A Presidential versus a Parliamentary Turkey
Bruce Fein - Shouldn't the Republic of Turkey consider swapping its parliamentary for a presidential scheme of government? Decisive action is pivotal for Turkey on several fronts: accession to the European Union and the unilateral EU candidacy of the Greek Cypriot administration in the south; the war against PKK and first cousin terrorist organizations; maintainance of secularism from hijacking by Islamic extremists; privatization; official corruption; human rights and police reforms; and, hostile or semi-hostile neighbors, such as Iran, Iraq, Armenia, and Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan also holds a witches brew of potential mischief for Turkey's military. Indeed, the entire Middle East promises nothing but national security and foreign policy turbulence for the Republic of Turkey as far as the eye can see.

Decisiveness, however, is emphatically not the earmark of Turkey's fragmented parliamentary system featuring proportional representation, ministerial government, and an anemic presidency. Glacial is the adjective that fits like a glove. Coalitions are customarily fragile. Decisions are typically semi-incremental. The bureaucracy vacillates between sclerosis and rigor mortis. Consensus takes an eternity. Public frustration climbs.

With so many players partially accountable, in practical terms virtually none are at electoral time. Persons and parties blame one another for failure, but claim solo performances for successes.

These parliamentary diseases are not unique to Turkey. They are endemic. The French Fourth Republic was a virtual revolving door of governments. Italy and Israel are notorious for collapsing ministerial coalitions. The symptoms are alleviated where two parties dominate parliament, as in Germany and Great Britain. But the weakness of collective accountability remains: namely, when many are accountable for success or failure, no one is. And that fosters irresponsibility or lethargy.

A directly elected President of Turkey serving a renewable four or five year term, wielding veto authority, endowed with the power to appoint (but not remove) judges and executive officers, and exercising supreme authority over national security and foreign policy would command several advantages over the parliamentary scheme. First is swiftness in international affairs when time is of the essence. As John Jay wrote in Federalist 64 applauding the American presidency: "They who have turned their attention to the affairs of men must have perceived that there are tides in them; tides very irregular in their duration, strength, and direction, and seldom found to run twice in exactly the same manner or measure. To discern and to profit by these tides in national affairs is the business of those who preside over them; and they who have had much experience on this head inform us that there are frequently occasions when days, nay, even hours, are precious.

The loss of a battle, the death of a prince, the removal of a minister, or other circumstances intervening to change the present posture and aspect of affairs may turn the most favorable tide into a course opposite to our wishes." And only a president, not an inherently dithering ministerial coalition, can act with the requisite speed on the ever-changing international stage.

Further, the presidential incentive for prudence and statesmanship is far greater. There can be no ducking of responsibility for results, whether for good or for ill.

A presidential system would additionally upgrade executive branch talent and efficiency. The reasons are nicely elaborated by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 76: "The sole and undivided responsibility of one man will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard to reputation [in appointments]. He will, on this account, feel himself under stronger obligations, and more interested to investigate with care the qualities requisite to the stations to be filled, and to prefer with impartiality the persons who may have the fairest pretensions to them. He will have fewer personal attachments to gratify than a body of men who may each be supposed to have an equal number; and will be so much the less liable to be misled by the sentiments of friendship and of affection. There is nothing so apt to agitate the passions of mankind as personal considerations, whether they relate to ourselves or others, who are to be the object of our choice or preference. Hence, in every exercise of the power of appointing to offices by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who comprise the assembly. The choice which may at any time happen to be made under such circumstances will of course be the result either of a victory gained by one party over the other, or of a compromise between the parties. In the first, the qualifications best adapted to uniting the suffrages of the party will be more considered than those which fit the person for the station. In the last, the coalition will commonly turn upon some interested equivalent: 'Give us the man we wish for this office, and you shall have the one you wish for that.'"

Has anyone ever captured the dismal parliamentary dynamics for appointment to office with greater exactitude?

A presidential system in Turkey with a fully independent National Assembly crowned with legislative and investigative powers would also perform yeoman's service in detecting and deterring official corruption, a problem of high urgency. In parliamentary systems, legislators are frequently in cahoots with ministers or executive officials of their own party. The disincentive of parliament to investigate, expose, and to embarrass executive sloth, maladministration, or wrongdoing is thus strong in order to retain power. An independent legislature with a power base independent of the president would be more inclined to detect and to check executive branch abuses. That substantially explains the relative absence of government corruption in the American system.

Isn't the case for a muscular and directly elected President of Turkey persuasive?

Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein is a nationally syndicated media commentator and an ATAA Adjunct Scholar.