wing SPD and the DAP rebels both brought:
 * 1) A vote of no confidence against the government, to establish that the Government was working without Parliamentary approval. This passed by 45 votes to 30.
 * 2) An impeachment vote against each member of the Cabinet.
 * 3) An impeachment vote against Prime Minister Hartikainen. The SDP instructed the rebels to vote for both impeachment votes, as every opposition member was expected to, however it would vote against them.

By December, using this unusual Parliamentary mechanism, the SPD and DAP rebels had established that the Government was working, but without any authority derived from Parliament. This essentially gave the SPD control of Parliament, and they used this to threaten the Government to call a general election, or risk an impeachment trial in which the DAP rebels were willing to vote against their own. Faced with no other option, Hartikainen called a snap election for February 1960.

The case was influential in Dryicoran constitutional law and required a very awkward interpretation of the constitution, in that judging for impeachment is based on neither their current position nor position at the time, but on whichever was highest in the order of precedence, a historical ranking of the offices of government. It was also notable for the SPD's political gamble, by voting with the government against its own backbenchers, in a successful gambit to force a general election, which eventually they won.