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The appeal for a directly elected president is easily comprehensible. It is an intuitively appealing and credible notion that people deserve to directly elect their leader in a democratic process. And in principle, that is something I agree with. 

As I’m contemplating my next paragraphs of this article, I’m acutely aware that the burden to prove that people should not get to directly vote their leader rests with people advocating against the directly elected executive, rather than the other side having the obligation to prove its merits. Likewise, as a member of GenZ myself, I share the discontent with the never-ending cast of unstable governments that my generation and the generation before me have. I am mindful of our current and past political predicaments rife with instability and governments riven by inter- and intra-party disputes. Potential stability this could bring does have people dreaming of a uniform government and policies that would bring much-needed investment, jobs, and prosperity.

Well, as always, the devil is in the details and an annoying thing called practical reality.

First, on a principal level. Imagine a powerful executive, say that of the US. The president has the power to veto bills and sign them, sign executive orders, call the shots during a war, grant pardons, and so on. It follows logically that the burden of proof also lies to a great extent on concentrating so much power on one individual. People with competence and integrity do not always get to the top, and even if such people are on top, it doesn’t mean they are demi-gods who can make perfect decisions all the time. So why should the whims of individuals decide matters of great importance? Remember Trump’s handling of Covid-19 in the first term or his stepping on every conceivable democratic norm in the current term? If Trump seems like an extreme and anomalous example, note that President Biden, before him, freshly into the office, branded with the “nice guy who is set to defend democracy” image, unilaterally decided to send bombing planes to Syria. 

Of course, this is not to claim that the parliamentary system is a paragon of rationality and accountability, but the fact that discourse has to happen publicly in Parliaments, under the public’s watchful eyes, creates incentives to take more integrity-laced decisions. It is likely that if there had been a publicly visible discussion about, say, the Biden administration’s bombing targets in Syria. i.e., a decision to drop expensive bombs, with ultra-expensive planes, to destroy priceless innocent lives, decisions would be different. The public has the right to scrutinize as many decisions and policy discussions as possible, to the extent that they want. Also, the process of discourse itself is likely to result in better chances of yielding more rational decisions. 

In many cases, these executives are voted in by narrow margins. So, in a country where a President gains 51 percent of votes to get elected, the 49% gets no representation in the share of executive power. While in the parliamentary system, minority parties can form coalition governments and gain some ministries, they are shut down completely from the executive system, especially under something like the spoils system in the US. This is likely to disproportionately harm minority groups, who have a lesser chance of having a member of their group being elected as the national figurehead. 

Similarly, this concentration of executive power poses a direct threat to democracy if the executive has immense influence and is seeking to break free from the reins of democracy. This has been vividly visible in countries like Russia, Turkey, Hungary, the USA, etc, which have suffered democratic backsliding. Likewise, in Nepal, where it will take a while for democratic gains to get cemented, there was a de facto concentration of executive power when the interests of former President Bidhya Bhandari and former Prime Minister KP Oli were aligned. Two Supreme Court decisions saved our infantile democratic practice, but the flashing danger lights were for everyone to see. Well, after coming to power again, the naked authoritarian tendencies of Oli were visible again in gunning down protesters and littering the streets with blood. The factors that led to Oli deciding to resign were likely multifaceted. But being in a coalition government, where Congress and other coalition partners were facing tremendous pressure to resign, must have played a part in Oli’s calculus that further repression would not be possible without these coalition partners buckling under pressure. So, the fact that he needed the support of members of parliamentary members of his own party, who, despite mostly being supine to Oli, must have been worrying about their own political futures after the brutal repression of the protests caused the public support for their party to nosedive. 

Of course, I hear the chorus saying that Oli wouldn’t have been elected if we had a directly elected executive. Probably, but the problem goes beyond Oli as an individual, as there have been countless examples of initially popular leaders going on to reveal and develop authoritarian tendencies. The very definition of dictatorship is the concentration of power without checks and balances. So, of course, reducing the supervision of checks and balances, which is primarily a legislative function (it not only elects or controls the executive branch but confirms judiciary appointments in most democracies), can be the bedrock of budding authoritarianism. A strong parliament, in control of the executive branch, acts as a bulwark to such despotism as power in this most powerful body is divided among hundreds of MPs. Again, this isn’t to imply that democratic backsliding isn’t possible in a parliamentary process, but rather, more difficult to do so due to this dissemination of power. 

The other important consideration would be the impact on the election process itself. The character, quirks, personal beliefs, and relationships of the Presidential candidates fill large chunks of political columns that ideally should be filled with policy discussions. This prevails in the parliamentary system too, but becomes more prominent during candidate-centric elections rather than party-centric elections. During candidate-focused elections, qualities that gain preponderance are charisma and oratory skills; qualities that people wrongly value in political leaders. 

Likewise, this is likely to foster racism and battering of minorities more. In all political systems, an effective way to gain a devoted following is by appealing to and fostering prejudices. Sadly, thanks to a physiological phenomenon called negativity bias (things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one’s psychological state and processes than positive things), people are attuned to respond with greater emotional intensity to things like fears, prejudice, anger, etc. This means that by arousing or responding to people’s prevailing feelings of particular groups, usually minorities, power-hungry rulers can garner a devoted following. This is a tremendously common phenomenon: Trump’s appeal to fears of a shrinking white majority, Modi’s incitement of fear against Muslims, and the Burmese military’s demonizing and cleansing Rohingya by portraying them as perpetrators of all evil are among the countless examples of this. The sheer effectiveness of this means it has been used by rulers and wannabe rulers of all shades and systems. However, there is an added incentive to use this heinous tactic for directly electable presidential candidates. While political parties have an incentive to garner the broadest possible constituency to garner a larger number of seats, presidential candidates can effectively get away with winning at best 51 percent of the votes. This is the reason why Trump eagerly chose to ride the tide of white nativist fears, despite alienating a broader sector of minorities. Colored people weren’t his targeted constituents. 

Spare a thought about how this could potentially play out in an ethnically diverse country like Nepal with low education and literacy rates. In a country where our brothers in Tarai have been portrayed by the ruling elites for centuries as “Indians” and “dhotis” and have these notions firmly hammered in the sentiments of the general public. Where prejudice and stereotypes exist regarding various ethnicities and castes. Where reactionary voices used the incident of a Dalit woman not getting rent as a platform to question affirmative action. Where wide-ranging frustration, unemployment, poverty, patriarchy, and deeply rooted social injustices prevail, leaving a fertile ground for a wannabe charismatic dictator. 

So what would be a solution then? Surely, after the GenZ movement, the general populace is in no mood to digest another musical chair of endless government change, revolving around a few party heads?

There could be solutions that have been tried before, with a few innovations added from our side. We could have something similar to the Swiss model, where a group of seven leaders is elected as co-presidents or members of the federal council. Their majority decision, four or more out of seven, could be considered as a decision from the executive.  If a nominal head of state is needed, these seven co-presidents would take turns being so, with each member being a head for the duration of their total mandate divided by seven. We could add further tweaks to this by mandating proportional representation from marginalized groups and gender in this council of co-presidents. 

If we absolutely want one directly elected head of state, assuming that constitutional change could be made,  their powers could still be tempered by having a directly elected executive prime minister, with the president, elected by the parliament, still remaining the nominal head of state. In those cases, power for strong measures like declaring an emergency and dissolving the parliament(insofar as permitted by the conditions described by the constitution) would require the approval of both,  and in such situations, the authority of the president could be extended to make an active judgment, beyond rubber-stamping decisions. 

But even in the situation where we end up with a single directly elected executive, we should be cognizant of its potential consequences and must have our systems of checks and balances fortified. Provisions like the directly elected executive not having the power to dissolve the parliament, needing to defer to the parliament for major actions like declaring emergencies or mobilizing the military, are a must. There are strict provisions of control of the purse by the parliament, as well as requirements for approval of both chambers of parliament for appointments across the judiciary and other governmental agencies like CIAA, NRB, etc. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but an attempt to nudge the conversation towards this direction, instead of potentially sleepwalking towards it. 

So, given that concentration of power is a tremendous risk, more so in a fragile democracy, how and to what extent we should be disseminating democratic power to prevent this has been and is likely to be a pressing issue for quite a long time. While we are on this matter, it should be remembered that expanding democracy should go way beyond electing a head of state, and even elections themselves. Yes, we should absolutely advocate for more direct democracy, more referendums on federal levels, and more participatory democracy, as well as referendums on local levels. Even more than that, we should be having conversations about truly disseminating economic and political clout by giving workers more power over their workplaces and the generated revenue, and by giving communities control over their local resources. The most important check on concentrated power would likely be a citizenry equipped with its own economic power, platforms, resources, and economic as well as political incentives to engage politically. How, if, and when it would be possible would be a different debate, beyond the scope of this article. But what I do seek to implore through this article is to orient our conversations in that direction, instead of, or at least a lot more than, conversing about characters and peculiarities of political parties and their leaders.

The author graduated from Fudan University with a master’s degree in World Economy