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I was curious if Haiti's political system was like India's - where the President is a figurehead position and the Prime minister has the practical authority, or

I was curious if Haiti's political system was like India's - where the President is a figurehead position and the Prime minister has the practical authority, or if it was like the US - with President at the helm. It seems like it's a bit of both, a "semi-presidential" system like France. Wikipedia says the President is the "head of state" and the Prime minister is the "head of government"... but that doesn't really help me understand the role and powers of each in practice.

dahfizz 5y ago
> Wikipedia says the President is the "head of state" and the Prime minister is the "head of government" I grew up in the USA and this is exactly how those terms were defined for us in school. The head of state is the leader of the country. They deal with other heads of states, and typically are in control of the military. The head of government is the top bureaucrat. They do governmenty bureaucratty stuff like meet with their cabinet and manage the executive branch.
- boxed 5y ago
  That's not universally true though. Swedens head of state is the King. He has no power.
  - squiggleblaz 5y ago
    According to Wikipedia: * The speaker of parliament is responsible for nominating and dismissing the prime minister (who appoints the prime minister? the parliament as a whole appoint the prime minister? does the king get to, but is compelled to appoint whoever the speaker nominates? does wikipedia mean "appoint" when it says "nominate"?) * The king is not part of parliament, and bills do not need royal assent to become law. * The king is not part of an executive council like the UK privy council. Formerly there was a Council of State. However the king does have royal immunity from criminal prosecution. If the Swedish King killed you, they would probably have a crisis over whether the absolute immunity the king possesses is in fact not absolute. So the king is clearly a special person in Sweden, but it does seem they are almost powerless according to the constitution, unlike say the British queen.
    - OlleTO 5y ago
      >who appoints the prime minister? Parliament votes on whoever the speaker nominates. If that person is tolerated (<50% of parliament votes against the nominee) they become prime minister. If the vote fails the speaker gets to nominate someone else. After 4 failed such votes, an extra election is called.
      - squiggleblaz 5y ago
        Thanks for the clear answer. I think I like that system. Sometimes minority governments make more sense that slightly larger but more fractious coalitions. If I was trying to design a republican constitution for my own country I think I would include a similar provision.
    - doikor 5y ago
      > who appoints the prime minister? the parliament as a whole appoint the prime minister? does the king get to, but is compelled to appoint whoever the speaker nominates? does wikipedia mean "appoint" when it says "nominate"? Prime minister is whoever gets the majority of the parliament behind them in a vote. In practice in Sweden’s case the leader of the biggest party in the coalition that makes the majority. (Due to how the voting system works in Sweden more than 2 parties exist in the parliament and thus coalitions of parties make up the government as no party manages to get 50% if the seats)
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > The head of state is the leader of the country. They [..] typically are in control of the military. This isn't true, at least in Western states. E.g in the Netherlands and Germany the king and the President respectively are head of state, but neither of them controls the military, which is done by respectively the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. It's really hard to make a universal definition for heads of state and government, since they fulfill different roles in forms of government. However, generally, the head of state is a more ceremonial role while the head of government actually governs. But there are exceptions.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    In a parliamentary system, the head of state is more ceremonial. In a presidential system, the head of state has the power (e.g. France, USA)
    - Denvercoder9 5y ago
      The US has combined the head of state and head of government in a single position (President), so it doesn't make sense to say either has more power. France is indeed one of the (many) exceptions with a semi-presidential system where the head of state has more power.
  - pintxo 5y ago
    Actually, for Germany, the head of the military is the Minister of Defence. Only if the parliament declares Germany to be in a situation of defence (Verteidigungsfall), will the command of the military be given to the Chancellor.
  - brummm 5y ago
    The head of the military in Germany actually is the parliament.
- chadash 5y ago
  In general, head of state is more ceremonial and has less power, but there are so many exceptions that making a rule of thumb is tough because it varies so much state-by-state. In the US, head of state and head of gov are the same (the President). In Russia, the head of state is Putin. He's not officially head of gov, but c'mon, we all know who controls the show there. In Canada, the Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II. But for all practical purposes, Justin Trudeau holds both rows. It's not like the Queen is handling Canada's foreign policy. She technically has the power to dissolve Canada's parliament, but it would be hard to imagine her exercising this power. When foreign leaders visit Canada, they aren't going to see the Queen, whereas they might if they visit the UK.
  - peeters 5y ago
    > When foreign leaders visit Canada, they aren't going to see the Queen, whereas they might if they visit the UK. Though they would typically be hosted by the Queen's representative in Canada, the Governor General (as of yesterday, R.H. Mary Simon). The Queen would never directly exercise her head-of-state powers in Canada. However, the GG does have to make some controversial decisions about choosing governments from time to time.
  - rgblambda 5y ago
    >In Canada, the Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II. But for all practical purposes, Justin Trudeau holds both rows. Does Canada not have a Governor General, like other countries where Elizabeth II is the absentee monarch? The Governor General performs most of the functions of the head of state and technically has the power to appoint or dismiss the Prime Minister, but much like the Queen the role is mostly ceremonial.
    - zinekeller 5y ago
      There is, but in all seriousness outside of events that will probably also happen in a republican state (like tension between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition) the Government-General takes a hands-off approach, so effectively (de facto, in practice) the prime minister is the head of state.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  In Great Britain at least the Prime Minister frequently meets with other heads of state, e.g., Churchill meeting with Roosevelt. Of course the monarch is the head of the state in Great Britain and she does meet with other heads of state as well, but it seems less clear-cut than you describe? Is this a peculiarity of Britain? Or does “head of state” imply a sort of figurehead position?
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    > In Great Britain at least the Prime Minister frequently meets with other heads of state, e.g., Churchill meeting with Roosevelt. The exception here is that the US President is both head of state and head of government, so Churchill meeting Roosevelt is actually a meeting between two heads of government.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      But they were meeting about military matters which is a responsibility attributed to head of state according to OP.
- fullahbandit 5y ago
  One thing to add is that the prime minister is often appointed by the president so he does not really hold any real power. I think the closest equivalent in the US system would be the Vice President, except that the prime minister can often be replaced at the president's discretion before the end of the term.
  - liversage 5y ago
    Or the opposite. The German prime minister is Angela Merkel while the president is Frank-Walter Steinmeister. I had to look the second up because I didn't know who it was but I know that he doesn't have political power like Merkel.
- PeterWhittaker 5y ago
  > The head of state is the leader of the country. They deal with other heads of states, and typically are in control of the military. Not quite true, at least not in limited constitutional monarchies, like the UK and Canada (I'm Canadian): The Queen is the Head of State for both the UK and Canada (and for many other countries) and her role is almost exclusively ceremonial (without getting into the role of the Governor General, who represents Her Majesty when she is out of the country). In both the UK and Canada, the head of government is the Prime Minister, that is, the leader of the party that controls the House of Parliament. In both countries, they do far more than "bureaucratty stuff" since, among other things, they choose and chair the cabinet, set the overall government agenda, etc. The military reports to cabinet through the appropriate minister(s). (Mitchell Sharp once wrote a book on Canadian government in which he rightly asserted that ours is government-by-cabinet, more than government by parliament....) In both countries, the PM is effectively head of the executive branch, but definitely not head of state, as well as sitting atop the legislative branch.
- Macha 5y ago
  Yeah, the obvious example is the UK, where the Queen is head of state and the PM is the head of government. Other westminster inspired systems sometimes keep around the monarchy (represented by the governor general) or replace the role with an elected president. Usually such a role is a literal figurehead, or a de facto figurehead who de jure has power but culturally is not supposed to exercise them, (such as the aforementioned Queen, or the Irish President). Attempts by such a de facto figurehead to use powers they officially have have led to controversy, such as the 1975 incident with the Australian Governor General (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...)
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    Yikes I can't believe that 1975 event happened and the royal family still remains in their seats. All of these former British territories are 1 terrorist attack and 1 ambitious politician away from a political crisis. Roll the dice 10 times, each time one of these monarchs could make a play for power. Although I'm not even sure how to handle the dissolution of the monarchy without executing everyone. Taking their property only means a foreign state would prop them up.
    - ylyn 5y ago
      The British royal family had very little to do with that incident. Yes, the monarch is the de jure head of state, but again in practice she delegates all decisions to the GG.
  - fionnoh 5y ago
    There is precedent to the Irish president exercising their power. In 1994 Mary Robinson refused Albert Reynold's request to have the Dáil dissolved (well, let it be known that such a request would be refused), leading to a new government being formed without a general election. If the Queen refused a similar request from a Prime Minister that would be a shock though.
    - Macha 5y ago
- simonh 5y ago
  In the US system the President basically assumes the constitutional position of George III circa 1770. Executive orders are Royal decrees. The president signing laws is Royal Assent. Presidential pardons are Royal pardons. The power to adjourn Congress is proroguation. The oddity to me is the position of the Speaker of the House, which is a weird amalgam of the role of the Speaker of Parliament and also acting as a de facto Prime Minister although there really isn't an explicit equivalent role in the US.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > They deal with other heads of states, and typically are in control of the military No head of state is in control of the military. Head of state is a ceremonial role. They may be the ceremonial "head" of the military, as in "her majesty's ship".
  - nybble41 5y ago
    > No head of state is in control of the military. In the U.S. the office of the President unifies the roles of head of state, head of government, and Commander in Chief of the military. This is not merely a ceremonial role. As the saying goes, the exception proves the rule false.
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    > No head of state is in control of the military. In France the President, the head of state, commands the military, and not the Prime Minister, the head of government.
mannykannot 5y ago
Following the assassination, the prime minister (Claude Joseph) has said he is now running the country, which suggests that the president has real power.
squiggleblaz 5y ago
In several states with such a semi-presidential system, if the prime minister and the president are oppositional, the prime minister will take primary responsibility for more domestic matters like education and health, whereas the president will take primary responsibility for most national/international matters like trade, the economy and foreign affairs. When the president and the prime minister are allied, the president often takes the lead on most matters. I have never seen a semi-presidential federation, and my intuition has become that in a semi-presidential system, the president is holds the responsibilities of a prime minister/president of a federal government, whereas the prime minister is holds the responsibilities normally given to the premier/governor of state - as if there's only a single state and a single legislature for the state and the federation. Of course, as with federations, the exact boundaries will depend on the country concerned. Whether Haiti works that way, I cannot say.
fx18011 5y ago
It is more like France of Russia.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  François Fillon does work for Russia but the country remains sovereign.
pyduan 5y ago
There are multiple types of semi-presidential systems in practice. Those where the Prime Minister is appointed by and accountable to the President (and not just by Parliament) are typically much closer to a pure presidential system in practice. In France (source: I'm French) the President is typically extremely strong despite it being nominally a semi-presidential system, in some respects even stronger than his US counterpart. Also note that this depends a lot on practical details, like political customs — former President Nicolas Sarkozy famously publicly called his Prime Minister his "collaborator", for instance — and electoral timings. There was a reform in the early 00s to sync Presidential elections and Parliamentary elections, meaning that even though the Prime Minister is accountable to the Parliament, in practice the latter tends to be of the same majority as the President (whereas before, we had cases of Presidents and Primes being of opposing parties, which is known as 'cohabitation'), which gives him enormous power.
s_dev 5y ago
> Wikipedia says the President is the "head of state" and the Prime minister is the "head of government"... but that doesn't really help me understand the role and powers of each in practice. This is like Ireland. The head of government is responsible for running the country day to day. While the president is responsible for representing the country in a ceremonial way (far less powerful but often more popular). Often they rubber stamp some legislation but often have little power. In the US the roles are combined in to the Presidency. In the UK the Queen is the head of state and Boris Johnson is head of government.

dahfizz 5y ago

> Wikipedia says the President is the "head of state" and the Prime minister is the "head of government" I grew up in the USA and this is exactly how those terms were defined for us in school. The head of state is the leader of the country. They deal with other heads of states, and typically are in control of the military. The head of government is the top bureaucrat. They do governmenty bureaucratty stuff like meet with their cabinet and manage the executive branch.

boxed 5y ago
That's not universally true though. Swedens head of state is the King. He has no power.
- squiggleblaz 5y ago
  According to Wikipedia: * The speaker of parliament is responsible for nominating and dismissing the prime minister (who appoints the prime minister? the parliament as a whole appoint the prime minister? does the king get to, but is compelled to appoint whoever the speaker nominates? does wikipedia mean "appoint" when it says "nominate"?) * The king is not part of parliament, and bills do not need royal assent to become law. * The king is not part of an executive council like the UK privy council. Formerly there was a Council of State. However the king does have royal immunity from criminal prosecution. If the Swedish King killed you, they would probably have a crisis over whether the absolute immunity the king possesses is in fact not absolute. So the king is clearly a special person in Sweden, but it does seem they are almost powerless according to the constitution, unlike say the British queen.
  - OlleTO 5y ago
    >who appoints the prime minister? Parliament votes on whoever the speaker nominates. If that person is tolerated (<50% of parliament votes against the nominee) they become prime minister. If the vote fails the speaker gets to nominate someone else. After 4 failed such votes, an extra election is called.
    - squiggleblaz 5y ago
      Thanks for the clear answer. I think I like that system. Sometimes minority governments make more sense that slightly larger but more fractious coalitions. If I was trying to design a republican constitution for my own country I think I would include a similar provision.
  - doikor 5y ago
    > who appoints the prime minister? the parliament as a whole appoint the prime minister? does the king get to, but is compelled to appoint whoever the speaker nominates? does wikipedia mean "appoint" when it says "nominate"? Prime minister is whoever gets the majority of the parliament behind them in a vote. In practice in Sweden’s case the leader of the biggest party in the coalition that makes the majority. (Due to how the voting system works in Sweden more than 2 parties exist in the parliament and thus coalitions of parties make up the government as no party manages to get 50% if the seats)
Denvercoder9 5y ago
> The head of state is the leader of the country. They [..] typically are in control of the military. This isn't true, at least in Western states. E.g in the Netherlands and Germany the king and the President respectively are head of state, but neither of them controls the military, which is done by respectively the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. It's really hard to make a universal definition for heads of state and government, since they fulfill different roles in forms of government. However, generally, the head of state is a more ceremonial role while the head of government actually governs. But there are exceptions.
- namdnay 5y ago
  In a parliamentary system, the head of state is more ceremonial. In a presidential system, the head of state has the power (e.g. France, USA)
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    The US has combined the head of state and head of government in a single position (President), so it doesn't make sense to say either has more power. France is indeed one of the (many) exceptions with a semi-presidential system where the head of state has more power.
- pintxo 5y ago
  Actually, for Germany, the head of the military is the Minister of Defence. Only if the parliament declares Germany to be in a situation of defence (Verteidigungsfall), will the command of the military be given to the Chancellor.
- brummm 5y ago
  The head of the military in Germany actually is the parliament.
chadash 5y ago
In general, head of state is more ceremonial and has less power, but there are so many exceptions that making a rule of thumb is tough because it varies so much state-by-state. In the US, head of state and head of gov are the same (the President). In Russia, the head of state is Putin. He's not officially head of gov, but c'mon, we all know who controls the show there. In Canada, the Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II. But for all practical purposes, Justin Trudeau holds both rows. It's not like the Queen is handling Canada's foreign policy. She technically has the power to dissolve Canada's parliament, but it would be hard to imagine her exercising this power. When foreign leaders visit Canada, they aren't going to see the Queen, whereas they might if they visit the UK.
- peeters 5y ago
  > When foreign leaders visit Canada, they aren't going to see the Queen, whereas they might if they visit the UK. Though they would typically be hosted by the Queen's representative in Canada, the Governor General (as of yesterday, R.H. Mary Simon). The Queen would never directly exercise her head-of-state powers in Canada. However, the GG does have to make some controversial decisions about choosing governments from time to time.
- rgblambda 5y ago
  >In Canada, the Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II. But for all practical purposes, Justin Trudeau holds both rows. Does Canada not have a Governor General, like other countries where Elizabeth II is the absentee monarch? The Governor General performs most of the functions of the head of state and technically has the power to appoint or dismiss the Prime Minister, but much like the Queen the role is mostly ceremonial.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    There is, but in all seriousness outside of events that will probably also happen in a republican state (like tension between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition) the Government-General takes a hands-off approach, so effectively (de facto, in practice) the prime minister is the head of state.
throwaway894345 5y ago
In Great Britain at least the Prime Minister frequently meets with other heads of state, e.g., Churchill meeting with Roosevelt. Of course the monarch is the head of the state in Great Britain and she does meet with other heads of state as well, but it seems less clear-cut than you describe? Is this a peculiarity of Britain? Or does “head of state” imply a sort of figurehead position?
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > In Great Britain at least the Prime Minister frequently meets with other heads of state, e.g., Churchill meeting with Roosevelt. The exception here is that the US President is both head of state and head of government, so Churchill meeting Roosevelt is actually a meeting between two heads of government.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    But they were meeting about military matters which is a responsibility attributed to head of state according to OP.
fullahbandit 5y ago
One thing to add is that the prime minister is often appointed by the president so he does not really hold any real power. I think the closest equivalent in the US system would be the Vice President, except that the prime minister can often be replaced at the president's discretion before the end of the term.
- liversage 5y ago
  Or the opposite. The German prime minister is Angela Merkel while the president is Frank-Walter Steinmeister. I had to look the second up because I didn't know who it was but I know that he doesn't have political power like Merkel.
PeterWhittaker 5y ago
> The head of state is the leader of the country. They deal with other heads of states, and typically are in control of the military. Not quite true, at least not in limited constitutional monarchies, like the UK and Canada (I'm Canadian): The Queen is the Head of State for both the UK and Canada (and for many other countries) and her role is almost exclusively ceremonial (without getting into the role of the Governor General, who represents Her Majesty when she is out of the country). In both the UK and Canada, the head of government is the Prime Minister, that is, the leader of the party that controls the House of Parliament. In both countries, they do far more than "bureaucratty stuff" since, among other things, they choose and chair the cabinet, set the overall government agenda, etc. The military reports to cabinet through the appropriate minister(s). (Mitchell Sharp once wrote a book on Canadian government in which he rightly asserted that ours is government-by-cabinet, more than government by parliament....) In both countries, the PM is effectively head of the executive branch, but definitely not head of state, as well as sitting atop the legislative branch.
Macha 5y ago
Yeah, the obvious example is the UK, where the Queen is head of state and the PM is the head of government. Other westminster inspired systems sometimes keep around the monarchy (represented by the governor general) or replace the role with an elected president. Usually such a role is a literal figurehead, or a de facto figurehead who de jure has power but culturally is not supposed to exercise them, (such as the aforementioned Queen, or the Irish President). Attempts by such a de facto figurehead to use powers they officially have have led to controversy, such as the 1975 incident with the Australian Governor General (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...)
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  Yikes I can't believe that 1975 event happened and the royal family still remains in their seats. All of these former British territories are 1 terrorist attack and 1 ambitious politician away from a political crisis. Roll the dice 10 times, each time one of these monarchs could make a play for power. Although I'm not even sure how to handle the dissolution of the monarchy without executing everyone. Taking their property only means a foreign state would prop them up.
  - ylyn 5y ago
    The British royal family had very little to do with that incident. Yes, the monarch is the de jure head of state, but again in practice she delegates all decisions to the GG.
- fionnoh 5y ago
  There is precedent to the Irish president exercising their power. In 1994 Mary Robinson refused Albert Reynold's request to have the Dáil dissolved (well, let it be known that such a request would be refused), leading to a new government being formed without a general election. If the Queen refused a similar request from a Prime Minister that would be a shock though.
  - Macha 5y ago
simonh 5y ago
In the US system the President basically assumes the constitutional position of George III circa 1770. Executive orders are Royal decrees. The president signing laws is Royal Assent. Presidential pardons are Royal pardons. The power to adjourn Congress is proroguation. The oddity to me is the position of the Speaker of the House, which is a weird amalgam of the role of the Speaker of Parliament and also acting as a de facto Prime Minister although there really isn't an explicit equivalent role in the US.
rsj_hn 5y ago
> They deal with other heads of states, and typically are in control of the military No head of state is in control of the military. Head of state is a ceremonial role. They may be the ceremonial "head" of the military, as in "her majesty's ship".
- nybble41 5y ago
  > No head of state is in control of the military. In the U.S. the office of the President unifies the roles of head of state, head of government, and Commander in Chief of the military. This is not merely a ceremonial role. As the saying goes, the exception proves the rule false.
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > No head of state is in control of the military. In France the President, the head of state, commands the military, and not the Prime Minister, the head of government.

mannykannot 5y ago

Following the assassination, the prime minister (Claude Joseph) has said he is now running the country, which suggests that the president has real power.

squiggleblaz 5y ago

In several states with such a semi-presidential system, if the prime minister and the president are oppositional, the prime minister will take primary responsibility for more domestic matters like education and health, whereas the president will take primary responsibility for most national/international matters like trade, the economy and foreign affairs. When the president and the prime minister are allied, the president often takes the lead on most matters. I have never seen a semi-presidential federation, and my intuition has become that in a semi-presidential system, the president is holds the responsibilities of a prime minister/president of a federal government, whereas the prime minister is holds the responsibilities normally given to the premier/governor of state - as if there's only a single state and a single legislature for the state and the federation. Of course, as with federations, the exact boundaries will depend on the country concerned. Whether Haiti works that way, I cannot say.

fx18011 5y ago

It is more like France of Russia.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
François Fillon does work for Russia but the country remains sovereign.

pyduan 5y ago

There are multiple types of semi-presidential systems in practice. Those where the Prime Minister is appointed by and accountable to the President (and not just by Parliament) are typically much closer to a pure presidential system in practice. In France (source: I'm French) the President is typically extremely strong despite it being nominally a semi-presidential system, in some respects even stronger than his US counterpart. Also note that this depends a lot on practical details, like political customs — former President Nicolas Sarkozy famously publicly called his Prime Minister his "collaborator", for instance — and electoral timings. There was a reform in the early 00s to sync Presidential elections and Parliamentary elections, meaning that even though the Prime Minister is accountable to the Parliament, in practice the latter tends to be of the same majority as the President (whereas before, we had cases of Presidents and Primes being of opposing parties, which is known as 'cohabitation'), which gives him enormous power.

s_dev 5y ago

> Wikipedia says the President is the "head of state" and the Prime minister is the "head of government"... but that doesn't really help me understand the role and powers of each in practice. This is like Ireland. The head of government is responsible for running the country day to day. While the president is responsible for representing the country in a ceremonial way (far less powerful but often more popular). Often they rubber stamp some legislation but often have little power. In the US the roles are combined in to the Presidency. In the UK the Queen is the head of state and Boris Johnson is head of government.