To all those pining away for 3rd parties: Europe is ready for just 2.

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ROME—When the votes are counted in Italy’s election in March, the winner is likely to be the same that emerged from a number of 2017 ballots in Europe: No one.

From Germany to the Netherlands, voters have abandoned mainstream parties and thrown their support to upstart groups, making for a political landscape so fragmented that it becomes difficult to create new governments.

That is leaving many European countries with an unpalatable choice: assemble minority governments that will struggle to make bold policy choices, or form cross-party coalitions of mainstream groups that feed resentment toward those parties.

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The result: Weak, patchwork coalitions that have typically had short lives. A decade ago, a government under Prime Minister Romano Prodi included nine parties. To accommodate all the groups’ demands, the government had more than 100 ministers and undersecretaries. It lasted less than two years.

Italy’s departing legislature has lived up to that tradition. At its inauguration in 2013, it counted 15 parties. It is ending with 23, including five single-person parties.

The new electoral law that governs the March ballot favors groups that run as coalitions, thus encouraging the creation of myriad new splinter groups.

Other countries are looking more like Italy, as upstart parties steal voters away from legacy groups. The result is a wave of minority governments.

In the Netherlands, it took Prime Minister Mark Rutte seven months to assemble a government, which is now supported by an unprecedented four-party alliance. Ireland, Portugal and the U.K. all have minority governments.

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According to current polls, the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement could emerge as the largest single party with just short of 30% of votes. As a result, many lawmakers and party leaders expect March’s election to produce a hung parliament.

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