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| Sean Costello Word Count: 700 |
The recent turmoil over the United States Presidential election should give Australians cause to stop and evaluate our own democratic process. Not not because it may give us a chance to see how we stack up against 'Greatest Democracy of All' but also to see if there are any lessons to be learnt from what can only be described as an electoral disaster.
Firstly, I would hope those who mandated a directly elected president at the last election are taking notice. While many of the problems the Americans are currently having relate to human error, there are also suggestions their system itself may be flawed. The United States' system of government is built around the separation of powers doctrine. That doctrine dictates that the three levels of government: the executive (in the American sense, the President), the legislature and the judiciary should wield separate power, and have no control over the others. In recent years, the problems in this system have been revealed, with the legislature containing a large Republican majority, and the country being ruled by a Democratic President. As such, everyone has voted along party lines, and not a lot of legislation has been passed.
Last week's elections included voting for the legislature. In those elections, the Democrats caught up to the Republicans - however, the Republicans still hold the majority in both houses. As such, there is now a real fear among Americans that with a President with such a small mandate, and a congress with such a small majority, the partisanship will continue, and even less will get done. Even more worrying, is the fact that if one of the two Presidential candidates does not concede, whoever becomes President may be seen as illegitimate.
While Australia does not have such a strict separation of powers (our executive is made up of members of the legislature) there are still lessons to be learnt. If we were to directly elect our Head of State, we could face similar problems of legitimacy. If our President were elected in an election such as the one currently dragging on in the United States, would he or she be able to function properly? Unlike the American President, it appears the Australian President would be less a 'leader' and more a 'constitutional referee'. Would a President elected by 300 votes be prepared to sack a Government with a clear majority, as Sir John Kerr did in 1975? More importantly, not matter how clearly his powers were spelt out, would the people of Australia agree with his decision?
There are also questions of legitimacy if a President were to gain huge majority. An elected President may then decide they have a mandate from the people, and may then begin behaving more like a leader than a constitutional referee. This too would see a dramatic change to our political landscape.
Another lesson to learn from the United States turmoil, is the danger of voluntary voting. The two Presidential candidates are jostling for the moral high ground, constantly suggesting the other is drawing the process out. This is not only an attempt to score political points, but also due to a real fear of voter apathy. This election has seen a voter turnout of roughly 50%, the biggest in a number of years. There is a feeling that given the election crisis, and the controversy concerning votes in Palm Beach County, voters may be discouraged from turning out next time. What a ridiculous situation for a democratic country to be in, where presidential candidates are struggling to keep voter turn out at 50%!
No matter what the eventual result of this election, surely the next President, and those that have gone before him, all have problems of illegitimacy, given they have been elected by as little as 25% of the population. No matter what we think of our current Prime Minister, we can at least be thankful, that nearly 100% of the population at least walked into the ballot box.
Cheers
Sean Costello
Novo Editor
