The saner option

Often, people get into the presidential vs parliamentary form of the government. They fallaciously believe that a presidential form will end constituency politics. This is to clarify this misconception. The presidential form does involve constituency politics in the very essence as in the parliamentary form. Without a clear majority in parliament, the president is an ineffectual official. For instance, in the US, President Trump has 52 seats in the Senate while 48 seats belong to the Democrats. Because of this slight majority, bills will pass from the Senate. Therefore, Trump face robust hurdles in passing the bills. Bills that relate to Mexican border wall, repeal of Obamacare, better relations with Russia, foreign military involvement and taxes haven’t been passed to date.

In fact, Trump unwillingly signed the legislation imposing further sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them. His growing helplessness is evident from his tweets. The following is his recent tweet: “The Senate must go to a 51 vote majority instead of current 60 votes. 8 Dems control Senate. Crazy! 3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down.” While both the forms have their advantages and disadvantages, the advocates of the presidential form must understand that the problem actually lies in the implementation of the system and not in the system.

Mumtaz Ali (Mardan)