Accountable to whom?

Accountable to whom?

In the USA, checks and balances are written into the US constitution and are designed to ensure the power is shared and controlled by the rule of law. One weakness in the constitution and the founders’ desire to control power is the development of the executive presidency and the growth in size of the United States. In order to win a presidential election one needs to put together a very large coalition, and when one takes into account that there is only one president, and the winner takes all nature of American politics, the checks and balances seem more translucent than expected as illustrated by the behaviour of the Trump presidency.

This tendency to monarchy is aggravated by the informal fashion in which the law and constitution regulates political parties within the United States and incidently the UK. A party cannot and will not hold a president of its own party to account and when one looks at the degradation of the Republican Party In Congress and the capture of the Supreme Court it becomes clear that US style constitutions cannot hold a rogue president to account.

Fixed terms are equally a problem, the electorate cannot change its mind. Political theory suggests that a parliamentary system solves this problem, but it would seem only if proportional voting systems are used. Proportional voting systems ameliorate the need for voters to participate within coalitions that they’re uncomfortable in and so don’t have to compromise as to how to cast their vote for a government,.

The Anglosphere’s problem is first past the post with a winner take all culture of government. This is replicated in most if not all Presidential republics.

If a major part of the problem is party capture, then it is clear the UK suffers from this as well, shown by Boris Johnson’s purge of the pro European wing of his parliamentary party, and by Starmer and Mcsweeney’s purge and intimidation of their internal enemies and opponents. I note that the Labour Government is going to make more Mayors, creating more power foci which can only be occupied by one person.

As voters, citizens, residents and party members, perhaps we should be asking for democratic guarantees, including term limits, by political parties within their candidate selection process and that they should be accountable to the public as well as to the party membership. …

An arithmetic concept

I am considering again, the role of Presidents of presidential republcs. Democracy means that the voice of the governed is heard, and is ideally final, that programmes are accountable to the people and the rights of the minority respected. Presidents, Leaders. or General Secretaries with weak mandates have the power and inclination to ignore the majority of their demos. Trump’s presidency among others proves that the argument, “that’s how it works” leads to crisis. Democracy is more than an arithmetic concept.  …

Not just the mandate

…, it’s the powers and the term guarantee

The US Presidential Election, how exciting! Others will discuss the politics and political fallout, but I want to look at something else. Many will look at the failings of the electoral college and thus the glaringly obvious anti-democratic inertia of the Senate but like our consideration of Labour movement General Secretaries the problem is the powers not the mandate although in the USA, the mandate i.e. the electoral college, where each state gets one vote per congress representative, and one vote per senator thus preferring the views of people who live in states with a lower population, is problem.

The US Presidential elections have been settled via the electoral college usually on the basis of matching the popular vote, but the popular vote has rarely been decisive. This twitter thread looks at the last few and they rarely better our Brexit margin of 52-48 per-cent. The size of disenfranchised minorities is too large, the power of the winning coalition too broad and the nature of the decisions is such that expressing a change of mind becomes impossible. This is not right nor is it democratic.

In my article, “but democracy!”, I wrote,

Presidential systems based on the US model have [dual mandates] built in, as does the French system and on a smaller scale our system of Executive Mayors.  It should be necessary for a President to build a wide-ranging coalition to win, which should be a protection against the degeneration of Democracy, but history would suggest this is not the case. Where a society is split on critical social & economic issues, or religious or national identity issues, the “winner takes all” nature of Presidential systems and Plebiscites is a centripetal force on the unity of the polity. (This is powerfully identified in Juan Linz’s paper, Democracy: Presidential or Parliamentary, Does it make a difference?) I say,

Only a Parliament can represent the breadth of interests in a complex society, only a Parliament can negotiate popular compromises based on 2nd choices and changing priorities.

Dave Levy – but democracy!

But in both the UK & USA fundamental reform albeit of differing nature is required.

In the USA, the problem is the powers of the Presidency not the mandate, it’s the powers and strangely the term limit, but also the disproportionate power of the US Senate is becoming inappropriate as the growing majority now live in cities. …