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A presidential system is a system of government where an executive branch exists and presides (hence the name) separately from the legislature to which it is not responsible and which cannot in normal circumstances dismiss it.1

The concept of separate spheres of influence of the executive and legislature is specified in the Constitution of the United States with the creation of the office of President of the United States elected separately from Congress.

Although not exclusive to republics and applied in the case of semi-constitutional monarchies where a monarch exercises power (both as head of state and chief of the executive branch of government) alongside a legislature the term is often associated with republican systems in the Americas. The president does not propose bills. However the president has the power to veto acts of the legislature and in turn a supermajority of legislators may act to override the veto. This practice is derived from the British tradition of royal assent in which an act of parliament cannot come into effect without the assent of the monarch. The president has a fixed term of office. Elections are held at scheduled times and cannot be triggered by a vote of confidence or other such parliamentary procedures. In some countries there is an exception to this rule which provides for the removal of a president who is found to have broken a law. The executive branch is unipersonal. Members of the cabinet serve at the pleasure of the president and must carry out the policies of the executive and legislative branches. However presidential systems frequently require legislative approval of presidential nominations to the cabinet as well as various governmental posts such as judges. A president generally has power to direct members of the cabinet military or any officer or employee of the executive branch but generally has no power to dismiss or give orders to judges. The power to pardon or commute sentences of convicted criminals is often in the hands of the heads of state in governments that separate their legislative and executive branches of government.

Countries that feature a presidential system of government are not the exclusive users of the title of President or the republican form of government. For example a dictator who may or may not have been popularly or legitimately elected may be and often is called a president. Likewise many parliamentary democracies are republics and have presidents but this position is largely ceremonial; notable examples include Germany India Ireland Israel and Portugal (see Parliamentary republic). Contents 1 Characteristics of presidents 2 Subnational governments 3 Advantages of presidential systems 3.1 Direct mandate 3.2 Separation of powers 3.3 Speed and decisiveness 3.4 Stability 4 Criticism 4.1 Tendency towards authoritarianism 4.1.1 Carl Schmitt 4.2 Political gridlock 4.3 Impediments to leadership change 5 Differences from a cabinet system 5.1 Overlapping elements 6 Republics with a presidential system of government 7 References 8 See also 9 External links Characteristics of presidents

Some national presidents are "figurehead" heads of state like constitutional monarchs and not active executive heads of government. (although some figurehead presidents and constitutional monarchs maintain reserve powers) In contrast in a full-fledged presidential system a president is chosen by the people to be the head of the executive branch.

Presidential governments make no distinction between the positions of head of state and head of government both of which are held by the president. Many parliamentary governments have a symbolic head of state in the form of a president or monarch (Again in some cases these symbolic heads of state maintain active reserve powers). That person is responsible for the formalities of state functions or in cases where the head of state has reserve powers the "hands off" ensuing of a functional parliament while the constitutional prerogatives of head of government are generally exercised by the prime minister. Such figurehead presidents tend to be elected in a much less direct manner than active presidential-system presidents for example by a vote of the legislature. A few nations such as Slovakia Ireland and Portugal do have a popularly elected ceremonial president.

A few countries (e.g. South Africa) have powerful presidents who are elected by the legislature. These presidents are chosen in the same way as a prime minister yet are heads of both state and government. These executives are titled "president" but are in practice similar to prime ministers. Other countries with the same system include Botswana the Marshall Islands and Nauru. Incidentally the method of legislative vote for president was a part of Madison's Virginia Plan and was seriously considered by the framers of the American Constitution.

Presidents in a presidential system are always active participants in the political process though the extent of their relative power may be influenced by the political makeup of the legislature and whether their supporters or opponents have the dominant position therein. In some presidential systems such as Weimar Germany and South Korea there is an office of prime minister or premier but unlike in semi-presidential or parliamentary systems the premier is responsible to the president rather than to the legislature. Subnational governments See also: Mayorcouncil government

Subnational governments usually municipalities may be structured as a presidential system. All of the state governments of the United States use the presidential system however this is not constitutionally required. Another example is Japan where the national government uses the parliamentary system but the prefectural and municipal governments have governors and mayors elected independently from local assemblies and councils. Advantages of presidential systems Supporters generally claim four basic advantages for presidential systems: Direct mandate in a presidential system the president is often elected directly by the people. To some this makes the president's power more legitimate than that of a leader appointed indirectly. However in the United States the president is elected neither directly nor through the legislature but by an electoral college. Separation of powers a presidential system establishes the presidency and the legislature as two parallel structures. Supporters say that this arrangement allows each structure to monitor and check the other preventing abuses. Speed and decisiveness some argue that a president with strong powers can usually enact changes quickly. However others argue that the separation of powers slows the system down. Stability a president by virtue of a fixed term may provide more stability than a prime minister who can be dismissed at any time. Direct mandate A prime minister is usually chosen by a majority of the people's representatives while a president is usually chosen directly by the people. According to supporters of the presidential systemwho a popularly elected leadership is inherently more democratic than a leadership chosen by a legislative body even if the legislative body was itself elected to rule. Through making more than one electoral choice voters in a presidential system can more accurately indicate their policy preferencescitation needed. For example in the United States of America some political scientistswho interpret the late Cold War tendency to elect a Democratic Congress and a Republican president as the choice for a Republican foreign policy and a Democratic domestic policy. It is also stated that the direct mandate of a president makes him or her more accountablecitation needed. The reasoning behind this argument is that a prime minister is "shielded" from public opinion by the apparatus of state being several steps removed. Critics of this viewwho note however that typically presidents cannot be removed immediately from power when their policies no longer reflect the wishes of the citizenry. (In the United States presidents can only be removed midterm by an impeachment trial for "high crimes and misdemeanors" whereas prime ministers can typically be removed if they fail a motion of confidence in their government.) While the United States uses the indirect electoral college the electoral vote has almost always matched the result of the popular vote thus it is considered unusual and controversial when a president is elected who has not won the popular vote. There have been four elections in which this has occurred in 1824 1876 1888 and in 2000. In 1824 Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the popular and electoral votes but not a majority in the latter. This threw the election into the U.S. House of Representatives which elected the second-place vote-getter John Quincy Adams. Fifty-two years later Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden and the status of electors from several states was disputed. In this case the controversy was quietly dropped through the Compromise of 1877 in which Tilden who had won the popular vote agreed to drop all attempts to prove that the electoral college vote had been rigged if in return Hayes would end the military occupation of the last few former Confederate states. The 1888 election was the only one of the four that didn't cause major controversy. Incumbent President Grover Cleveland won about 89000 more votes than Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison but Harrison won by a large margin in the Electoral College (233-168) thanks to a narrow victory in Cleveland's home state of New York. Cleveland simply resolved to win the presidency back and did so four years later. Similar to 1888 in the 2000 election the outcome was due to the winner-take-all nature of the system. A candidate winning as little as 51% of the electoral votes in a state is nonetheless granted all of the electoral votes from that state upon winning (if a state has 10 electoral votes and a candidate wins 6 they are then counted as having won all 10 votes). The result is that while states that lean heavily to one candidate will have electoral and popular votes that closely match almost evenly divided states will not. This has led to various criticisms that the electoral college is a relic of the 18th century and calls to reform the process. On occasion one or two electors will choose to vote for another candidate that did not win the popular vote in their area as a form of protest or to make a political statement but this has never significantly affected the outcome of any election and is mostly a symbolic gesture. In contrast Bush's victory in the electoral college but not the popular vote during the 2000 election led to heavy debate and criticism throughout his first term that he did not truly hold a mandate. Separation of powers The fact that a presidential system separates the executive from the legislature is sometimes held up as an advantage in that each branch may scrutinize the actions of the other. In a parliamentary system the executive is drawn from the legislature making criticism of one by the other considerably less likely. A formal condemnation of the executive by the legislature is often regarded to be a vote of no confidence. According to supporters of the presidential system the lack of checks and balances means that misconduct by a prime minister may never be discovered. Writing about Watergate Woodrow Wyatt a former MP in the UK said "don't think a Watergate couldn't happen here you just wouldn't hear about it." (ibid) Critics respond that if a presidential system's legislature is controlled by the president's party the same situation exists. Proponents note that even in such a situation a legislator from the president's party is in a better position to criticize the president or his policies should he deem it necessary since the immediate security of the president's position is less dependent on legislative support. In parliamentary systems party discipline is much more strictly enforced. If a parliamentary backbencher publicly criticizes the executive or its policies to any significant extent then he/she faces a much higher prospect of losing his/her party's nomination or even outright expulsion from the party. Despite the existence of the no confidence vote in practice it is extremely difficult to stop a prime minister or cabinet that has made its decision. In a parliamentary system if important legislation proposed by the incumbent prime minister and his cabinet is "voted down" by a majority of the members of parliament then it is considered to be a vote of no confidence. The incumbent government must then either resign or call elections to be held a consequence few backbenchers are willing to endure. Hence a no confidence vote in some parliamentary countries like Britain only occurs a few times in a century. In 1931 David Lloyd George told a select committee: "Parliament has really no control over the executive; it is a pure fiction." (Schlesinger 1982) By contrast if a presidential legislative initiative fails to pass a legislature controlled by the president's party (e.g. the Clinton health care plan of 1993) it may damage the president's political standing and that of his party but generally has no immediate effect on whether or not the president completes his term. Speed and decisiveness Some supporters of presidential systems claim that presidential systems can respond more rapidly to emerging situations than parliamentary ones. A prime minister when taking action needs to retain the support of the legislature but a president is often less constrained. In Why England Slept John F. Kennedy said that Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain were constrained by the need to maintain the confidence of the Commons. Other supporters of presidential systems sometimes argue in the exact opposite direction however saying that presidential systems can slow decision-making to beneficial ends. Divided government where the presidency and the legislature are controlled by different parties is said to restrain the excesses of both parties and guarantee bipartisan input into legislation. In the United States Republican Congressman Bill Frenzel wrote in 1995: There are some of us who think gridlock is the best thing since indoor plumbing. Gridlock is the natural gift the Framers of the Constitution gave us so that the country would not be subjected to policy swings resulting from the whimsy of the public. And the competitionwhether multi-branch multi-level or multi-houseis important to those checks and balances and to our ongoing kind of centrist government. Thank heaven we do not have a government that nationalizes one year and privatizes next year and so on ad infinitum. (Checks and Balances 8) Stability Although most parliamentary governments go long periods of time without a no confidence vote Italy Israel and the French Fourth Republic have all experienced difficulties maintaining stability. When parliamentary systems have multiple parties and governments are forced to rely on coalitions as they often do in nations that use a system of proportional representation extremist parties can theoretically use the threat of leaving a coalition to further their agendas. Many people consider presidential systems to be more able to survive emergencies. A country under enormous stress may supporters argue be better off being led by a president with a fixed term than rotating premierships. France during the Algerian controversy switched to a semi-presidential system as did Sri Lanka during its civil war while Israel experimented with a directly elected prime minister in 1992. In France and Sri Lanka the results are widely considered to have been positive. However in the case of Israel an unprecedented proliferation of smaller parties occurred leading to the restoration of the previous system of selecting a prime minister. The fact that elections are fixed in a presidential system is considered to be a welcome "check" on the powers of the executive contrasting parliamentary systems which often allow the prime minister to call elections whenever he sees fit or orchestrate his own vote of no confidence to trigger an election when he cannot get a legislative item passed. The presidential model is said to discourage this sort of opportunism and instead force the executive to operate within the confines of a term he cannot alter to suit his own needs. Theoretically if a president's positions and actions have had a positive impact on their respective country then it is likely that their party's candidate (possibly they) will be elected for another term in office. Proponents of the presidential system also argue that stability extends to the cabinets chosen under the system compared to a parliamentary system where cabinets must be drawn from within the legislative branch. Under the presidential system cabinet members can be selected from a much larger pool of potential candidates. This allows presidents the ability to select cabinet members based as much or more on their ability and competency to lead a particular department as on their loyalty to the president as opposed to parliamentary cabinets which might be filled by legislators chosen for no better reason than their perceived loyalty to the prime minister. Supporters of the presidental system note that parliamentary systems frequenty go through disruptive "cabinet shuffles" where legislators are moved between portfolios whereas in presidential system cabinets (such as the United States Cabinet) cabinet shuffles are unheard of. Criticism Critics generally claim three basic disadvantages for presidential systems: Tendency towards authoritarianism some political scientists say that presidentialism is not constitutionally stable. According to some political scientists such as Fred Riggs presidentialism has fallen into authoritarianism in nearly every country it has been attempted. Critics such as Dana D. Nelson in her 2008 book Bad for Democracy2 see the office of the presidency in the United States as essentially undemocratic3 and she sees presidentialism as worship of the presidency by citizens which tends to undermine civic participation.3 Political gridlock - The separation of powers of a presidential system establishes the presidency and the legislature as two parallel structures. Critics argue that this frequently creates undesirable and long-term political gridlock and political instability whenever the president and the legislative majority are from different parties which is common because the electorate usually expects more rapid results from new policies than are possible. In addition this reduces accountability by allowing the president and the legislature to shift blame to each other. Impediments to leadership change it is claimed that the difficulty in removing an unsuitable president from office before his or her term has expired represents a significant problem. Tendency towards authoritarianism Winning the presidency is a winner-take-all zero-sum prize. A prime minister who does not enjoy a majority in the legislature will have to either form a coalition or if he is able to lead a minority government govern in a manner acceptable to at least some of the opposition parties. Even if the prime minister leads a majority government he must still govern within (perhaps unwritten) constraints as determined by the members of his partya premier in this situation is often at greater risk of losing his party leadership than his party is at risk of losing the next election. On the other hand once elected a president can not only marginalize the influence of other parties but can exclude rival factions in his own party as well or even leave the party whose ticket he was elected under. The president can thus rule without any allies for the duration of one or possibly multiple terms a worrisome situation for many interest groups. Juan Linz argues that: The danger that zero-sum presidential elections pose is compounded by the rigidity of the president's fixed term in office. Winners and losers are sharply defined for the entire period of the presidential mandate... losers must wait four or five years without any access to executive power and patronage. The zero-sum game in presidential regimes raises the stakes of presidential elections and inevitably exacerbates their attendant tension and polarization. Constitutions that only require plurality support are said to be especially undesirable as significant power can be vested in a person who does not enjoy support from a majority of the population. Some political scientists go further and argue that presidential systems have difficulty sustaining democratic practices noting that presidentialism has slipped into authoritarianism in many of the countries in which it has been implemented. Seymour Martin Lipset and others are careful to point out that this has taken place in political cultures not conducive to democracy and that militaries have tended to play a prominent role in most of these countries. Nevertheless certain aspects of the presidential system may have played a role in some situations. On the other hand an often-cited list of the world's 22 older democracies includes only two countries (Costa Rica and the United States) with presidential systems. In a presidential system the legislature and the president have equally valid mandates from the public. There is often no way to reconcile conflict between the branches of government. When president and legislature are in disagreement and government is not working effectively there is a powerful incentive to employ extra-constitutional maneuvres to break the deadlock. Ecuador is sometimes presented as a case study of democratic failures over the past quarter-century. Presidents have ignored the legislature or bypassed it altogether. One president had the National Assembly teargassed while another was kidnapped by paratroopers until he agreed to certain congressional demands. From 1979 through 1988 Ecuador staggered through a succession of executive-legislative confrontations that created a near permanent crisis atmosphere in the policy. In 1984 President Len Febres Cordero tried to physically bar new Congressionally-appointed supreme court appointees from taking their seats. In Brazil presidents have accomplished their objectives by creating executive agencies over which Congress had no say. Carl Schmitt The Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt in 1921 published the essay "Die Diktatur" ("On Dictatorship") in which he discussed the foundations of the newly-established Weimar Republic emphasising the office of the Reichsprsident. In this essay Schmitt compared and contrasted what he saw as the effective and ineffective elements of the new constitution of his country. To him the office of the president could be characterized as a comparatively effective element within the new constitution because of the power granted to the president to declare a state of emergency. This power which Schmitt discussed and implicitly praised as dictatorial4 was seen as more in line with the underlying mentality of political power than the comparatively slow and ineffective processes of legislative political power reached through parliamentary discussion and compromise. The direction all this leads and the reason why Schmitt has been taken so seriously by political theory is to the theorization of the crisis and state of emergency not as exceptional moments in political life opposed to some stable normality but as themselves the predominant form of the life of modern nations. Schmitt who became a professor at the University of Berlin in 1933 (a position he held until the end of World War II) joined the NSDAP on May 1 1933; he quickly was appointed "Preuischer Staatsrat" (Prussian State Counselor) by Hermann Gring and became the president of the "Vereinigung nationalsozialistischer Juristen" ("Union of National-Socialist Jurists") in November. He thought of his theories as an ideological foundation of the Nazi dictatorship and a justification of the "Fhrer" state with regard to legal philosophy in particular through the concept of auctoritas. Political gridlock Some political scientists speak of the "failure of presidentialism" because the separation of powers of a presidential system frequently creates undesirable and long-term political gridlock and political instability whenever the president and the legislative majority are from different parties. This is common because the electorate usually expects more rapid results from new policies than are possible and often prefers candidates from a different party at the next election. These critics including Juan Linz argue that this inherent political instability can cause democracies to fail as seen in such cases as Brazil and Chile. In addition presidential systems are said by critics not to offer voters the kind of accountability seen in parliamentary systems. It is easy for either the president or the legislature to escape blame by shifting it to the other. Describing the United States former Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon said "the president blames Congress the Congress blames the president and the public remains confused and disgusted with government in Washington". In Congressional Government Woodrow Wilson asked ...how is the schoolmaster the nation to know which boy needs the whipping ... Power and strict accountability for its use are the essential constituents of good government. ... It is therefore manifestly a radical defect in our federal system that it parcels out power and confuses responsibility as it does. The main purpose of the Convention of 1787 seems to have been to accomplish this grievous mistake. The 'literary theory' of checks and balances is simply a consistent account of what our constitution makers tried to do; and those checks and balances have proved mischievous just to the extent which they have succeeded in establishing themselves ... the Framers would be the first to admit that the only fruit of dividing power had been to make it irresponsible. Consider the example of the increase in the federal debt of the United States that occurred during the presidency of Republican Ronald Reagan. Arguably the deficits were the product of a bargain between President Reagan and the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill - O'Neill agreed not to oppose tax cuts favored by Reagan and in exchange Reagan agreed to sign budgets that failed to adequately restrain spending. In such a scenario each side can claim to be displeased with the debt plausibly blame the other side for the deficit and still tout its own success. Impediments to leadership change Another alleged problem of presidentialism is that it is often difficult to remove a president from office early. Even if a president is "proved to be inefficient even if he becomes unpopular even if his policy is unacceptable to the majority of his countrymen he and his methods must be endured until the moment comes for a new election." (Balfour intro to the English Constitution). Consider John Tyler who only became president because William Henry Harrison had died after thirty days. Tyler refused to sign Whig legislation was loathed by his nominal party but remained firmly in control of the executive branch. Since most presidential systems provide no legal means to remove a president simply for being unpopular many presidential countries have experienced military coups to remove a leader who is said to have lost his mandate. In parliamentary systems unpopular leaders can be quickly removed by a vote of no confidence a procedure which is reckoned to be a "pressure release valve" for political tension. Votes of no confidence are easier to achieve in minority government situations but even if the unpopular leader heads a majority government nonetheless he is often in a far less secure position than a president. Removing a president through impeachment is a procedure mandated by most constitutions but impeachment proceedings usually cannot be initiated except in cases where the president has violated the constitution and/or broken the law. Impeachment is usually made into a very difficult process by comparison the process of removing a party leader is governed by the (often much less formal) rules of the party in question. Nearly all parties (including governing parties) have a relatively simple and straightforward process for removing their leaders. If a premier sustains a serious enough blow to his/her popularity and refuses to resign on his/her own prior to the next election then members of his/her party face the prospect of losing their seats. So other prominent party members have a very strong incentive to initiate a leadership challenge in hopes of mitigating damage to the party. More often than not a premier facing a serious challenge will resolve to save face by resigning before he/she is formally removedMargaret Thatcher's relinquishing of her premiership being a prominent recent example. In The English Constitution Walter Bagehot criticized presidentialism because it does not allow a transfer in power in the event of an emergency. Under a cabinet constitution at a sudden emergency the people can choose a ruler for the occasion. It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion. The great qualities the imperious will the rapid energy the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not requiredare impedimentsin common times. A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday politics than a Chathama Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon. By the structure of the world we want at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest to change the helmsmanto replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm. But under a presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. The American government calls itself a government of the supreme people; but at a quick crisis the time when a sovereign power is most needed you cannot find the supreme people. You have got a congress elected for one fixed period going out perhaps by fixed installments which cannot be accelerated or retardedyou have a president chosen for a fixed period and immovable during that period: ..there is no elastic element... you have bespoken your government in advance and whether it is what you want or not by law you must keep it ... (The English Constitution the Cabinet.) Years later Bagehot's observation came to life during World War II when Neville Chamberlain was replaced with Winston Churchill. Finally many have criticized presidential systems for their alleged slowness in responding to their citizens' needs. Often the checks and balances make action extremely difficult. Walter Bagehot said of the American system "the executive is crippled by not getting the law it needs and the legislature is spoiled by having to act without responsibility: the executive becomes unfit for its name since it cannot execute what it decides on; the legislature is demoralized by liberty by taking decisions of others and not itself will suffer the effects". (ibid.) Defenders of Presidential systems on the other hand hold that this can serve to ensure that minority wishes and rights are not trampled upon thus preventing a "Tyranny of the majority" and vice versa protect the wishes and rights of the majority from abuse by legislature and/or executive that holds a contrary view point especially when there are frequent scheduled elections. British-Irish philosopher and MP Edmund Burke stated that officials should be elected based on "his or her unbiased opinion his or her mature judgment and his or her enlightened conscience" and therefore should reflect on the arguments for and against certain policies before taking positions and then act out on what an official would believe to be best in the long run for one's constituents and country as a whole even if it means short term backlash. Thus Defenders of Presidential systems hold that sometimes what is wisest may not always be the most popular decision and vice versa. Differences from a cabinet system A number of key theoretical differences exist between a presidential and a cabinet system: In a presidential system the central principle is that the legislative and executive branches of government should be separate. This leads to the separate election of president who is elected to office for a fixed term and only removable for gross misdemeanor by impeachment and dismissal. In addition he or she does not need to choose cabinet members commanding the support of the legislature. By contrast in parliamentarism the executive branch is led by a council of ministers headed by a Prime Minister who are directly accountable to the legislature and often have their background in the legislature (regardless of whether it is called a "parliament" a "diet" or a "chamber"). As with the president's set term of office the legislature also exists for a set term of office and cannot be dissolved ahead of schedule. By contrast in parliamentary systems the legislature can typically be dissolved at any stage during its life by the head of state usually on the advice of either Prime Minister alone by the Prime Minister and cabinet or by the cabinet. In a presidential system the president usually has special privileges in the enactment of legislation namely the possession of a power of veto over legislation of bills in some cases subject to the power of the legislature by weighed majority to override the veto. However it is extremely rare for the president to have the power to directly propose laws or cast a vote on legislation. The legislature and the president are thus expected to serve as checks and balances on each other's powers. Presidential system presidents may also be given a great deal of constitutional authority in the exercise of the office of Commander in Chief a constitutional title given to most presidents. In addition the presidential power to receive ambassadors as head of state is usually interpreted as giving the president broad powers to conduct foreign policy. Though semi-presidential systems may reduce a president's power over day to day government affairs semi-presidential systems commonly give the president power over foreign policy. Presidential systems also have fewer ideological parties than parliamentary systems. Sometimes in the United States the policies preferred by the two parties have been very similar (but see also polarization). In the 1950s during the leadership of Lyndon Johnson the Senate Democrats included the right-most members of the chamberHarry Byrd and Strom Thurmond and the left-most membersPaul Douglas and Herbert Lehman. This pattern does not prevail in Latin American presidential democracies. Overlapping elements In practice elements of both systems overlap. Though a president in a presidential system does not have to choose a government answerable to the legislature the legislature may have the right to scrutinize his or her appointments to high governmental office with the right on some occasions to block an appointment. In the United States many appointments must be confirmed by the Senate although once confirmed an appointee can only be removed against the President's will through impeachment. By contrast though answerable to parliament a parliamentary system's cabinet may be able to make use of the parliamentary 'whip' (an obligation on party members in parliament to vote with their party) to control and dominate parliament reducing parliament's ability to control the government. Some countries such as France have similarly evolved to such a degree that they can no longer be accurately described as either presidential or parliamentary-style governments and are instead grouped under the category of semi-presidential system. Republics with a presidential system of government Afghanistan Argentina Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cyprus Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Haiti Honduras Indonesia Iran Kazakhstan Kenya Liberia Maldives Mexico Myanmar Nicaragua Nigeria Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Seychelles Sierra Leone South Korea Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Tanzania Uganda United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Venezuela Zambia References The legislature may retain the right in extreme cases to dismiss the executive often through a process called impeachment. However such an intervention is seen as so rare (only two United States presidents were impeachedcharged with misconductand neither was convicted) as not to contradict the central tenet of presidentialism that in normal circumstances using normal means the legislature cannot dismiss the executive. Nelson Dana D. (2008). Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People. Minneapolis Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-8166-5677-6. http://books.google.com/booksidqgAWphms5oMC&pgPA223&lpgPA223&dqDana+Nelson+vanderbilt%3F+%22bad+for+democracy%22&sourcebl&otsBQX29WpUEv&sigGltrU89mO36Cvo7SoTOPL4R47s&hlen&ei3X-3SpTnA46m8QbRrM2TDw&saX&oibookresult&ctresult&resnum3#vonepage&q&ffalse.  a b David Sirota (August 22 2008). "Why cult of presidency is bad for democracy". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgif/c/a/2008/08/21/EDCQ12G3M0.DTL. Retrieved 2009-09-20.  Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung 38 1934 See also Parliamentary system Rotating Regional Primary System Semi-presidential system External links The Great Debate: Parliament versus Congress Castagnola Andrea/Prez-Lin Anbal: Presidential Control of High Courts in Latin America: A Long-term View (1904-2006) in: Journal of Politics in Latin America Hamburg 2009.