In most republics, the office of the Head of State is separate from the office of the Prime Minister. France, for example, has both an elected president and a Prime Minister elected in a system similar to Canada's. The States is weird that way in that the two offices are combined, leading to one fewer check and balance.
We do the coalition government thing if there's a minority, if two parties can agree enough to make it work. At the moment they can't, so we're going one bill to the next while the PM looks for a way to bring down parliament.
There have been suggestions about proportional representation. There was even a vote on it in Ontario last year. But it was defeated, mostly because the information about it was bad or non-existent. One of the reasons I sometimes vote Green is because the Greens promise to bring in some form of PR, and I think it would be a better thing for the country if they did.
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Re: North America, home of the right-wing leaders
Date: 2008-09-05 10:19 am (UTC)We do the coalition government thing if there's a minority, if two parties can agree enough to make it work. At the moment they can't, so we're going one bill to the next while the PM looks for a way to bring down parliament.
There have been suggestions about proportional representation. There was even a vote on it in Ontario last year. But it was defeated, mostly because the information about it was bad or non-existent. One of the reasons I sometimes vote Green is because the Greens promise to bring in some form of PR, and I think it would be a better thing for the country if they did.