Iraq's New Constitution

[Krazy Miller]

I just read about Iraq's new form of governement but there is one thing I don't under stand. It says:

"Iraq will be governed by a directly elected national assembly whose members then choose a president, a prime minister and a pair of deputy presidents, Qanbar said."

link

Why can't the Iraqi PEOPLE vote to pick their own President?

 

[aerocontrols]

Why can't the Iraqi PEOPLE vote to pick their own President?

Because they've chosen a parliamentary system. Isn't that the most common form of democratic government?

 

[Bjorn]

Why can't the Iraqi PEOPLE vote to pick their own President?

Well, I think it is a quite common concept in many democratic countries that elected representatives choose the members of government and the prime minister.

It's pretty much how the US democrats are going to pick their candidate for the presidency - elect some representatives and let them do it.

The party/group in Iraq with the most representatives stands a good chance to get to pick, unless they have less than 50% and some negotiations have to take place. I see no problems with it.

 

[peptoabysmal]

It's called check and balance. Without a system such as this, the way an Iraqi leader would be chosen is through a bloody civil war.

 

[Bjorn]

It's called check and balance. Without a system such as this, the way an Iraqi leader would be chosen is through a bloody civil war.

Sorry?

 

[Chaos]

I just read about Iraq's new form of governement but there is one thing I don't under stand. It says:



Why can't the Iraqi PEOPLE vote to pick their own President?

No need to worry about that in particular. Germany has basically the same system. It works.

 

[Krazy Miller]

Thanks. I have to admit I don't know much about this so it seemed weird to me to not be able to elect your President or Prime Minister. So this is normal?

 

[Luke T.]

The U.S. used to elect the President the same way.

edited to add: Well, not quite the same way. Instead of our Congress electing a President, each state designated a separate group of "electors" for the sole purpose of electing a President.

 

[Segnosaur]

Thanks. I have to admit I don't know much about this so it seemed weird to me to not be able to elect your President or Prime Minister. So this is normal?

It is fairly common. Canada has such a system (as does the British system).

In Canada, the leader of the party with the most seats in our "house of commons" gets to be the prime minister. In fact, our current Prime Minister actually took power after the last election, when the previous prime minister resigned less than a year ago. (In theory, someone can become Prime Minister in Canada without ever running for, or winning an election.)

Such a system lacks the checks and balances that exist in a republic (with a directly elected president), but have the advantage in that it eliminates the chance of 'stalemate' when a President disagrees with congress/etc.

 

[Krazy Miller]

In Canada, the leader of the party with the most seats in our "house of commons" gets to be the prime minister. In fact, our current Prime Minister actually took power after the last election, when the previous prime minister resigned less than a year ago. (In theory, someone can become Prime Minister in Canada without ever running for, or winning an election.)

Such a system lacks the checks and balances that exist in a republic (with a directly elected president), but have the advantage in that it eliminates the chance of 'stalemate' when a President disagrees with congress/etc.

It seems really complicated to me. It seems like direct election of the president is the best.

 

[Luke T.]

It seems really complicated to me. It seems like direct election of the president is the best.

Well, if it gets too complicated, like it did in the U.S., they can always amend their Constitution like we did.

Here is a brief history of the electoral process in the U.S. if you are interested.

 

[Thanz]

The U.S. used to elect the President the same way.

edited to add: Well, not quite the same way. Instead of our Congress electing a President, each state designated a separate group of "electors" for the sole purpose of electing a President.

Um, isn't this how you do it now? Doesn't each state designate a groupd of electors for the sole purpose of electing the president, and don't you call this special group the "Electoral College"?

 

[Krazy Miller]

I have to tell you Luke T. that link seemed really complicated to me but what was your point?

 

[Luke T.]

Um, isn't this how you do it now? Doesn't each state designate a groupd of electors for the sole purpose of electing the president, and don't you call this special group the "Electoral College"?

What we have now is a bastardized version of a direct election using an electoral college. Yes, each state designates a group of electors. The number of electors for each state is determined by the number of U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of U.S. Representatives (based on that state's population).

The voters vote, and whichever candidate wins the majority vote in that state, wins all of the electoral votes. That is, the electors must cast their votes for whomever the majority voted for. I say "must," but I think they can actually vote for whomever they like, but at their own peril if they don't vote for who the majority voted for.

 

[Luke T.]

I have to tell you Luke T. that link seemed really complicated to me but what was your point?

I guess my point is the same as the others in this topic who have said that what the Iraqi Constitution has in the way of electing a President isn't all that unusual.

 

[Krazy Miller]

Welll that seems right but I don't know much about this stuff so I was glad to see that the Iraqis have the same chances as the rest of us. I just felt like "Don't Scr*w us out of our chance to vote."

 

[subgenius]

The thread raises the question of whether and to what extent our notions of what constitutes an acceptable Iraqi government come in to play in determining when our mission is at an end.
If they want to declare, for an absurd example, the national language to be Swedish (ref: "Bananas" by Woody Allen) how much of a say will we insist we have? And who is "we"?