Russia – Why does the president still have to veto legislation?

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On 12 December President Putin vetoed the Law On Amendments to the Federal Law On Skolkovo Innovation Centre. The President’s website says that the law was passed by the Duma on 23 November and approved by the Federation Council on 28 November only to be vetoed a couple of weeks later.

The website outlines some of the technical reasons why President Putin vetoed the bill, but the question arises as to why he had to do so in the first place. After all, United Russia has a huge and disciplined majority in the Duma.

According to figures I have kindly been sent by a Russian academic, this was the only time that Putin vetoed a bill in 2012. The figures indicate one veto in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2010, two vetoes in 2006, three vetoes in 2005, but none in either 2007 or 2011.

Now, there were a lot more vetoes in the 1996-1999 session than in 2000-2003 session and more in the 2000-2003 session than since. That makes sense. But, why is the president still having to veto laws now?

There is some background to the 2012 veto here. One way of interpreting the comments is to say that President Putin was signalling his disagreement with PM Medvedev, or, rather, the actions of Medvedev when he was president previously. This may be so, but it still does not explain why the legislature voted for the bill in November if the president’s authority over United Russia is so great.

So, for me anyway, the question as to why the Russian president still occasionally feels the need to veto legislation is still open.

Zimbabwe – Draft constitution is effectively presidential

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In Zimbabwe, the long and fairly tortured process of drafting a new constitution appears to have ended. The various parties have agreed a text. MPs have approved the draft text. A referendum is scheduled to be held later in the year for voters to decide whether or not to adopt it. The text of the draft constitution is available here.

As has been rumoured for some time now, the draft constitution is presidential-like. The president is directly elected (Art. 92) and is both head of state and government (Art. 89). The president and parliament both serve for a five-year term (Art. 95). There is a cabinet, but there is no prime minister. The president can dismiss ministers individually and collectively (Arts. 107 and 108). However, the legislature can also vote no-confidence in the government collectively. In this event, the president either appoints a new government or there is a general election (Art. 109). The president may also dissolve parliament under certain circumstances (Art. 143). Parliament may also under certain circumstances vote its own dissolution. Crucially, if parliament is dissolved, then there is both a presidential and a parliamentary election (which is called a general election). So, the presidential and parliamentary terms are not fully fixed.

Overall, the system seems to be like the one in Zambia if I am not mistaken. This is a very close variant of a presidential system.

Armenia – Presidential election

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The presidential election was held in Armenia at the weekend. Unsurprisingly, President Sargsyan was easily re-elected. Here are the figures:

  • Serzh Sargsyan (Republican party) – 58.6%
  • Raffi K. Hovannisian (Heritage party) – 36.8%
  • Hrant Bagratyan (Freedom party) – 2.2%
  • Paruyr Hayrikyan (Union for National Self-Determination) – 1.2%

No other candidate won more than 1% of the vote. Turnout was 60.1%.

The OSCE’s statement of preliminary findings, which is available here, stated that the election “was generally well-administered and was characterized by a respect for fundamental freedoms.” However, there was “a lack of impartiality of the public administration, misuse of administrative resources, and cases of pressure on voters …”.

Iceland – Venice Commission reports on proposed constitutional changes

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Iceland has been undergoing a process of constitutional revision. This process, which included substantial citizen involvement, resulted in a new draft constitution. The English version is available here.

In November 2012, the draft constitution was sent to the Venice Commission for its comments. The Commission has now issued its opinion. It is available here.

For the purposes of this blog, perhaps the most interesting comments concern the presidency.

For example, the Commission wonders whether direct election is necessary for such a weak president. However, given it is proposed that the president should still have the power to veto a bill and automatically generate a referendum, the Commission considers that direct election may indeed be appropriate. That said, they are not at all happy with this power. They would prefer the president to have a veto power that could be overridden by parliament or a veto that would then be considered by the courts.

Here is what the Commission’s says: “It seems most unfortunate that … the [veto] procedure is conceived as a confrontation between the main state organs – Althing and Government on one side, President on the other – with the people as arbiter. One or the other organ may result to be severely damaged by the conflict. If the President is of the opposite political colour of the majority in parliament, there is a strong temptation, especially for a directly elected President to whom not many other functions have been entrusted, to use this procedure for unpopular laws and thereby damage or reverse the government. This procedure makes the President very much a political player while otherwise he/she is more designed as a neutral Head of State.”

The other main issue in relation to the presidency is the Commission’s suggestion that the people might be given some power to initiate a recall vote for the president. Currently, such a vote can occur, but it can only be initiated by the legislature. They state: “Since the President is elected by universal suffrage, allowing the people to recall him/her from office evidently makes sense. However, placing the call for the referendum solely in the hands of Parliament and excluding the people completely from this stage of the proceeding somewhat spoils the idea of a direct responsibility of the President to the people. Hence, it might be suitable to allow also for the people to call a referendum.”

The issue of the president’s veto and the legislature’s power to initiate a recall referendum are also the subject of comment later on in the Commission’s document. Here, they leave aside the issue of a popular recall initiative and think through the potential for institutional conflict between the president and legislature. They write: “It must be said, however, that the President’s legislative veto right (and the subsequent referendum under Article 60) is a very remarkable prerogative. In the opinion of the Venice Commission, this may lead to a political crisis whose outcome would be difficult to predict. One may imagine that, in the event that the President would veto a law, the Althing could put forward the political responsibility of the President under Article 84 of the Bill. This extraordinary veto granted to the President may thus be seen as a source of danger in the democratic game, which does not match the role of a President in a balanced parliamentary system.”

Iceland Review is reporting that Alþingi’s Constitutional and Supervisory Committee has discussed the Commission’s reports and is likely to make some changes to the original draft of the new constitution. However, the report also states that the president’s veto power will not be amended. We can also safely assume that the president will remain directly elected. So, whereas changes may be made in relation to the section on human rights, it looks like no changes will be made to the role of the president, despite the Commission’s comments.

Portugal – Guest post by Paulo José Canelas Rapaz

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If this post had been written a few weeks ago, the tone might have been very different. At that time, it would probably have referred the lack of “good news” for the center-right government; the turmoil inside the governmental coalition between the Social-Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata, PSD, center-right) and the junior partner, the Social and Democratic Center/Popular Party (Centro Democratrico e Social/Partido Popular, CDS/PP, conservative); and the desire of the opposition Socialist Party (Partido Socialista, PS, center-left) for an early general election.

Recently, though, the government has received some “good news”: the 2012 budgetary goals were met, even though one-shot measures helped; a sale of State bonds was very successful; the balance of trade was in surplus, even though this was due more to the fall of imports than to the success of exports; and the new European Union budget proposal mostly spared Portugal from cuts. What is more, the Socialist Party has experienced some internal difficulties: its current leadership had to counter a “coup” from members of the former leadership, who blame the present general secretariat for its weak opposition to the government’s measures and for the way it has distanced itself from the last Socialist administration (2005-2011) and its Prime Minister, José Sócrates.

You might say that these unforeseeable political events mirror the economic, financial and social difficulties that Portugal’s faces. Nevertheless, they run the risk that any post on the Portuguese political arena may soon be out of date. Therefore, the question arises: what can be said that might last?

To answer such a question, the best way is to go back to the event that established the current political configuration: the 2011 early general election. The election was called by the President, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, after Prime Minister Sócrates quit. The Socialists lost and a new center-right coalition government was formed, led by Pedro Passos Coelho from the Social-Democratic Party. Since then, Portugal has been under the scrutiny of the now infamous troika (the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund). The agreement with the troika was signed by both the government parties (PSD+CDS/PP) and the opposition socialists. In this context, what can we say about the Portuguese government and its coalition majority, the opposition and the Head of State?

The government and the majority have had to battle very adverse conditions. The budget deficit and the level of Portuguese debt are not yet sustainable; the positive results of government decisions are limited, and the margins for action are small and getting smaller still. There have already been tax hikes, commodity bill increases, pension cuts, civil service salary cuts, social safety net reductions, and privatizations. Over and above cuts and hikes, State and structural economic reforms are either still on the “to do list” or have produced few results. At the same time, growth is absent and unemployment is reaching historical heights. Ever growing parts of the population are finding it difficult to manage daily life. It is said that in order to avoid international and market criticism and sanctions and to avoid comparison with the Greek case, the government has painted itself into a corner with public policies that cripple the Portuguese economic future and put in danger the country’s social fabric. From a more political perspective, it is said that the Ministry of Finance and its austerity measures have hijacked the government, which is criticized by the coalition junior partner, the CDS/PP. It is said that the government and its leader, Pedro Passos Coelho, are unable to go beyond a day-by-day management and create the conditions for growth policies and critical reforms.

The Socialist Party could have profited from this situation and the lack of popularity for the government majority, but it has not. First, it is held responsible for allowing the troika to enter the country, and for its inability to distance itself from the government of José Sócrates and its ignominious end. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that the Socialist Party also signed the agreement with the international institutions that are today constraining Portugal’s sovereignty. In other words, the PS is in an uncomfortable situation: it criticizes the choices the government makes, but is still committed to meeting the international community’s demands; it does not say clearly what it would have done differently since 2011 and it does not have a different general plan for the future. At the same time, the party’s internal situation is deteriorating with the current leadership unable to establish a balance sheet of the former leadership and the last PS government. This has generated a growing conflict within the PS between the party’s factions. To put it another way, the Socialist Party has not been able to capitalize on popular discontent and therefore is not a credible alternative to the current government.

Re-elected a few months before the last general election, the President is not in an easier situation either. His criticism of José Sócrates’ government was one of the reasons for its fall. Since the PSD – his former party – and the CDS/PP have been in power, he has made several appeals for a fairer distribution of “sacrifices”, for more genuine care to be shown to the most fragile part of the population, and for a deeper reflection and action in favor of economic growth and structural reforms. His appeals have been growing more apparent, and his criticism of the current government has become less and less veiled. But President Cavaco Silva made a mistake when he said that he was finding it difficult to make ends meet personally and this has taken a big toll on his popularity and credibility. Furthermore, his defense of the troika agreement does not give him much room for manoeuvre. To illustrate this point, he refused to veto or to postpone the promulgation of the 2013 austerity budget by sending it for judicial review; instead, he choose to promulgate it and only then to send it to the Constitutional Tribunal. That said, elements of the political scene have variously asked the President to call an early general election, to nominate a broader-based government with members of the three parties that have signed the troika agreement, and to create a new “à la Monti” executive. In other words, even though he is weakened, the President is still seen as an actor of last resort in terms of bringing about a solution to the country’s economic, social and political problems.

In order to conclude this piece, one can say that Portugal’s immediate prospects look bleak. For now, the far left parties – the Left Block (Bloco de Esquerda, Trotskyist) and the Portuguese Communist Party (Partido Comunista Português) – and the trade unions have managed to come together and handle the social and political discontent, but they are not able to build a credible alternative to the normal governing parties. With parliamentary and presidential elections not scheduled until 2015 and 2016 respectively, the growing discontent of increasingly large parts of the Portuguese population puts the political and social institutions under great stress: that this situation might have violent even dangerous outcomes for Portugal’s domestic stability cannot be excluded.

At the end of this year, there will be local elections. A large defeat for the parties in Government is anticipated and, in particular, for the senior coalition partner, the PSD. The large Sintra and Oporto municipalities will certainly be lost; the Socialist Party will maintain its majority in Lisbon. Even though the consequences of these elections at a national level are unpredictable, it is hoped that they will clarify the political arena and offer a clearer set of potential governance solutions.

I would like to thank Professor Elgie for giving me the opportunity to write this post.

Paulo José Canelas Rapaz (canelasrapaz@gmail.com)

Dr Canelas Rapaz has just completed his doctoral dissertation on the Portuguese presidency at l’Université Panthéon-Assas-Paris II

New publications

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Selena Grimaldi, I Presidenti nelle forme di governo: Tra Costituzione, partiti e carisma, Carocci editore, 2012.

Claudia Gilia, ‘The Role of The President in Semi-Presidenatial (sic) Republics In Center (sic) and Eastern Europe’, Revue européenne du Droit social, Vol. XVIII, Issue 1, 2013, available at: http://www.revueeuropeenne-du-droitsocial.ro/fr/revue.php

John F. Copper, The KMT Returns to Power Elections in Taiwan, 2008-2012, Lexington Books, 2012.

Shahjahan Bhuiyan, ‘Political Leadership and its Role in Achieving Good Governance in Kazakhstan’, International Journal of Public Administration, 35:6, 2012, pp. 379-388.

Andrew Wilson, Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship, New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 2011.

Grigorii V. Golosov, ‘ The 2012 Political Reform in Russia: The Interplay of Liberalizing Concessions and Authoritarian Corrections’, Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 59, no. 6, November–December 2012, pp. 3–14.

Marcel van Herpen, Putinism: The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Slovenia – When will the government collapse?

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In Slovenia, PM Janša of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) seems to be experiencing death by a thousand cuts.

The government, which was formed only a year ago, was a coalition of the SDS, the Pensioners’ Party (DeSUS), the Gregor Virant Citizens’ List (DL), the Slovenian People’s Party (SLS), and New Slovenia (NSi).

Slovenia Times reports that at the beginning of January the Corruption Prevention Commission found that PM Janez Janša had violated his duty to report “dealings in cash, ownership of real estate, ownership of movables and standing surety”.

After a period of reflection, the Gregor Virant Citizens’ List (DL) decided to leave the government on 25 January. This left the government in a minority position. Then, on 5 February DeSUS announced that it would leave the government on 22 February. This leaves the government with the support of just 36 of the 91 seats in parliament.

For his part, PM Janša has announced that he will not resign. However, he is increasingly likely to face a constructive vote of no-confidence. At the end of last week there were mass demonstrations both in favour of and against the PM.

While the new president, Borut Pahor, of the opposition Social Democrats, has made a number of interventions, he has very powers with which to shape events. However, if there is a new coalition or an election, then the Social Democrats stand well placed to make gains. Given the current period of cohabitation, this must shape President Pahor’s interpretation of the situation, even though formally he is now independent following his election.

So, there is a sense that the PM cannot survive. However, he refuses to go even as his different coalition partners gradually leave office. Surely, it can only be a matter of time.

Macedonia – Political crisis deepens

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The situation in Macedonia is getting very tense.

In the autumn of last year there were severe problems within the ruling VMRO–DPMNE/DUI coalition as the ethnic Albanian party, the DUI, opposed what they saw as as the VMRO–DPMNE’s bill to provide compensation for war veterans who had fought against the Albanians in the short conflict in 2001. The DUI lodged around 15,000 amendments to the bill in parliament, effectively stopping its discussion. To my knowledge, the bill has yet to be adopted.

Then, in December 2012 there was a crisis between the government and the opposition SDSM party over the budget. There is a very nice review of events in a paper by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung here.

Basically, the opposition adopted a similar tactic to the DUI and lodged more than a 1,000 amendments to the budget. This time, there was a deadline as the budget had to be passed by the end of the year. The government adopted some of the opposition’s amendments, but was accused of acting unconstitutionally and/or flouting parliamentary procedure to ensure the passage of the budget. There were mass protests outside parliament. On 24 December when the budget was due to be discussed, opposition deputies attacked the Speaker of the House. The security services evicted all opposition deputies and journalists and the budget was passed. The PM accused the opposition of, in effect, trying to launch a coup. The SDSM has since boycotted parliament and threatened to boycott local elections that are scheduled for next month.

The SDSM really wants a general election. However, the government refuses to hold one. To try to force one, the SDSM has now resorted to a new strategy. According to Balkan Insight, it has threatened to resign en masse from parliament. Now, Macedonia has a list electoral system. So, usually if a deputy resigns, then the next person on the list takes the outgoing deputy’s place. However, the SDSM is saying that it is resigning its whole list, so there can be no replacements. According to Balkan Insight, this could lead to a ‘partial’ parliamentary election i.e. an election for the opposition’s 43 seats. Perhaps more likely, though, parliament will simply function without the presence of the opposition deputies.

It goes without saying that this is a dangerous situation. The opposition is now relying on extra-parliamentary tactics to achieve its aim. The chances of a deal when the opposition insists on a general election and the government refuses are very small. Macedonia has faced similar situations in the period since 1990, but this one is particularly tense.

Georgia – Tit-for-tat constitutional amendments

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In Georgia, the current period of cohabitation is generating plenty of constitutional debate. So much so that there is talk of the government and opposition doing a deal and accepting each other’s amendments. The information is at Civil.ge.

The opposition wants a constitutional amendment to ensure that the country adopts a pro-Western foreign policy. I haven’t scoured the texts of other countries in this regard, but this would seem to me like an unusual clause to put in a constitution. That said, lots of constitutions have lists of rights, duties, privileges etc that are largely declaratory rather than easily justiciable. In addition, the opposition also wants to make it more difficult to amend the constitution in future, raising the necessary number of votes from two-thirds of parliament to three-quarters and implementing this reform immediately.

For its part, the government wants an amendment to reduce the president’s powers. I reported on this proposal previously.

The reports now suggest that opposition is willing to accept the government’s amendment in return for those of its own.

The opposition’s support is needed because the government is short of a two-thirds majority. In theory, it has the support of 89 deputies and 100 are needed for the constitution to be amended.

One interesting thing to bear in mind is that the constitution will be amended, the president’s power will be reduced and the threshold for amendments will be raised to three-quarters after the next presidential election in October. As reported previously, a major set of constitutional amendments was adopted in 2010, but they will only come into force later this year.

The difference between the number and the ‘effective’ number of presidential candidates

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Last weekend, Ireland held the first meeting of its Constitutional Convention. One of the topics for debate was whether the president’s term should be reduced to 5 years. However, an issue that generated much more discussion and passion was whether or not citizens should have a role in nominating presidential candidates. In the end, the members of the Convention voted overwhelming (94%-6%) to open up the nomination procedure to citizens. In that context, I thought that I would provide just a little more information about how nomination processes operate comparatively.

Currently, the Irish Constitution provides three ways of nominating presidential candidates: nomination by at least 20 members of the two houses of the legislature (there are 226 at the moment); by 4 elected councils (there are 34, I think); plus incumbent presidents may re-nominate themselves. This has meant that until recently political parties have dominated the nomination process. Since 1937, there have been 7 contested elections and a total of only 24 candidates. That said, in 1997 there were 5 candidates and in 2011 there were 7 candidates. So, there is perhaps some evidence that parties have less of a hold now than previously.

What happens elsewhere? In a recent article in Irish Political Studies, I provided some information about how 29 semi-presidential countries choose their presidential candidates. The take-home point is that probably only Mongolia and Turkey have more restrictive procedures than Ireland and most other countries have some sort of citizen nomination process.

However, two points need to be made.

Firstly, the rules for citizen nomination procedures vary greatly. Some countries simply require a number of signatures from registered electors. Even so, the number is very different from one country to the next. So, Taiwan and Montenegro stipulate 1.5% of the total electorate. By contrast, Poland requires 100,000 signatures. Given there were nearly 31 million registered voters in Poland in 2010, this is a much smaller fraction. In some countries, there is also a geographical requirement i.e. a certain number of signatures from a particular number of provinces or counties.

What all of this means is that even when the nomination system is opened up to citizens, the openness of the system will still vary as a function of the particular rules that are chosen. The up-side of this point is that it does not necessarily mean hundreds or dozens of candidates will inevitably stand. The down-side is that the system is not necessarily much more open. Apart from the cost of a campaign, which will exclude most people, the rules may still serve to restrict the number of candidates.

Secondly, even if the rules are changed in a way that increases the number of candidates, there is a big difference between the number of candidates and the ‘effective’ number of candidates. To put it another way, there may be a larger number of candidates, but how many of them are ‘serious’?

What are the figures? Leaving aside Mali and Peru, the highest figure was 24 candidates at the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, then 21 in Bulgaria in 1992. Other countries recorded 16, 17, and 18 candidates in some cases. However, the average effective number of candidates was much smaller. For example, whereas Ukraine has had an average of nearly 14 candidates across all its presidential elections, it has had an average of fewer than 4 effective candidates. In fact, France has had the highest average effective number of candidates at just under 5. For most countries the average effective number of candidates is between about 2.5 and 3.5 and the figures are remarkably even across all countries, regardless of how restrictive the procedures are for citizen nominations.

In other words, even if opening up the nomination process to citizens may increase the number of candidates, it does not necessarily make the election more competitive. There may be more candidates from small parties and more candidates from non-partisan backgrounds, but the party candidates are still almost certain to win. This is a function of party identification, previous notoriety, campaign funding resources, and so on.

Overall, the cross-national evidence suggests that opening up the nomination process to citizens is unlikely to change the type of candidate who is actually elected to the presidency. Parties will still dominate. However, opening up the nomination process to citizens may simply be something that people want as a matter of principle.