The six-month-old Coalition Government is an experiment on the marriage between presidential and parliamentary systems.
As debate on which system the country should adopt continues, political parties seem to be settling for a mixed system – a synergy of presidential and parliamentary systems.
According to Wikipedia, an internet-based encyclopaedia, a presidential system is a model of government where an executive rules without being accountable to the legislature.
The concept of a separate executive and legislature was derived from the constitution of the US. The system is different from the parliamentary one in Britain, Germany and Italy in the sense that the party with the majority in parliament picks the chief executive.
The British Prime Minister heads the government, while the functions of a non-executive president are vested in the monarchy — Queen Elizabeth II — who presides over the affairs of the State.
State functions
Where there is no monarchy, such as Ethiopia, Australia, Germany, New Zealand or Japan, an elected president presides over State functions such as opening parliament and pubic holidays. Proponents of the presidential system concede that it has over the years created a clique that abuses power.
In some presidential systems such as South Korea or China and Tanzania, there is an office of prime minister, but unlike in semi-presidential or parliamentary systems, the premier is responsible to the president rather than to the legislature. This is what the Wako Draft, rejected in the 2005 Referendum, had proposed.
In the presidential system, the legislature is controlled by the president’s party, which forbids legislators from criticising the president or his policies because the president is shielded from Motions of no confidence. A prime minister needs the support of the legislature, according to Wikipedia. Critics argue that a presidential system is undermined by gridlocks that impede leadership change, such as removing an unpopular president from office early.
By contrast, in a parliamentary system, the executive branch is led by a council of ministers, headed by the prime minister, who are directly accountable to the legislature known variously as a parliament, a diet, or a chamber
By Juma Kwayera
East African Standard
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