Mohammed Sultan - محمد سلطان
In the last decade, there is a high pace of shifting towards the presidential system. Many countries started such tendency by adopting the methodology of stressing upon the weaknesses of the parliamentary system or by praising the advantages of the presidential system in the major power countries. Historically speaking, such trend was the dominant one during the colonial era, taking into consideration most of the countries asking for the presidential path were either colonized or engaged in a war with the major powers at that time. Yet, why the call for this shift is still alive particularly after the widespread concept of coexistence and peace?
Initially, I think it began just after the fall of the Two-Axis system, U.S Vs USSR, where the rest of world was always deemed as being under the wing of one of the aforementioned powers. By the advent of technology, the race of weapon maximization became very high which contributed to increasing the self-appreciation of many countries driving them to think of their hegemony and sovereignty as the utmost priority (Smith, 1980). Another aspect of the shift towards the presidential system is the dysfunctionality of the system in those countries (Sirota, 2008). Since most of those countries were somehow engaged in military and social conflicts, it led them to have many ethnicities and sectarian issue. Accordingly, when they form a parliamentary system, it ends up having coalition governments where the involved parties are either prioritizing sabotaging each other or unable to accomplish one plan due to many reasons. The third and final element is the exposure to the military rule for long periods which accounts for praising the decisive one way of dealing with problems and not having inclusive processes for the different sects of the societies.
Having said that, I am not trying to demean or to belittle the calls behind the presidential systems because many of them are asking for what suits their political needs at the current time. For example, Turkey has been always under the parliamentary system ruling many ethnicities such as Arabs, Turks, Kurds, and Armenians. Almost all the coalition governments have never succeeded because the main weakness was the different views about almost every problem the country has. Thus, it led to either having a parliament that supports the prime minister or vice-versa. Even recently the prime minister and the president had a clash of interest about how to govern the country which accounted for the resignation of the Prime Minister (Al Jazeera, 2016). Unlike other countries, like Canada, the federal system allows each state to have that sort of self-government which ultimately leads to the prosperity of the country as a monolithic and united entity. Also, I think the nature and culture of each country plays a great role in such shift, for the countries who have been culturally accepting and managing the parliamentary system, like Germany, would not suffer from its side effects. It is more of the problem management capability along with the powerful and inclusive structure of the political entities.
References
Al Jazeera. (5th May, 2016). Turkey's PM Ahmet Davutoglu to quit over 'Erdogan rift'.Retrieved form: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/turkey-davutoglu-set-talks-fail-reports-160505034300569.html
Smith, Theresa Clair (1980). "Arms Race Instability and War". Journal of Conflict Resolution,(24)2,253-284.
Sirota, D. (2008). Why cult of presidency is bad for democracy. San Francisco Chronicle.
0 تعليقات