> What is wrong with the Irish model? A President who is directly elected, but also largely apolitical, a mostly ceremonial role with strictly limited powers.

> What is wrong with the Irish model? A President who is directly elected, but also largely apolitical, a mostly ceremonial role with strictly limited powers. Nothing necessarily, as long as people understand it is a symbolic position. It is interesting to note that of the top ten countries in The Economist's Democracy Index, eight are constitutional monarchies: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country Ireland and Iceland are the two that are not, and Iceland changed to a republic in "only" 1944. In the top twenty, a lot of the countries also have ceremonial heads of state.