apnews.com/article/togo-constitution-lawmakers-elections-c13a4d2b5976443a6e493fb5ff21d077
Togo's longtime leader signs a new constitution that eliminates presidential elections
PoliticsClickbait headline, it’s now a parliamentary system where parliament chooses the president just like in Germany and South Africa
Which is a superior system in my opinion. In the end people still vote for persons, but you eliminate the possibility of parliament and the president being at complete odds.
The possibility of the legislature and president being at odds also creates the separation of power though. They can each serve as a check on the other’s power and prevent one from getting too much power. That is, if the rule of law is respected
In practice it usually leads to inaction and infighting.
In a stable and already well functioning government I would say that legislative inaction can be a good thing. Laws also then have to meet a higher standard and require a broader consensus before they can go into effect
Infighting and inaction in government does not make a country stable, in fact it usually leads to the opposite.
If the president gets the last say over executive decisions, enforcing the laws. Then there will be relatively little fighting over how that is done. There will only be fighting over how new laws are created
That becomes a severe problem in many African countries with archaic laws.
That is not what we could observe in countries where that's the practice.
Boy oh boy would you be hated for saying that in some of our ZA subs.
It has serious disadvantages as it can lead to national coalition governments as there usually isn’t a second round of elections if no one gets a majority and national coalition governments are often plagued by infighting.
Speaking from Israel, it might be worse to have the parliament basically synonymous with the executive branch. This means no separation of powers and great unchecked power in the hands of the prime minister.
On the other hand, we tried directly electing the prime minister in the late '90s and I don't think that helped either. Too young to remember why they cancelled it though.
WILDLY misleading headline but unsurprising
Parliament will not choose the president.
Easy. How did we miss this nugget? DUH.
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