Major party

A major party is a political party that holds substantial influence in a country's politics, standing in contrast to a minor party. It should not be confused with majority party.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Major parties hold a significant percentage of the vote in elections and claim higher membership than minor parties. Typically, major parties have the most donors, best-organized support networks and excellent funding for elections. Their candidates for political positions are closely watched since they have the highest chance of being elected to office because of the high membership, recognition and donations that these parties are able to generate.

Two major parties can lead to a two-party system. If there is only one major party, then it is a dominant-party system. In a multi-party system, a major party is one that occasionally controls the presidency or premiership and is the most influential party in a coalition government.

List of major parties

See also

Busy signal

A busy signal (or busy tone or engaged tone) in telephony is an audible or visual signal to the calling party that indicates failure to complete the requested connection of that particular telephone call.

The busy signal has become less common in the past decade due to the prevalence of call waiting and voice mail.

Reasons for a busy signal

An otherwise unspecified busy signal indicates that the called number is occupied:

The standard busy signal sometimes occurs (sometimes with an intercept message played over the busy) at the end of a call to indicate the other party has hung up, but mostly the Off-hook tone is used.

Reorder tone

A reorder tone, sometimes called a fast busy signal, indicates that no transmission path to the called number is available. This is usually because the Inter-LATA trunk is busy at the time of the call. Usually, this clears in a few seconds, if one redials.