The system of government is a large and very significant topic that is being discussed among politicians and people. We all know that the systems of government can be classified in two big categories: the democratic systems of government and the non-democratic systems of government.
The democratic systems of government are first of all based on the separation of powers in the state, which means that the powers of government are separated functionally between branches of government. In the democratic system people are participating in political and decision making process without considering their race, color or physical ability. They are able to decide through their representatives. Each individual has his vote and these votes are effective and able to change decisions.
On the other hand the non-democratic systems of government are those systems that are not linked to the people and the process of ruling has nothing to do with the public opinion. This means that people are not governing themselves, in any form of non-democratic system like authoritarian or dictatorship. Democratic and non-democratic governments are two opposite forms of government and each of them has their components and distinctions.
In this paper I will debate on the democratic systems of government.
If we want to define a system of government one of the best ways of doing that would be through an easy question, because systems of government are based on this easy question: How is the power distributed?
So to answer this question we are supposed to do another classification of the democratic systems of government. There are many types of classifications and one that is mostly agreed is that the democratic systems of government are classified in three categories: presidential, parliamentary or hybrid systems of government. The hybrid systems can be classified in semi-presidential systems of government and semi-parliamentary systems of government.
Furthermore, the relations among a country’s governing institutions differ depending on whether a country has one of those three systems of governing. Although each country has its own differentiations on these political typologies, some conclusions have been drawn about the characteristics of each of those three systems and their relationship to political conflicts and executive and legislative power. These generalizations are useful for helping to determine characteristics of political systems of other nations, but actual practice differs between nations within each type.
Moreover, in order to understand better the three democratic systems of government we need to describe them.
A presidential system, or a congressional system, is a system of government of a republic where the executive branch is elected separately from the legislative. The defining characteristic of a presidential government is how the executive is elected, but nearly all presidential systems share the following features:
– The president is both head of state and head of government.
– The president has a fixed term of office. Although the president can be impeached for misconduct, there is no vote of confidence by which the president can be removed for incompetence or unpopularity.
– The executive branch is unipersonal. Cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the president and can be removed at any time.
Many countries with a president as head of state do not operate under what is described as the presidential system. The most defining element of a presidential system is the degree in which the head of state participates in day-to-day governance.
A parliamentary system, also known as parliamentarianism, is distinguished by the executive branch of government being dependent on the direct or indirect support of the parliament, often expressed through a vote of confidence.
There is no clear-cut separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, leading to a differing set of checks and balances compared to those found in a presidential republic. Parliamentary systems usually have a clear differentiation between the head of government and the head of state, with the head of government being the prime minister or premier, and the head of state often being an elected (either popularly or through parliament) president or hereditary monarch.
Though in Parliamentary systems the prime minister and cabinet will exercise executive power on a day-to-day basis, actual authority will usually be bestowed in the head of state, giving them many codified or uncodified reserve powers, providing some balance to these systems.
The term parliamentary system does not mean that a country is ruled by different parties in coalition with each other. Such multi-party arrangements are usually the product of an electoral system known as proportional representation. Parliamentary countries that use “first past the post” voting usually have governments composed of one party. However, parliamentary systems in continental Europe do use proportional representation, and tend to produce election results in which no single party has a majority of seats.
The semi-presidential system, also known as the presidential-parliamentary system, or premier-presidential system, is a system of government in which a president and a prime minister are both active participants in the day-to-day administration of the state. It differs from a parliamentary republic in that it has a popularly elected head of state who is more than a purely ceremonial figurehead. It differs from the presidential system in that the cabinet, although named by the president, is responsible to the legislature, which may force the cabinet to resign through a motion of no confidence.
The term was first coined in a 1978 work by political scientist Maurice Duverger to describe the French Fifth Republic, which he dubbed a régime semi-présidentiel.
How the powers are divided between president and prime minister can vary greatly between countries.
Another important an interesting feature that varies between the three forms of democratic systems of government is the party organization and the party discipline. Party discipline, simply defined, refers to the practice of legislators voting with their parties. It is typically stronger in parliamentary systems than in presidential because the executive government requires majority party cohesiveness for its own survival. In countries that are transitioning to a two or multiparty system, whether presidential, hybrid or parliamentary, party discipline may be generally weak owing to the fact that parties may be newer, lack a strong internal structure and constituent base.
So parties in presidential systems tend to be less structured than parties in parliamentary systems. The Failure to vote with one’s party does not threaten to bring the government down.
Therefore, members of the legislature are free to identify with regional, ethnic, economic or other divisions when considering policy issues.
On the other hand, in parliamentary systems in developed countries are characterized by parties that are highly structured and tend toward unified action, bloc voting and distinct party platforms. This party discipline is required in parliamentary systems primarily because deviation from the party line could result in bringing down the government. Parliamentary systems require that the “executive” and legislative members come to agreement upon issues, lest it force the dissolution of the government.
Different from them is the semi-presidential system. France’s transition from a parliamentary to a semi-presidential or hybrid system has been credited with resolving the instability created by shifting party alliances and resulting changes in government. The French hybrid system functions more smoothly when the majority party in parliament is also the party of the President, but this needs not always be the case. However, the French system has sometimes resulted in a situation of cohabitation, whereby the separately elected President may face a Prime Minister and majority party in the legislature from a party different than his own (which occurred in 1993 and 1997).
So different democratic countries around the world have chosen their system of government by different features in order to reach their political and economic objectives and to satisfy the people’s expectations. Like for example the United States (US) has a presidential system, as do countries it has influenced regionally, culturally or militarily, including Latin American countries and the Philippines. With the exception of the US, presidential systems in the past have often been associated with politically unstable and authoritarian regimes. Countries that have adopted a form of the parliamentarianism include the United Kingdom (UK), much of continental Europe, Israel, and Japan, many of the former British colonies in Africa and Asia, and most Caribbean countries.
The French hybrid system has provided a model for a number of countries and is highlighted throughout this section. Countries that have adopted the French Model include former French colonies in West Africa, such as Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, and Senegal — and a few eastern European states, such as Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. Portugal also has a hybrid system, with similar elements as the French model. The Portuguese system has influenced former colonies like Mozambique and Angola.
So another interesting problem that I want to discuss in this paper is the Romanian system of government.
Most of the people claim that Romania has a semi-presidential system of government, but over the last few years, Romania has faced a unique political problem, which has controlled the public debate and forced the functioning of the state to grind and to struggle.
This constant issue is the conflict between the Victoria and Cotroceni palaces, the conflicts between the two branches of the Executive. This composed the actual conflict between the prerogatives of the Legislative and the Executive. That is showing us that it has been a problem of structures, rather then a problem of the people.
If we think about the fact that politicians in general have a strong attraction to the power and that they will attempt by any and all means, mostly within the existing legal framework, to acquire it, we have the first part for our explanation.
If we look closer at the Romanian legal framework, we can observe a number of interesting features. So it is easy to say that one of the main problems of Romania is the fundamental law, the Constitution. This might be the matter, which gave birth to the present conflict between the parliament and the office of the President, because of their prerogatives. There is a wide and important area that regards the issues of control over the government, and the Constitution leaves plenty of room for legal speculation and lines of interpretation.
This was all was fine, in a certain way, between 2003 and 2004, when the president and the parliament were part of the same political party.
But when the composition of the parliament differs from the presidential preference, and we add also an ambitious politician like Traian Basescu, a situation like this is almost inevitable.
We all know that the semi-presidential system of government was created after the French model and Maurice Duverger created a concept trying to explain the regime of the French Fifth Republic, a semi-presidential government. Duverger expounded the concept in his fundamental book “Échec au roi” in 1978, trying to illustrate the fact that regimes of this type worked quite differently in the seven Western and Northern European countries that institutionalized it.
So if we compare the prerogatives of the French president with the prerogatives of the Romanian president from both the French and the Romanian constitutions we can easily see that the Romanian constitution is not supporting a semi-presidential system of government, like the French one.
This is all because the Romanian constitution gives the president similar prerogative but they are limited by certain provisions, so that the president can not exercise his prerogatives in full control and by that, the parliament is becoming even stronger.
Here are some examples for the differentiations between the prerogatives of the Romanian and the French president:
President of Romania
President of France
The term of office of the President of Romania is five years, being exercised from the date the oath was taken. The President of Romania shall be elected by universal, equal, direct, secret and free suffrage.
The President of the Republic shall be elected for seven years by direct universal suffrage.
The President of Romania shall designate a candidate to the office of Prime Minister and appoint the Government on the basis of the vote of confidence of Parliament.
The President of the Republic shall appoint the Prime Minister. He shall terminate that appointment when the latter tenders the resignation of the Government.
On the proposal of the Prime Minister, he shall appoint the other members of the Government and terminate their appointments.
After consultation with the presidents of both Chambers and the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the President of Romania may dissolve Parliament, if no vote of confidence has been obtained to form a government within 60 days after the first request was made, and only after rejection of at least two requests for investiture.
(2) During the same year, Parliament can be dissolved only once.
(3) The Parliament cannot be dissolved during the last six months of the term of office of the President of Romania, or during a state of mobilization, war, siege, or emergency.
The President of the Republic may, after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Presidents of the Assemblies, pronounce the dissolution of the National Assembly. A General election shall take place not less than twenty days and not more than forty days after the dissolution.
(2) The National Assembly shall meet ipso jure on the second Thursday following its election. If this meeting takes place outside the periods provided for ordinary sessions, a session shall ipso jure be held for a fifteen-day period.
(3) No further dissolution may take place within a year following this election.
The President of Romania may, after consultation with Parliament, ask the people of Romania to express, by referendum, their will on matters of national interest.(The referendum has a consultative role)
The President of the Republic may, on the proposal of the Government during sessions, or on a joint motion of the two Assemblies published in the Official Journal, submit to a referendum any bill dealing with the organization of the governmental authorities, entailing approval of a Community agreement or providing for authority to ratify a treaty which, though not unconstitutional, would affect the functioning of [existing] institutions.
(2) When the referendum decides in favor of the bill, the President of the Republic shall promulgate it within the time limit stipulated in the preceding article.
1) The President of Romania shall, according to the law, institute the state of siege or state of emergency in the entire country or in some territorial-administrative units, and ask for the Parliament’s approval for the measure adopted, within 5 days of the date of taking it, at the latest.
(2) If Parliament does not sit in a session, it shall be convened de jure within 48 hours of the institution of the state of siege or emergency, and shall function throughout this state.
1) When the institutions of the Republic, the independence of the nation, the integrity of its territory, or the fulfillment of its international commitments are under grave and immediate threat and when the proper functioning of the constitutional governmental authorities is interrupted, the President of the Republic shall take the measures demanded by these circumstances after official consultation with the Prime Minister, the Presidents of the Assemblies, and the Constitutional Council.
(2) He shall inform the nation of these measures by a message.
Therefore, I want to underline that Romania’s political collapse is due to a structural cause, not to lack of political culture.
The Romanian Constitution is a document filled with errors of formulation and other negative interpretable things and should be revised as soon as possible. The Romanian constitution situates the country neither in the area of parliamentary republics (such as Germany, Italy, Hungary etc.), nor semi-presidential (France) or presidential ones (USA).
So Romania is placed somewhere in the confused zone between the semi-presidential and the presidential system.
Moreover, unfortunately it is obvious that even after 300 years we haven’t learned much from the English system of checks and balances.
Furthermore, if we take in consideration the world’s financial crisis that has made the situation even worst for this fundamental weakness of the institutional system, we can easily observe how it has led to a state of administrative collapse.
So till now the politic class, the press and also the public opinion saw the presidential elections as a solution for this problem.
In my opinion the presidential elections can not solve a problem like this.
Finally, the only true solution to this problem, in my opinion, would be the abrogation of the present form of the Constitution and the adoption of a new one that would introduce and support a parliamentary republic.
