If you had to recommend either a presidential or a parliament system Essay

If you had to recommend either a presidential or a parliament system for a new democracy which would you choose and why - Essay Example However, Spain’s transition into democracy is not the only case where in a parliamentary system has proven its value and strength. In fact, according to Von Mettenheim (1997), most of the strong democratic regimes across the globe at present are parliamentary systems, where executive rule is made by law-making majorities and relies on these majorities for continued existence. On the contrary, the United States is the sole presidential democratic regime with an extensive history of constitutional stability. Besides the United States, Chile is the only country that has a record of a lengthy, fairly uninterrupted constitutional stability under the system of presidentialism, but Chile’s democratic regime collapsed in the 1970s (Cheibub, 2007). Thus this essay recommends a parliament system, instead of a presidential regime, for a new democracy. This argument is substantiated by an analysis of Angola’s case, a country struggling to finally establish a true democratic government. The Merits of Parliamentarism Parliamentarism is a system where in the sole democratically constitutional body is parliament. Within a parliamentary system, the power of the state is totally subjected to the confidence of the parliamentary. Parliamentary regimes may consist of presidents who are chosen through direct popular election, but they generally do not have the capacity to vie forcefully for authority with the Prime Minister (Diamond, Plattner, & Costopoulos, 2010). By contrast, in presidentialism an executive or president with extensive constitutional powers is directly elected by the public and free from parliamentary confidence votes. The president is not just the executive but the symbolic head of state as well and can be overthrown through impeachment (Diamond et al., 2010). In reality, presidentialism may be relatively reliant on the support of the legislative branch; the harmony or symmetry between the legislative and executive branch in these systems can hence differ greatly. Historically, the superiority of parliamentary democratic regimes over presidentialism is not unexpected. A thorough comparative analysis of presidentialism and parliamentarism reveals that, all things considered, the latter is more advantageous to established democracy than the former. This is true specifically for countries with several political parties and entrenched political rifts, like Angola; for these nations, a parliamentary system is usually more effective in strengthening democracy. Therefore, the question is what are the justifications for arguing that the parliamentary system, when totally executed, is better than the presidential system? A particular advantage of a parliamentary system is that it puts into practice the separation of powers, even though merely partially. Parliamentarism takes the judiciary apart from the legislative and executive branches, but it assures that the executive is subjected to the legislature through a specific machine ry of trust between the government and the parliament. A parliamentary system also stresses the function of the legislature according to the principle of legislative dominance (Cheibub, 2007). Provided that the parliament is chosen in a democratic voting system, a parliamentary system provides a strong safeguard for democracy by highlighting the popular