Presidential System Quotes

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

The Turkish state has neither a crowned head nor a dictator.

Of course I wrote most of the Constitution myself. I remember hesitating for a long time over the US presidential system. But it wouldn't have done — we were too trained in English democracy to sit down under a dictatorship which is what the American system really is.

The thing is that we live in a presidential system with a parliamentary constitution. Congress has a lot of weight in Brazil, and the president cannot always do when he wants; he does what he can.

Maybe the future of Syria will not be a presidential system where one person will have all the power, so, the discussion about who should and should not rule Syria will become irrelevant. Let the Syrian people decide.

As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.

For good or for ill, Britain is in some respects moving away from a prime-ministerial system towards a presidential one. This is emphatically not, as is sometimes argued, simply a function of Tony Blair's personal ambition. The shift towards a more presidential style was already visible under Margaret Thatcher.

No Israeli leader is a king.

In parliamentary and presidential democracies, the chief executive has been elevated from first among equals to the status of a monarch.

Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own.

[Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?

What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?

The coalition is a model that has no place in a presidential regime such as in Mexico. It fits in parliamentary models, but Mexico has a presidential regime.

Maoists want a directly elected president, but this will give birth to an autocrat.

Some countries have a parliamentary republic, some are presidential republics and some are still monarchies, but no one sees them as not being democratic. In some countries regional leaders are appointed from the centre and in others they are elected. In Russia, the president is elected through direct secret ballot, and in the United States, the president is elected through a system of electoral colleges.

Any president we choose becomes a czar in Russia. I don't want czars anymore. I don't want to be a czar myself. I want to be a democratic leader.

There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not at the level of the human frailties of particular monarchs or presidents. No one seriously contends that the American presidency should be abolished because Bill Clinton is a self-confessed adulterer. So why should the abolition of the British monarchy be contemplated because the same is true of Prince Charles?

... Monarches who call themselves presidents.

There is no government in Europe where ministers go through that kind of confirmation process, which in fact is modeled on the way the U.S. cabinet members are confirmed.

But for all those who don't want the Queen there are easily as many who don't want a President and even more who certainly would not want one if they knew who it would be. As you can readily see, I have given more thought to this subject than most and I have reached my own conclusion. God save the Queen.

Egypt has a presidential system. The president runs the state. Who the president is matters profoundly.

The campaign in the media takes place in many different formats, such as in citizens forums or town - hall shows. And because we don't have a presidential system in Germany, people vote for parties instead of specific candidates. From the perspective of smaller parties, even one single televised debate is a detested anomaly, because only the lead candidates from the conservatives and the SPD take part.

In France, executive power dominates much more than in Anglo-Saxon countries

I suppose that the community, so far as this island is concerned, would not sink into chaos if this was a republic and not a monarchy; but in my opinion the Empire would sink into chaos. You could not have at the head of an Empire, so peculiarly constituted as ours is, a President elected, let us say, as the President of the United States is, every four years—the creation, or at all events the choice of a party, changing many times in the lifetime of every individual, and representing the abstraction of a Constitution and not the personal head of an Empire. You could never direct the Empire on that principle simply because, if you insisted on having an elected President in this country, he would be elected by the electorate of this country and not by the electorate of the Crown or of the Crown Colonies.

There are cycles in American politics. US cycles are even more pronounced because we Americans have a totally entrepreneurial presidential system. We don't have parliamentary opposition parties with a shadow prime minister and shadow cabinets. Every four years, the opposition reinvents itself.