Presidents above Parties? : Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power 9788021078024, 9788021066878

Citation preview

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES ? VÍT HLOUŠEK ET AL.

In last two decades, most countries of Central and Eastern Europe have witnessed an ongoing development of democratic governance, and have thereby acquired a status of stable democracies. Current economic crisis however challenges the traditional position of various political actors and may lead to further personalisation of politics. This development can be observed also in a shifting position of president in other than presidential political systems – a phenomenon that has not been sufficiently analysed yet. We can observe how certain strong political personalities overstep their constitutionally de�ned powers and interfere signi�cantly in the political process. The aim of the book is to �nd out whether we can trace an increasing engagement of presidents in everyday politics in selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. If so, the authors will try to �nd out, what the causes of their increasing engagement are, how it is manifested and whether it is caused by the president’s personality or rather by a changing structure of political opportunities that provides presidents with room to manoeuvre. The country chapters were written by distinguished experts in the �eld. The book contributes in a substantial way to our knowledge of the political systems of the countries of so-called Eastern Enlargement of the EU, to the debate on political systems in general, and to discussion on role of strong political personalities.

International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University Mezinárodní politologický ústav Masarykovy univerzity

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES ? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power VÍT HLOUŠEK ET AL.

ISBN 978-80-210-6687-8 International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University Mezinárodní politologický ústav Masarykovy univerzity

M U F  S S I I  P S — M S V. 56

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power

VÍT HLOUŠEK ET AL.

MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE BRNO 2013

The publication of the book has been financially supported by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Czech Republic office

Scientific Board of Masaryk University: prof. PhDr. Ladislav Rabušic, CSc. Mgr. Iva Zlatušková prof. RNDr. Zuzana Došlá, DSc. Ing. Radmila Droběnová, Ph.D. Mgr. Michaela Hanousková doc. PhDr. Jana Chamonikolasová, Ph.D. doc. JUDr. Josef Kotásek, Ph.D. Mgr. et Mgr. Oldřich Krpec, Ph.D. prof. PhDr. Petr Macek, CSc. PhDr. Alena Mizerová doc. Ing. Petr Pirožek, Ph.D. doc. RNDr. Lubomír Popelínský, Ph.D. Mgr. David Povolný Mgr. Kateřina Sedláčková, Ph.D. prof. MUDr. Anna Vašků, CSc. prof. PhDr. Marie Vítková, CSc. doc. Mgr. Martin Zvonař, Ph.D.

Pre-publishing review: Tim Haughton

© 2013 Masarykova univerzita © 2013 Vít Hloušek et al.

ISBN 978-80-210-6687-8 (brožovaná vazba) ISBN 978-80-210-7802-4 (online : pdf)

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations ............................................................................7 List of Tables ........................................................................................10 List of Figures ......................................................................................11 List of Contributors ............................................................................12 Acknowledgements.............................................................................17 V H 1 Heads of State in Parliamentary Democracies: e Temptation to Accrue Personal Power.....................................19 L K  J M 2 Different Confessions, Same Sins? Václav Havel and Václav Klaus as Czech Presidents......................31 G D – A G – A H 3 Weak but Not Powerless: e Position of the President in the Hungarian Political System....................................................77 P S – A S 4 e Guardian of the Chandelier or a Powerful Statesman? e Historical, Cultural and Legislative Determinants of the Political Role of the President of Poland .......................... 101 P S 5 Slovakia: In Search of Limits.......................................................... 121 A K  D L 6 e Chameleonic Character of the Slovenian Presidents of the Republic ................................................................................. 143

6

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

R T 7 e Presidency in the Republic of Estonia .................................. 167 D A 8 Seven Democrats and a Dictator: Formal and Informal Powers of Latvia’s Presidents ................... 191 A K 9 Lithuania’s President: A Formal and Informal Power ................ 205 B C 10 e Role of the President in Bulgarian Politics: e Veto as a Tool for Legitimation? ............................................ 233 S G 11 Formal and Informal Powers in a Semi-Presidential Regime: e Case of Romania ....................................................... 257 V H 12 e Political Role of Presidents in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Some Tentative Conclusions.....271 Summary ........................................................................................... 293 References ......................................................................................... 295 Name Index....................................................................................... 309

7

REFERENCES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BBWR

Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem) (interwar Poland)

BBWR

Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms (Bezpartyjny Blok Wspierania Reform) (Wałęsa)

BSP

Bulgarian Socialist Party (Българска социалистическа партия)

CBOS

Public Opinion Research Center (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej)

ČNB

Czech National Bank (Česká národní banka)

ČSSD

Czech Social Democratic Party (Česká strana sociálně demokratická)

DPS

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Движение за права и свободи)

Fidesz

Alliance of Young Democrats – Hungarian Civic Union (Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége – Magyar Polgári Szövetség)

FSN

National Salvation Front (Frontul Salvării Naţionale)

GERB

Citizens for a European Development of Bulgaria (Граждани за европейско развитие на България)

HSĽS

Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (Hlinkova Slovenská ľudová strana)

HZD

Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko)

KDNP

Christian Democratic People’s Party (Kereszténydemokrata Néppárt)

KDU-ČSL Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People’s Party (Křesťanská a demokratická unie – Československá strana lidová)

8

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

KSČ

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa)

KSČM

Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy)

LCS

Lithuanian Centre Union (Lietuvos centro sąjunga)

LDP

Liberal Democratic Party (Liberalų demokratų partija)

LDDP

Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija)

LDS

Liberal Democrats of Slovenia (Liberalna demokracija Slovenije)

LLS

Lithuanian Liberal Union (Lietuvos liberalų sajunga)

LSDP

Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija)

MDF

Hungarian Democratic Forum (Magyar Demokrata Fórum)

MSZP

Hungarian Socialist Party (Magyar Szocialista Párt)

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NDSV

National Movement Simeon the Second (Национално Движение Симеон Втори)

NS/SL

New Union / Social Liberals (Naujoji sąjunga (socialliberalai))

ODA

Civic Democratic Alliance (Občanská demokratická aliance)

ODS

Civic Democratic Party (Občanská demokratická strana)

OF

Civic Forum (Občanské fórum)

PCPR

Presidential Council of the People’s Republic (Hungary)

PDL

Liberal Democratic Party (Partidul Democrat Liberal)

PiS

Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość)

PO

Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska)

PRL

People’s Republic of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa)

PSL

Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe)

9

REFERENCES

PZPR

Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza)

SaS

Freedom and Solidarity (Sloboda a solidarita)

SDK

Social Democratic Coalition (A. Brazausko socialdemokratinė koalicija)

SDĽ

Party of Democratic Le (Strana demokratickej ľavice)

SDS

Union of Democratic Forces (Съюз на демократичните сили)

SLD

Democratic Le Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej)

SLS+SKD Slovenian People’s Party + Slovene Christian Democrats (Slovenska ljudska stranka + Slovenski krščanski demokrati) SNS

Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana)

SOP

Party of Civic Understanding (Strana občianskeho porozumenia)

SR

Slovak Republic (Slovenská republika)

SZDSZ

Alliance of Free Democrats (Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége)

TGM

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

TOP 09

Tradition, Responsibility, Prosperity 09 (Tradice, odpovědnost, prosperita 09)

TS(LK)

Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives) (Tėvynės sajunga (Lietuvos konservatoriai))

US

Union of Freedom (Unie svobody)

VPN

Public Against Violence (Verejnosť proti násiliu)

VV

Public Affairs Party (Věci veřejné)

10

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Simplified summary of the forms of government and head of state in Hungary ....................................................... 78 Table 2: Elections of presidents in Hungary 1990–2012......................... 99 Table 3: Constitutional and political vetoes in Hungary (according to the political affiliation of the presidents and the cabinets) .......................................................................... 100 Table 4: Legislative initiatives of the Presidents of Poland in the period 1989–2012 ............................................................. 111 Table 5: e use of the presidential right of legislative veto and referrals to the Constitutional Tribunal............................ 113 Table 6: Public opinion on the presidents of Poland (1989–2013) ..... 118 Table 7: What political construction should be applied in Poland? ... 118 Table 8: President Gašparovič’s use of suspensive veto......................... 135 Table 9: Rejections of the laws .................................................................. 175 Table 10: Abridgment of the speeches ....................................................... 182 Table 11: e mechanism of presidential elections ................................. 188 Table 12: Latvia’s Presidents......................................................................... 196 Table 13: Constitutional powers of the president .................................... 214 Table 14: Presidents of the Republic of Lithuania and their party affiliations .......................................................... 217 Table 15: Confidence in institutions in 2005 ............................................ 251 Table 16: Method of electing the president and his/her relationship to the government and parliament............................................ 274 Table 17: Transformations of political regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, 1918–1945.............................. 283

11

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Formal and informal activity of the presidents in Hungary .................................................................................... 86 Figure 2: Presidential speeches – domestic and abroad........................ 181 Figure 3: Attitudes towards and trust for the President in comparison with the attitudes towards and trust for the Parliament and Government in 1993–2007 .............. 183 Figure 4: Trust for the President in comparison with the trust for the Parliament and Government in 2011 ......................... 185 Figure 5: Number of vetoes per legislature............................................. 244 Figure 6: Types of amended bills.............................................................. 245 Figure 7: Assessment of the work of G. Parvanov 2001–2008............. 252 Figure 8: Assessment of the work of G. Parvanov 2008–2011............. 252 Figure 9: Assessment of the government NDSV-DPS (2001–2005)................................................................................. 253 Figure 10: Assessment of the government BSP-NDSV-DPS (2005–2008)................................................................................. 253 Figure 11: Assessment of the government BSP-NDSV-DPS (2009–2011)................................................................................. 254 Figure 12: Media attitude-President Parvanov March-November 2010 ............................................................. 254 Figures 13 and 14: Media attitudes in the newspapers ............................ 255

12

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS D A – Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Latvia. He received his Master’s from the London School of Economics; PhD from University College London, was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published widely on the comparative politics of the Baltic States, with a particular focus on political parties, most recently the spread of radical right populist parties in the Baltic region. His book on the Comparative Politics and Government of the Baltic States will be published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2014. B C – PhD candidate /teaching assistant at the Centre d’études de la vie politique (CEVIPOL) at Université libre de Bruxelles (Free university of Brussels), Belgium. Her research focuses on Populism and political parties in Central and Eastern Europe and especially in Bulgaria. Her Phd thesis is on the Right-wing populist parties in Bulgaria and she has published several articles and chapters on populism and political parties in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe, in Southeastern Europe journal, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, the Slovak Journal of Political Science, Europeana review among others. G D – junior research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Political Science, Centre for Social Sciences) and lecturer of the Corvinus University of Budapest. He is primarily interested in the local politics and local leadership in Hungary. At the Institute he is a member of the ‘Election Pledges and Public Policy in Hungary’ research team. S G – post-doctoral research fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Political Science, Goethe University Frankfurt. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Leiden University. His research interests lie in political parties, the politics of representation, legislative and voting behavior, and democratization and democratic innovations (in particular, direct democracy). His authored or co-authored works have been published in American Journal of Political Science, Comparative European Politics, Con-

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

13

temporary Politics, East European Politics, East European Politics and Societies, European Political Science, European Political Science Review, European Union Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Legislative Studies, Party Politics, Perspectives on European Politics and Societies, Problems of Post-Communism. A G – research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Political Science, Centre for Social Sciences). His fields of research are the intersections of language, rhetoric and political theory and the political theory of Carl Schmitt. At the Institute he is a member of the ‘Election Pledges and Public Policy in Hungary’ research team. V H – head of the International Institute of Political Science, associate professor at the Department of International Relations and European Studies of the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. Vít devotes his attention to the problems of comparative politics and contemporary history of Central European countries. He is an author of numerous books and papers devoted to these issues, among others Origin, Ideology and Transformation of Political Parties. East-Central and Western Europe Compared (with Lubomír Kopeček, Ashgate 2010) and Party Systems in East Central Europe (with Ladislav Cabada and Petr Jurek, Lexington Books 2014). A H – lawyer and political scientist, research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Political Science, Centre for Social Sciences); assistant professor at the Faculty of Public Administration, National University of Public Service, Budapest. He is primarily interested in the party systems of the Visegrad countries. At the Institute he is a member of the ‘Election Pledges and Public Policy in Hungary’ research team. L K – deputy head of the International Institute of Political Science, and associate professor at the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, the Czech Republic. His current main research interests are political parties and Czech politics. He is author or co-author several books including e Age of Innocence. Czech Politics 1989–1997, 2010, in Czech), Origin, Ideology and Transformation of Political Parties. East-Central and Western Europe

14

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Compared (with Vít Hloušek, 2010, in English), e Phenomenon of Václav Klaus. Political biography (2012, in Czech), and many journal articles. A K – associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and researcher in the Centre for Political Science Research. Her research interests encompass political parties, political participation, electoral studies, democratic transition and politics in post-Yugoslav region. She is an author or co-author of numerous articles, books and chapters in edited books devoted to these issues. A K – professor and director of Policy and Public Administration Institute, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania. Main areas of research interests: comparative politics, public policy, political parties and elections, research methods. Among his main publications are Lithuania’s Seimas Election 1996. Analyses, Documents and Data (2001), Lietuvos politinė sistema [Lithuanian political system] (2004), Valstybės tarnyba Lietuvoje [Civil service in Lithuania] (2007), Semi-presidentialism in Lithuania: Origins, Development and Challenges, in Elgie R. and Moestrup S. (eds., 2008) Semi-presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe, Manchester University Press, La Lituanie, in De Waele and Magnette (eds., 2010) Les democraties europeennes: Approche comparee des systemes politiques nationaux, Armand Colin, Citizens’ Initiatives in Lithuania: Initiative Institutions and eir Political Impact in New Democracy, in Setala M., Schiller T. (eds., 2012) Citizens’ Initiatives in Europe: Procedures and Consequences of Agenda-Setting by Citizens, Palgrave Macmillan, Fluide Parteiensysteme in den baltishen Staaten. In Knodt M., Urdze S. (eds., 2012) Die politischen System der baltishen Staaten, Springer VS. Also he is leading European election study, European social survey, International social survey program in Lithuania. D L – associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, Head of Policy Analysis and Public Administration Chair, Jean Monnet Chair, and researcher in the Centre for Political Science Research. His research interests encompass public policies and policymaking processes in the national and EU context, new forms of governance in the EU, and democratic transition in post-Yugoslav region. He is an author or co-author of six books and numerous articles devoted to these issues.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

15

J M – assistant professor at the Institute for Political Studies, Faculty of Social Science, Charles University in Prague. He specializes in democratic transition, and constitutional and electoral systems in the regions of Central and Eastern Europe. He is co-author and editor of the book e Head of State in the Post-Communist Countries: From the Fall of Communism in 1989 to 2010 (in Czech, Prague, Charles University, 2011). As a commentator on Czech and foreign affairs he works with a number of print and electronic media outlets. P S – assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, the Czech Republic and a research fellow of the International Institute of Political Science. His research fields include elections, electoral systems and their reforms, candidate selection processes and Slovak politics. He is author of several books, chapters and articles. To his latest contributions belongs a chapter about Slovakia in Populist Political Parties in East-Central Europe (Masaryk University, 2012). P S – lecturer and deputy director of the Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wroclaw, Poland. His research specialties focus on political parties and industrial relations. He is author of numerous articles devoted to these issues. A S – holder of European Doctorate in Political Science (collaboration between Wroclaw University and VU University Amsterdam). Her academic interests centre on political systems, government and politics in Poland, relations between religion and politics and European standards of religious freedom. R T – MA, lecturer of Institute Government and Politics, University of Tartu. Author of two monographs – Political Parties of Estonia, 1999 and Political Parties of Estonia 2000–2010, 2011, both in Estonian. Editor of several collections of articles about parliamentary and presidential elections in Estonia and international relations, all in Estonian. Selected articles in English: Political parties in Estonia, in: A. Kulik and S. Pshizova, (eds), Political parties on Post-Soviet space, Praeger, 2005; Citizen electoral alliances in Estonia: citizen democracy versus cartel parties (with Vello Pettai and Elvis Joakit), in: M. Reisner, E. Holtmann (eds), Farewell to the Party Model? Independent Local Lists in East and West European

16

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Countries, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaen, 2008; Parliamentarism in Estonia (1918–1940) (with Andres Kasekamp), in: S. Radu&H-C. Maner (eds), Parliamentarism and Political Structures in East-Central and Southeastern Europe in the Interwar Period, Volume IX/2012 Studia Universitatis Cibiniensis.

17

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS e idea of exploring the political activities of Central and Eastern European heads of state arose in 2012, when it was already certain that the upcoming January election of the new Czech president, Václav Havel and Václav Klaus’s successor, would be direct. Although at that time it was still unclear who would stand for office, there were good reasons to believe that, like Havel and Klaus, the next Czech president would occasionally attempt to ‘shi’ the limits placed on his/her power by the constitutional definition of the presidential office. Discussions with colleagues soon pointed to a number of examples from other countries of the so-called EU Eastern enlargement where heads of state have played (or sought to play) important political roles. Gradually the idea emerged of elaborating this theme into a book, mapping the individual case studies and summarising the findings. We believe that such a book is a welcome addition to existing studies concerning a president’s systemic role in various types of political settings and the measurement of presidential power. is book could not have appeared without the efforts of many people, and I would like to express my gratitude to them here. At the time the above-mentioned discussion unfolded my main partners in the dialogue were Lubomír Kopeček and Vratislav Havlík. When the broad discussion transformed into a book topic I benefited from the valuable experiences of Vlastimil Havlík and Aneta Pinková, who, the previous year, had taken on the role of editing a volume by an international team of scholars. A big thank you also goes to Lucie Mořkovská for her invaluable services in preparing the manuscript for publication. I am very glad to be able to thank Timothy J. Haughton, who took on the thankless task of reviewing the book and executed it in an excellent way. I also thank Štěpán Kaňa and Marni Kristin for editing the English. e book could not have been published without the aid provided by the Prague office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiung. For this help, but also for their long-term cooperation, I would like to thank its director Werner Böhler and Alena Falathová. But the greatest thank you goes to all the authors who contributed to this book by writing the individual case studies. Without their erudition and selfless interest in the topic, this book would never have appeared. Vít Hloušek, Brno, October 2013

1. HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER

19

1 HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER VÍT HLOUŠEK roughout the last two decades many countries in Central and Eastern Europe1 have witnessed the ongoing development of democratic governance, with the ultimate result that these countries have now obtained the status of stable democracies. ey no longer encounter the problems associated with post-communist transition, although they have new and unique challenges that they have to deal with arising from the present political situation. e current economic crisis is influencing the traditional position of various political actors and has the potential to drive a further personalisation of politics. is development can be observed in the shiing role of the president in the political systems that do not fall into the category of a presidential system; a phenomenon that to date has not been sufficiently analysed by researchers and commentators. is book has been published in the Czech Republic which justifies opening the debate with the recent Czech experience. e first directly elected Czech president Miloš Zeman tried to use the governmental crisis following the personal and political-criminal scandals surrounding Prime Minister Nečas in Sumer 2013 to increase his role in the Czech politics. Aer demission of Nečas’s cabinet, Zeman decided to appoint Jiří Rusnok as a prime minister which happened not only without broader consultations with parliamentary clubs but even despite clear message given by three strongest parliamentary parties that Rusnok’s caretaker cabinet “of experts” has no chance to obtain 1

We conceptualize Central and Eastern Europe in a working definition as a group of countries between Germany (part of Western Europe) and Russia (already a “pure” Eastern European country) including Central European countries, the Baltic States as well as the Balkan countries. We will reduce the scope of our attention even more in the following text to the countries that entered the EU in 2004/2007 period.

20

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

the vote of confidence in the House of Deputies. Zeman did not violate the Czech Constitution which states that when the government is voted down, president has two chances to designate the prime minister according his or her own will. It however violates the constitutional conventions and contradicts the logic of a parliamentary democracy with the government that shall be anchored in parliamentary majority. ere, as could be seen from the previous example, may be certain discrepancies between the formal2 and actual position of presidents in Central and Eastern European countries, especially those which are classified as parliamentary democracies and systems that have semi-presidential features.3 Constitutionally, presidents are normally endowed with symbolic functions and duties that are shared with the government (such as appointment of important officials), regardless of whether they are elected directly or indirectly. Governments are thus typically perceived of as being the dominant executive institutions. e influence of presidents in selected political systems is contingent upon, not only the letter of the constitution, but also historically rooted constitutional traditions, as well as the personal charisma and power wielded by specific presidents. We can observe how certain strong political personalities have overstepped their constitutionally defined boundaries and interfered significantly in the political process. ere may be various reasons for such overstepping of the limits defined in the relatively weak formal authority afforded to presidents. Sometimes, for example in the case of Poland or the Czech Republic, the country’s tradition plays an important role in this. Another consideration may be that general discontent with the existing political parties may lead to a general preference for a stronger president. Presidential powers might also be reinforced by the personalisation of politics, typically in a period of democratic transition when political parties and other bodies are not firmly embedded in the public consciousness. But such personalisation remains with us 2

3

See table 16 in the 12th chapter to see a survey of presidential powers in countries that are covered by the country chapters of this book. Using examples of Lech Wałeşa and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Frances Millard (2000) demonstrated convincingly that the clear decrease of formal constitutional powers of the president must not inevitably lead to lower influence on other political actors.

1. HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER

21

today, accompanying a marketisation of politics that is not limited to post-communist Europe.

Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe as part of their national executives As indicated above, those post-communist countries which underwent democratic transition aer 1989, have adopted parliamentary democracy as the root of their political system. e Central European countries in particular (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) approach a form of cabinet governance in which the real executive power is concentrated in the hands of the government and not the president (Taras 2007: 129–130).4 Ray Taras (2007) also argues that the political systems of many Central European countries tend towards a mixed type, employing elements of both presidential and cabinet governance. Unfortunately, he somewhat obscures the distinction between the individual types of governance. In his conception of ‘mixed governance’, Taras emphasises the political conflicts that occur when the president and the prime minister belong to opposite sides of the political spectrum. Examples of this include the Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) governments during Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s term in Poland, and the Czech social democratic cabinets during the presidency of Václav Klaus. Taras also identifies the characteristics of such mixed systems as present in pre-1997 Poland, as well as in Estonia, Latvia and Romania, describing the Lithuanian and Croatian systems as semi-presidential (Taras 2007: 131–134). However, there is a concern that Taras’ definition combines multiple levels of analysis into one typology. His approach encourages the evaluation of constitutional aspects alongside changing configurations of personal power in individual countries, and as such political tension may be mistaken for a redistribution of competency or power. In reality, the problem is more complex: in particular the definition of semi-presidentialism is not entirely satisfying. A semi-presidential political system, was first theoretically described on the basis of empirical 4

With the significant exception of Poland in the 1992–1997 period when the presidency was bestowed with some significant powers (see chapter 4 for details).

22

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

evidence from the French Fih Republic, and has since been applied to so many different cases, ranging from Portugal5 to the Russian Federation (White 1999)6, that it has become suspect as a uniform typology. e original definition of semi-presidentialism, proposed by Maurice Duverger in the late 1970s, is fairly vague and envisages: (1) a president elected by universal suffrage; (2) endowed with quite considerable powers; and (3) constitutes together with the government an executive dependent on the support of parliament (Duverger 1992: 142). e problem in terms of a universal definition lies with the president’s powers, and with the division of power and responsibilities between the president and the government. e amount of power held by the president, the government and the parliamentary majority respectively can vary depending on the current political configuration. During cohabitation, for example, a president’s ability to act independently can be obviously diminished by the necessity to reach a compromise with a government whose political orientation is different. Robert Elgie (1999b: 1–12) provides a clear overview of the various concepts of semi-presidentialism, showing both how Duverger’s (1992) conception remained unchanged, and the various ways in which he has been criticised. For Elgie (1999b) the root of the problem is in the vagueness of the criterion that within the framework of semipresidentialism a president must possess ‘quite considerable powers’. What exactly that encompasses is difficult to define, and the examples provided by Duverger (1992)7 do not clarify this, as the presidential powers in these countries vary significantly (this remains true even if we limit ourselves to what is enshrined in the constitution). Elgie resolved the issue by focussing on constitutional criteria, defining semi-presidentialism as a combination of a directly elected president with a government dependent on parliamentary support: “A semi5

6

7

Portugal’s political system could be described as semi-presidentialist only for the period before the early 1980s. e president’s authority has been weakened since that time (Colomer 2008: 191–194). Leaving aside the question of how democratic the Russian political system is, Russian political practice before, and especially aer, 1999 exhibits clear tendencies of presidentialism (cf. Nichols 1999 for the Yeltsin period; in the Putin era scholars have been more interested in how democratic the Russian regime is). Some authors describe the Russian political system as ‘superpresidentialism’ (Fisch 2000). Austria, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal.

1. HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER

23

presidential regime may be defined as the situation where a popularly elected fixed-term president exists alongside a prime minister and cabinet who are responsible to parliament” (Elgie 1999b: 13; Elgie 2011: 3). With regards to the group of countries that are the object of our interest here, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic (since 2013), Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia can all be classified as semipresidential states according to this definition. Only Estonia, Hungary, Latvia and the Czech Republic (before 2013) would qualify as parliamentary democracies. In this regard, we have to discuss the volume edited by Robert Elgie and Sophia Moestrup (2008a) devoted solely to the phenomenon of mezzo regimes in post-communist countries. In the volume, the ambiguous nature of semi-presidentialism in above presented definition is however shown in case selection8 as well as in differentiation between “highly presidentialised semi-presidentialism and the balanced presidential-prime ministerial semi-presidentialism” as two facets of a semi-presidential system. e authors are absolutely right showing that the neither “pure” parliamentary democracy nor “pure” presidential systems encompass the whole reality of post-communist institutional choices. On the other hand, the concept is stretched too much to have deeper explanation potential. We can therefore conclude that while Elgie (1999b) certainly solved one of the issues raised by Duverger’s (1992) concept, he in fact foregrounded another comparable one. is begs the question: what do all these political systems with directly elected presidents and a cabinet dependent on parliament have in common? Given the large number of states which are semi-presidential, according to Elgie’s definition (cf. Elgie 1999b: 14), the problem of their mutual incompatibility as systems, which was already present in Duverger’s (1992) examples, increases significantly. Bearing in mind Sartori’s ‘ladder of abstraction’ (Sartori 1970, reprinted in Collier and Gerring 2008), one cannot help thinking that the concept of semi-presidentialism, thus enlarged, ceases to fulfil its heuristic function. Several other definitions of semi-presidentialism have been attempted (for example Cheibub 2007, Pasquino 1997, Sartori 1997) but the semi-presidencialism as a kind of mezzo 8

e book covers Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

24

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

category remains very problematic one because it is usually an object to temptation to “stretch” the concept too far (Sartori 1970). e task of the present book is not to reproduce the discussion defining the semi-presidential political system, however. Rather, we wish to consider the attempts that have been made to valorise the role of the president in those political systems which tend to diminish or complicate it. Here it is important to highlight that the traits of parliamentary democracy prevail in all the political systems examined across the entire period considered.9 ere have been some attempts made to strengthen the role of head of state, and thus to move towards semipresidentialism – one could observe them in Poland in the first half of the 1990s (Kubát 2008) and, in rudimentary forms, also in Lithuania – yet these political systems have unambiguously shied towards parliamentary democracy, either by undertaking constitutional changes or by adapting their political practices. From the states examined comparatively in this volume, the only semi-presidential democracy in which the president enjoys a strong position in the political process is Romania which makes an interesting exception of Romania being the only clear example of semi-presidentialism in our sample of countries.10

Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe as strong political actors e fact that the constitution assigns limits to the presidential role does not mean, however, that presidents cannot be tempted, occasionally or 9

10

For discussion on institutional choices in Central and Eastern European countries see Malová and Haughton (2002: esp. 106–109). e president is endowed with comparatively substantial legislative power in Romania’s political system (cf. Metcalf 2000: 667). In his article which focused on measuring legislative and non-legislative presidential power, Metcalf also described Bulgaria, Croatia (during the era of Franjo Tuđman) and Poland as semi-presidential systems, whereas he considered the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia (before the direct election of president was introduced) and Slovenia as parliamentary democracies (Metcalf 2000: 679, Table 6). It should be added, however, that Metcalf relied on Duverger’s definition, or more precisely Shugart and Carey’s (1992) redefinition. e latter two resolved the problem of defining semi-presidentialism by rejecting the concept, speaking instead of president-parliamentary and premier-presidential transitional types. For examples of issues connected with measuring presidential power see Krouwel (2003).

1. HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER

25

systematically, to express their political will over and above that role. One example of this might be the relatively successful attempt by the Czech president Václav Havel to form a new government in 1997–98, aer the second coalition government led by Václav Klaus effectively disintegrated; Josef Tošovský was appointed the new prime minister as a result. Other examples include Lech Walęsa’s political activities in the first half of the 1990s; he tried to exert his will over the appointment of the ministers for defence, the interior, and foreign affairs, as well as becoming involved in setting the policies of these ministries. More recently, we might point out the conflict between Romania’s parliament and president Traian Băsescu, which culminated in an unsuccessful attempt to remove Băsescu from office in 2007 (the attempt was repeated in summer 2012, again without success). In the individual case studies, we will seek to explain these occasional or regular attempts to overstep the limits set on presidential power by the constitution, and the concluding chapter will provide their comparative evaluation. We would like to show the constitutional predispositions of pushing presidential powers behind the constitutional limits (such as unclear interpretation of ambiguous provisions and arrangements). Doing the particular case studies, we would especially like to demonstrate the fact that each real effort of a president to accrue more power stems from various combinations of his or her personal ambitions, skills, political embedment, and – last but definitely not least – a chance. Doing this, we implicitly suggest that any workable definition of political regimes (and especially that of mezzo semi-presidential regime) needs to add a dimension of informal power balance among the crucial political institutions to gain explanatory power. Here we must however limit ourselves to a few general comments. We have already mentioned the personalisation of politics, a trait not limited to contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, and one suggesting that the political potential of strong personalities is being revalorised at the expense of political ‘structures’, notably the political parties. e most common instance of a stronger role being played by personalities in electoral campaigns and in politics generally is the phenomenon of the presidentialisation of the prime minister’s position (Poguntke and Webb 2005). is manifests itself in the increasing importance attached to this position, both in the eyes

26

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

of the electorate, and in terms of the distribution of power within the government.11 Personalisation12 can also affect the position of those presidents who enjoy the advantage of being less dependent on the quotidian (and oen unpopular) party politics.13 ey can demonstrate their efforts to defend the interests of all citizens much more easily than other political leaders. ey can also be perceived by the political elites as potential mediators of political conflicts. In cases such as that of the departed Czech president Václav Havel, the notion of the president as a good ‘export article’, that is an appropriate, respected and well known representative of the country abroad, can also play a role. If the president and the government fall under one political banner, the role of the former can be strengthened by synergy, but even during cohabitation the president might valorise his position for precisely the opposite reason, serving as a counterweight to the governmental and parliamentary majority. All of these aspects are material to the attempts made by heads of state to strengthen their position, regardless of how significantly personalised politics generally is, but with regards to how prime ministers and other top politicians vie with presidents for political leadership. e main aim of the present book is thus to discover whether we can trace a tendency towards the increasing engagement of presidents in the everyday politics of selected Central and East European countries. If so, the authors will seek to ascertain the causes of this growing engagement, how it manifests itself and whether it is caused by the president’s personality or rather by the changing structure of political opportunities that provides the president with room to manoeuvre. In countries where the tendency to overstep constitutionally given 11

12

13

Tim Haughton (2005) has shown the specific formational influence exerted by the post-communist context in the reinforcement of personal leadership on the example of Vladimír Mečiar although, as omas Baylis (2007) points out, the position of prime ministers in Central and European Europe is comparatively weak and even Mečiar‘s power was constrained in some ways. As Gerd Meyer points out (2008: 38–41), personalisation can have various connotations ranging from a mere stronger role of leaders in political communication to patron-client relationships. Presidents generally do better in opinion polls than political parties (Aasland et al. 2012: 125).

1. HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER

27

powers, or to enhance presidential political influence, does not appear, we will try to find out why this is the case. Our aim here is not to provide a comprehensive explanation of the role played by a strong political personality – the president – in contemporary politics. Obviously we might question whether the best theoretical framework for such an explanatory endeavour would be rational choice theory, which considers particularly the personal preferences of the president, or whether historical institutionalism which analyses an individual’s actions in terms of the institutional memory of their office would be a better choice. We believe we do not have sufficient empirical data to undertake such a complex enterprise. More than a decade has passed since the appearance of the book Semi-Presidentialism in Europe edited by Elgie. Although excellent in both empirical and analytical terms, the book only deals with some of the countries analysed here, and developments since that time have delivered a wealth of interesting situations worthy of analysis. We therefore focus on detailed case studies accompanied with a basic comparative analysis. Although this analysis might stimulate a shi from the understanding of individual cases towards a more general explanation, this is not its primary ambition. Reading following chapters, the reader will find out that the tradition matters especially in cases with a strong president counter-balancing or “taming” power of political parties. e toolkit for pushing the limits is broad as well starting with over-extensive interpretation and execution of competences ascribed to president by constitution (such as suspensive veto, appointment competences, initiation of constitutional review) through informal power (mis)using of unclearly or imprecisely formulated articles of constitution (typically during the procedure of prime minister installation) to direct charismatic influence of the citizens.

Structure of the book and the individual chapters e goals stated above also inform the structure of the present book, which consists of nine case studies analysing selected Central and Eastern European countries and a concluding comparative chapter. e countries studied have been selected according to the following criteria: First, we limited ourselves to countries which have experienced

28

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

‘really existing socialism’ and where the democratic tradition is either absent or limited to a rather short period marred by many imperfections. We assume that the political traditions of the second half of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century may exert some influence on the roles currently played by key figures in the executives and their relative positions. Second, we only include countries that are members of the EU since the 2004 or 2007.14 ese two criteria led us to a selection of countries which can be usefully compared to produce results that are interesting not only in the regional context but also against the wider backdrop of the European Union. e list of countries taken into consideration in this book includes Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and two Balkan countries (Bulgaria and Romania). e situation in each country will be analysed in a separate case study. Each of these will outline the evolution of the political system and the development of the formal position of the president within the legal system, as well as the development of constitutional customs and the informal position of the president. e main goal of the analysis is to identify concrete personalities and those points in their careers when they broadened their political influence over and above the powers defined by the constitution; or when they penetrated the sphere of influence of other authorities (typically the prime minister). Finally, the results of the case studies will be compared and evaluated in the concluding chapter. In reference to the period before the establishment of the communist regime, a brief evaluation of the historical tradition of a strong or weak head of state will be provided at the beginning of each chapter. en a discussion will be opened concerning the type of political regime as laid down in the constitution (semi-presidential or parliamentary democracy), and the formal position of the president and its development aer 1989 will be attended to. e core of each chapter will analyse the informal position of the president and his/her power within the political system over time. e authors will focus on those presidents who have tried to extend the political influence and power of their office and analyse the circumstances of these efforts. 14

is is the reason why we exclude Croatia here.

1. HEADS OF STATE IN PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES: THE TEMPTATION TO ACCRUE PERSONAL POWER

29

e conclusions of each of the case study chapters will attempt to answer the following questions: What used to be, or are, the reasons for the successful expansion of the personal influence exerted by heads of state? Is it the political personality of the office holder rather than ‘structural’ reasons determined by the political system? Or is it the popular attitudes held towards politics and politicians? By answering these questions, the authors will evaluate the roles played by presidents in the political systems of their countries and the trends they follow. e concluding chapter will summarise these trends and analyse findings of particular interest.

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

31

2 DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS LUBOMÍR KOPEČEK AND JOSEF MLEJNEK e first direct elections for Czech president in January 2013 were accompanied by a major wave of public interest, as well as some remarkable moments. One of them was a debate that unfolded aer the victory of the le-wing candidate Miloš Zeman, over whether the president is able to remove the premier of an unpopular centerright government. e idea was encouraged by one of the winner’s main campaign slogans: “Stop this Government!” e Czech constitution says that the president “names and removes the premier and other members of the government” (Article 62). e majority of constitutional lawyers and political scientists argue that this act would represent an extreme and incorrect interpretation of the presidential powers under a parliamentary regime, and that this unfortunately-phrased provision does not correspond to the structure of constitution’s other articles. is produced a counterargument in the media and social networks that can be summed up as “the President is always right!” But unlike the introduction of direct presidential elections, this article of the constitution is no recent addition. It has been in force for two entire decades. is debate was reopened in a much more contentious form in the summer of 2013, when premier Petr Nečas resigned under a broadranging scandal. President Zeman, despite the opposition of the previous center-right coalition and with no agreement from the other parliamentary parties, named a “technocratic” premier from his own close circles, and some new ministers were people who had supported Zeman during the presidential campaign. is debate reveals two important aspects of the Czech political system. e first is the vague formulation of some of the Czech president’s powers, and concerns much more than just his powers over the

32

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

cabinet. Both of the Czech presidents elected by parliament, Václav Havel (1993–2003) and Václav Klaus (2003–2013), took advantage of this vagueness during their terms in office. But even more important is the unofficial, but semi-divine aura that surrounds the figure of the president in Czech society. Even before the introduction of direct elections, both these aspects contributed to the president’s powerful influence on the Czech political regime. is text begins by tracking the origins of the great but unwritten authority the Czech president enjoys. e key figure in this sense was the main architect of Czechoslovakia’s First Republic (1918–1938) Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, oen referred to simply as TGM. e usage reflects the public’s positive feelings towards the state Masaryk founded. is is why October 28, the date Czechoslovakia was proclaimed independent in 1918, is considered more important than January 1, when the independent Czech Republic formally came into being aer the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993. e Czech presidency naturally carried over from the Czechoslovak model; moreover, the last Czechoslovak president, Václav Havel, became the first president of the Czech Republic. Havel and his successor Václav Klaus were highly visible presidents. is, however, does not mean they behaved in the same way. Besides their differing concepts of the presidency, their actions were also affected by the changing social and political context. is chapter offers a combination of chronological and thematic accounts. Yet, the variety and scope of the issues they each faced requires us to be rather selective. In this limited space we can pick out only some of the moments in which the Czech presidents behaved as autonomous political actors, and describe how they chose to act upon their constitutional powers. Our goal is also to outline how their active style in office has, in certain situations, increased the weight of the presidency. is has laid the ground for efforts by the third Czech president to significantly expand the scope of his powers, beginning from the first months of his mandate when this text was being finalized. In this text we analyze not only the constitutional, but also the broader political conditions under which the positions of Havel and Klaus were strengthened, and the political conditions under which their strength was weakened. In our opinion there are more general conclusions that can be drawn which, even with the change to direct

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

33

elections, can serve as indicators for predicting the behavior of other holders of the office.1

President or constitutional monarch? In Vienna in 1918 the future Czechoslovak premier, social democrat Vlastimil Tusar, obtained for T. G. Masaryk, president of the newlycreated Czechoslovakia, the carriage that Emperor Franz Josef I once used to ride around the around the capital of the Hapsburg monarchy. Masaryk declined the gi. “Riding into a welcoming Prague, I used a democratic automobile, as I did not want to ride in an old gilded carriage characteristic of bygone times,” he wrote in his book World Revolution (Masaryk 1925: 445). e first Czechoslovak Republic is generally regarded as the fundamental turning point in modern Czech history. Conventional wisdom also holds that Franz Josef I, symbol of the Hapsburg monarchy, and TGM, founder of the new republic, were at opposite poles. ere is also the opinion that TGM was more like the “Queen of England” than the “President of America”. A closer look, however, reveals how inaccurate and one-sided these traditional notions are, and how little the mythology has in common with reality. Franz Josef I, while technically the penultimate Austrian ruler, was, in Czech historical consciousness, the last and most important Emperor and definitely no “Queen of England” in today’s sense of the term. His reign was long, from 1848 to 1916, and he personally embodied the historic trend towards constitutional limitations on absolutist monarchy. Nevertheless, even aer the constitutional development of the Hapsburg monarchy limited his powers, he was far from being a mere figurehead. From the end of the 1860s with the adoption of the so-called December constitution, we can roughly compare Franz Josef I to a president in a semi-presidential regime, one that actually wields 1

is text was written as part of the project “e Opposition Agreement: Context, Structure, and Impact on Czech Politics” (P408/11/0790), Grant Agency Czech Republic and “e Program of Development Branches of Science at Charles University – PRVOUK, No. P17”. We would like to thank Todd Hammond for translation of the chapter.

34

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

important powers, although the Emperor was not subject to being removed. Of course this is a very approximate comparison, as there is no space in this text for a more detailed analysis. Masaryk himself wanted to be a strong president, aer the American model, and the real wielder of executive power. He would name the ministers to the government himself, while parliament would merely debate and pass laws. e inspiration from the USA stemmed from his close ties to that country. Likewise, some documents from the exiled political representation defined Masaryk’s position in that spirit, albeit somewhat ambiguously (Klimek 1996: 16–17). Back home the tone was being set by politicians from the domestic parties, and indeed they produced an interim constitution designed to make the president a symbolic figurehead. e government was to be both nominated and approved by the parliament, while the president was not even allowed to speak on the floor of parliament. Ferdinand Peroutka, the country’s most famous journalist of the interwar period, wrote in his work Budování státu (Peroutka 1991: 162) that the president should “be given the first gilded chair in the auditorium”.2 Czech party leaders understandably had a major interest in maximizing parliamentary power, and were determined to make the president a mere symbol, without real power. “Should our republic want to adopt the American system, if it wants policy to be made by the president, I will fight against this as most unfortunate… I stand or fall on this – with all loyalty and sincere friendship to you,” wrote Premier Karel Kramář, one of the main opponents of greater presidential powers, to Masaryk in February 1919. e premier’s stance was strongly marked by the struggle for power between the two men. Kramář struck an interesting theme when he “begged and invoked” Masaryk to “remain above the clouds,” for “those of us who descend deeper into political life cannot prevent ourselves from being covered in mud and loss of the authority we so badly need” (Klimek 1996: 39). is was a clear effort to minimize Masaryk’s role in politics.

2

Budování státu (e Making of a State) is an extensive and still very much respected work, which examines the history of Czechoslovakia from 1918–1922 in detail. Citations and references come from the 1991 edition, the first aer the fall of communism.

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

35

Masaryk was no naïve moralist, and he knew very well that mere preaching and hectoring would help him but little. Although he understood that he would not be able to push through the American model, he had no intention of meekly accepting the purely parliamentary regime the Czech party leaders wished to force upon him. So he went on the attack, and managed to achieve a certain strengthening of presidential powers, first by constitutional amendment in 1919, then in the text of the new constitution of 1920. Czech presidents still possess some of these powers, such as the power to veto laws. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the constitution the office of the president was stronger under the Czechoslovak First Republic than today’s Czech Republic. Only the president could designate a premier, unlike under today’s Czech constitution: now, aer the president’s choice is twice unsuccessful in winning a vote of confidence in parliament, the opportunity is given to the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies (Article 68). Under the First Republic the president could even set the number of ministers, as well as “invite the government or its members to discussion”, and had the right not only “to be present” but even “to chair the meetings of the government” (Constitution 1920, Articles 82 and 83). e strongest of Masaryk’s powers, although he always used it with the agreement of the government and coalition party leaders, was the right to dissolve parliament. is was limited only by the stipulation that the president could not exercise this right within the final six months of his seven-year term of office (the Czech constitution strictly limits the president’s powers in this regard). Most of the president’s powers required a co-signature, but Masaryk’s informal authority oen “superseded” more than one provision of the constitution. Masaryk tended to interpret the constitution quite broadly, and no one much dared oppose him. One of the constitution’s creators, Jiří Hoetzel, wrote in 1929 that “All of this is explained by the great respect given to the first president, but it may set an unfortunate precedent for his successor” (Klimek 1996: 70). Masaryk, known by his informal title as the “President Liberator” and to the people as the “Little Father”, a man of Providence who brought a downtrodden nation freedom and national sovereignty, thanks to his great natural (and almost “supernatural”) authority, would probably have become an active and influential president even without formal powers. Here are two examples: first, under the First Republic’s

36

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

constitution the president could not be elected more than twice in a row, but a notable exception was made for Masaryk himself, to whom no limits applied. He would be elected president four times: in 1918, 1920, 1927, and 1934. Example two: on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 1930 parliament passed a special law consisting of the following brief text: “T. G. Masaryk served his country.” e continuity of the Czech presidential tradition has been carried forward to recent times, reflected in similar resolutions praising the president: in 2004 when the Czech parliament honored Masaryk’s successor Edvard Beneš, and again in 2012 when Václav Havel was similarly “canonized” (both posthumously).3 Masaryk built his image, or “cult of personality”, quite consciously. He gladly posed for dozens of painters (Klimek 1996: 87), oen having himself depicted on a horse, like a general, but with a “democratic” cap – a “Masaryk” – on his head instead of a crown. Likewise indicative was his approach to the symbolism of buildings. A typical example was the selection of the “feudal” Prague Castle, the ancient seat of Czech kings, as his own residence (Klimek 1996: 85–86). us the real center of power under the First Republic was Prague Castle, known in shorthand as simply the Hrad (Castle). It was a non-formal power based on extra-constitutional procedures, on personal influence, and on friendly journalists, some of whom were actually paid directly out of the president’s pockets; or on officials from the “castle factions” of the various parties, whom he oen obliged by helping them out of some “delicate” situation, sometimes with a not-inconsiderable financial contribution. e Castle became Czechoslovakia’s main symbol of stability and security, and it retains this status in the Czech national consciousness today. As they say, you can put a scarecrow on the throne at the Castle, and the people will bow to it. e Czech presidency still has much more to do with emotion and mythology than with rationality. Despite all the republican rhetoric, it remains a monarchical institution, which we also see in the president’s powers of pardon and amnesty. ese powers are controversial in Czech society, partly because presidents have used them quite oen. 3

In Havel’s case the formulation was slightly different, with the passage mentioning his service “for freedom and democracy.”

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

37

Nevertheless, this remnant of the monarchy remains part of the presidency to this day.

A well-founded tradition At the end of 1935, the year of his eighty-fih birthday and in declining health, Masaryk abdicated. He had worked tirelessly to anoint his chosen successor, Edvard Beneš, who was destined to become a tragic figure when the Munich Accords (1938) put an end to the First Republic. During World War II Beneš served as president in London, a national leader respected by the representatives of the parties. He returned in triumph in 1945 to a restored Czechoslovak state. Most of the public, and many officials of the democratic parties, except for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), continued to see Beneš as a strong head of state, a national leader who would make the gravest political decisions, and use his authority to uphold the democratic regime. is reliance on the president was fatally misplaced. In February 1948, the ministers of the democratic parties submitted their resignations from a government headed by a communist. ey expected Beneš to reject them, and hoped thus to deprive the communists of influence. But the ailing Beneš, lacking any strong backing, proved unable to stand up to the Communists, who did not hesitate to use the extra-constitutional means at their disposal. is overestimation of the president’s authority proved to be one of the most important factors in the communists’ success. e power of the presidential tradition, and its conscious use by the communist bosses, made Czechoslovakia something of an exception within the Soviet bloc: the functions of the president were preserved, even as the Soviet model of a collective head of state was being adopted in most of the other countries. Only in Romania in 1974 did Nicolae Ceauşescu award the office of the president to himself, and at the end of the communist era Mikhail Gorbachev made himself Soviet president: the first and last holder of that office. e unofficial power of the presidency, still linked in historical consciousness to TGM, was well understood by Václav Havel, whose election as Czechoslovak president in December 1989 became the symbolic, “crowning” moment of the Velvet Revolution.

38

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

In the eyes of most Czechs, the president connects the present with the past, and the profane with the sacred. us elections for Czech president have continued to summon up deep emotions. Also, both of the presidents elected (indirectly) aer 1989, Václav Havel and Václav Klaus, showed strong tendencies to broadly interpret their constitutionally-defined powers. TGM le them at least one more bit of advice. Historian Antonín Klimek cites from Masaryk’s archive: e president must be “a strong personality, who… is able to assert his authority even where he has no direct powers… He is the head of state – this should be more than just decorum; in fact it is his mission. But this mission needs its man” (Klimek 1996: 18).

The Czechoslovak presidency of Václav Havel: an attempt to revive the tradition in grand style e events of the Velvet Revolution placed Václav Havel in a situation he had never known as a dissident. He had to take on the role of a real politician; that is, someone who addresses a broad spectrum of the population. His existential concept of public activity was that of “living in truth”, or so-called “non-political politics” based, to put it very briefly, on “the practice of morality”, “living in truth”, and rejecting politics as the “technology of power” (Havel 1978 /1990). But this was quickly and unexpectedly replaced by demonstrations in the streets and the struggle for power, both with the departing communist regime, but also within the anti-regime coalition, where euphoria aer the fall of communism was intertwined with the growing ambitions of groups and individuals. It was a politics that was deeply political, and was, in fact, revolutionary. In November 1989 Havel became a star (though not the only one) of mass demonstrations, and the leading figure of the new Civic Forum (OF) movement. But when it came time to transform popular support into real power, the new tribune of the people cut a deal with Marián Čalfa, a flexible, relatively young and able minister in the last communist government. Čalfa became the new Czechoslovak premier in early December 1989, and Havel would be president. Havel thus fended off possible attempts at “counter-revolution” by forces of the old regime, as well as competition for the presidency. Havel’s main competitors

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

39

were former communist premier Ladislav Adamec, and the symbol of the 1968 Prague Spring Alexander Dubček.4 Čalfa used his position to “persuade” the members of the Federal Assembly (the Czechoslovak parliament), of whom the vast majority were communists, to vote for Havel. anks to his long workings in the belly of the old regime, Čalfa possessed a great deal of experience and inside knowledge, and proved himself as Havel’s useful and loyal ally. Historian Jiří Suk (2003: 249) succinctly described Havel’s way of thinking about the presidential election: “If we can bend the Federal Assembly to our will, we can make use of it even in its current composition; this will be a lot easier than we thought.” At the end of December 1989, in a vote still criticized by many, the parliament unanimously elected dissident Václav Havel as president. e election was held publicly, by acclimation, under the watchful eye of television cameras. According to a number of authors specializing in democratic transition, the best arrangement is an alliance between the moderate opposition and the liberal (pragmatic) wing of the non-democratic regime (Dvořáková – Kunc 1994: 61). In that sense the union of Havel and Čalfa was ideal. Although it fully corresponded to the “optimum transition scenario,” there remains a bad aertaste in Czech society to this day. And the question keeps recurring: was it worth it? Was it necessary? At the time of his first election Havel maintained that he would hold the presidential office only temporarily, until the first free elections in June 1990. He changed his mind before long, however. Besides personal ambition, there was a great deal of pressure from all sides as Havel, thanks to his great renown abroad, was regarded as the only politician capable of adequately upholding the dignity of the presidential office. His re-election in the summer of 1990 was no longer unanimous: this time the vote in the first democratically-elected parliament was secret. Nevertheless Havel won. Václav Havel was definitely much more than a ceremonial presidential figurehead. He grew accustomed to the role of informal leader of the OF, and in practice had the most say in key political decisions 4

Another factor working against Dubček was the unwritten rule that if the premier was Slovak (as Čalfa was), then the president must be a Czech. But Dubček was Slovak, and therefore, went the argument, someone else must be chosen.

40

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

(Jičínský 1993: 128, Suk 2003: 428). e Čalfa government was in fact a presidential cabinet. is made it all the harder for Havel to reconcile himself to the gradual weakening of his influence as the institutions and bureaucracy of the new regime took root. Aer the first free elections in June 1990 the federal (Czechoslovak) and republic (Czech and Slovak) parliaments and governments took on ever-greater influence, having gained their new legitimacy in democratic elections. Havel again installed the loyal Čalfa as federal premier; thanks to the OF’s electoral victory and that of its “sister” organization in Slovakia, the Public Against Violence (VPN), he still had a strong political base to work from. Nevertheless the gradual sorting out of various currents and groups continued, and the new president’s influence weakened accordingly, even more so as a result of the breakup of the OF and the VPN. Formal rules began to take on more importance, at the expense of informal influence. e president soon had to deal with the problems of democratic partisanship, as well as the everyday forms of advancing his political will by means of negotiation and the endless pushing of laws and regulations through the back halls of parliament, the committees, and the bureaucratic jungle of ministries and other offices. But Havel found this laborious and basically boring type of political decision-making deeply odious. On the second anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, November 17, 1991, Havel attempted to draw on his informal authority for the last time. In a speech to parliament he proposed a series of legislative measures he wanted to have passed. He proposed an expansion of presidential powers that would allow him to call a referendum, enable him to dissolve the federal parliament if it became deadlocked, and would give him the power to issue decrees (legal regulations) until new elections could be held. e president, by profession a playwright, not only chose a symbolic date for his speech, but in an emotional appeal tried to re-invoke the spirit of November 1989. Likewise symbolically, in his speech he addressed the citizens, and not parliament, directly, saying “Politicians are more interested in the instructions of their party leaders than in my proposals and actions, and are beginning to go around in circles” (Havel 1992: 118). Havel’s motivation for this move was the deepening crisis in Czechoslovakia. Around the time of Prague Spring the communist constitution of 1960 underwent extensive changes, resulting in the creation of

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

41

a federal state. Until 1989 it was a federation in name only – the real center of power was the leadership of the Communist Party. Under the new democratic regime, however, this unwieldy federal model soon became a problem, greatly exacerbated by the growing distance between the Czech and Slovak polities, and the atomization of the party spectrum aer the breakup of the OF and VPN. Under the 1960 constitution the president had only limited constitutional powers, and was even accountable to parliament, which made him at least formally nothing but an extension of that body (Gerloch et al. 1999: 51). is was one of the consequences of copying the Soviet model, the so-called government by assembly, under which the principle of the division of powers was explicitly rejected. e President did not even have the power to veto laws, but was required to sign them as they were passed. One of the president’s few powers anchored in the communist constitution was the right of legislative initiative, which Havel used conspicuously, unlike his communist predecessors. In November 1991 Havel’s call for civic mobilization brought thousands into the streets, although only in the Czech lands and not in Slovakia, and created some pressure – but only for a short time. In the end it had little tangible effect, and instead brought on bitter criticism that the president had overreached his powers and sought to evade democratic parliamentary mechanisms. In late 1991 and early 1992 the Federal Assembly rejected every one of the president’s proposals (Rychlík 2002: 182–184). Havel proved unable to defuse the Czech-Slovak tension. e results of the parliamentary elections in 1992 greatly accelerated the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and Havel realized that the state founded by Masaryk was nearing its end. He surprised many by stepping down as president at the end of July 1992, three months before the end of his term in office, aer he failed to win reelection by the federal parliament.5 Coming out especially strong against the president was the winner of the elections in Slovakia, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia and its chief Vladimír Mečiar, who accused Havel of trying to drive him 5

e term in office of the first democratically elected parliaments (federal and national) in 1990 was set at only two years, on the argument that the party spectrum was not yet sufficiently established. Even the presidential term was only two years.

42

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

from politics. Almost immediately aer his resignation, Havel turned his full attention to becoming president of the new Czech Republic (Stein 2000: 224, Kopeček 2010: 150).

The formal position of the Czech president and the founding personal configuration e constitution adopted in December 1992 established a Czech new state, one that displayed many of the characteristics of a parliamentary regime. e fact was, however, that nowhere in the constitution was a parliamentary regime mentioned. In Article 1 the Czech Republic was generally described as a “sovereign, unitary, and democratic country of laws”. However, until the third Czech president, Miloš Zeman, took office in 2013, the political consensus was that this was a regime of parliamentary character, and this was the opinion that predominated in academic literature (e. g. Gerloch et al. 1999: 172, Filip 2003: 204, Hloušek 2008), even if there were some dissenting views that mainly pointed to the tendency towards competition within the executive (Klíma 2004, Kysela 2006). e prevailing opinion was based on the structure of the constitution, which does not conceive of the president as the head of the executive body. e cabinet is accountable to the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, and must win a vote of confidence at the outset. To take office the cabinet needs a majority of deputies in attendance, while a no confidence vote requires a simple majority of all representatives. e Czech system displays other features of a parliamentary regime such as parliamentary oversight of the government, and permits a deputy or senator to simultaneously serve as minister in the government. e limited importance of the head of state is further underlined by the fact that the president is not accountable to any other body, and according to the constitution. e decisive role of the premier in the executive body is reflected in the constitutional provisions for naming and removing ministers. e president names and recalls ministers upon the recommendation of the premier. e constitution does not permit the president to name or recall ministers without the premier or to go around the premier and nominate his own candidate. e premier’s position is further

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

43

strengthened by his major role in assembling the government. Until 2010 the constitutional custom was that the premier is the chairman of the party who wins the elections, and that he is the main determiner of the county’s domestic and foreign policies. His resignation means the immediate fall of the government. Co-signature by the premier or one of his ministers is required for many of the president’s actions (naming judges, generals, receiving ambassadors, awarding state decorations, etc.), or the agreement of some other body. In the case of constitutional judges, they are nominated by the president but must be approved by the upper house of parliament. To better understand the powers of the president we must take a closer look at the circumstances under which the Czech Republic’s new constitution was written. It was drawn up quickly, over the course of a few months aer the parliamentary elections of June 1992, in expectation of the breakup of Czechoslovakia and the creation of a new state. e constitution was prepared by a commission set up by the Czech government; nevertheless, in its final form it adopted the proposal of the opposition parties to require a three-fihs majority in order to adopt the constitution, in what was then a unicameral national parliament. One of the new constitution’s most controversial institutional aspects was its provision for an upper house of parliament, the Senate; the Senate was finally implemented aer a long delay, but with very weak powers. It called for regional governments, which were finally implemented (and not very well) in the late 1990s; it also anchored in law the element of direct democracy (Výborný 2003).6 ere was a fair consensus to give the president relatively weak powers; nevertheless, some of the disputes over this were the result of personal dynamics among the founders. Havel was the only serious presidential candidate at the time, almost predestined to take the office; he was popular and had great public authority. His candidacy was supported by most of the moderate opposition on the le, as well as by the government of Václav Klaus, head of the largest formation on the right, the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). Like the rest of the political elite 6

e constitution does not rule out the use of direct democracy, but makes it conditional on the passage of a special constitutional law, which to this day has not been passed, mainly due to the objections of the ODS.

44

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Klaus was well aware of what an asset Havel’s international renown could be for the new state. us Václav Havel, the official candidate of the governing coalition, was, at the end of January 1993, elected president of the new Czech Republic. Havel’s election can be seen as a typical “marriage of convenience.” e relationship between Klaus and Havel was far from idyllic, and weighed down by their recent conflict over the direction of the OF. Klaus had won the battle of over the OF, founded the ODS on its remnants, and the ODS went on to win the 1992 elections. Equally important was that the two men presented very different visions of politics and society, and the conflict between these two visions strongly affected the Czech environment during the transformation (and posttransformation) era. Klaus saw the fundamental prerequisite for the creation of civil society in a functioning market economy, and in creating the conditions for free competition between political parties. In Klaus’s perspective the free market and the party system were the key institutions of a democratic regime. Klaus bitterly denounced the former dissident Havel’s concept of “non-political politics.” Havel eventually stopped referring to the concept, but the moral (and moralistic) core of his ideas remained the same. is was reflected in his appeal for a moral dimension to economic transformation, and his emphasis on civil society. According to Havel, civil society cannot be identified with the market alone, but represents its own social sphere that exists apart from both the market and the state. Havel still tended to minimize the role of parties in democracy, although he no longer rejected them explicitly (Havelka 1998, Frič 2001, Myant 2005). Nor did Klaus and Havel hit it off on a personal level: the pragmatically-thinking and egocentric economist had little in common with the older, freethinking and sometimes bohemian intellectual. As the constitution was being drawn up, Klaus saw a danger that the power center would again coalesce around the president at Prague Castle as it had during the OF era, in the tradition dating back to TGM. e premier therefore strove to limit presidential powers as much as possible. is was notably reminiscent of the situation at the founding of Czechoslovakia, and the relationship between Masaryk and Kramář. For example Klaus tried to have removed from the proposed constitution the president’s powers to veto laws, negotiate international trea-

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

45

ties, and request information from individual ministers.7 e premier curiously defended his move by saying “it’s not cutting things out; it’s improving the constitution” (Klaus 1992). In December 1992, the Czech parliamentary committee on constitutional law declined to strike these presidential powers from the dra constitution. In an irony of history, Václav Klaus himself was elected the second Czech president ten years later. Even so, under the Czech constitution the presidential veto is designed to be very weak. To overrule it requires a simple majority of all deputies; i.e. 101 or more in the two-hundred-member lower chamber. In most cases this dooms the president’s efforts to block a law. Partly for this reason, Havel seldom used his veto in his ten years in office, doing so only 24 times; of these, the Chamber of Deputies overruled him 20 times (Chrastilová – Mikeš 2003: 121–220 a 453–509).8 His presidential successor Klaus was much more active in this regard, using the veto 57 times; in only 11 cases did the lower house fail to override him. is statistic is somewhat misleading, however, because during the time Klaus was in office the number of laws passed by parliament increased significantly. Havel, however, made extensive use of another constitutional power, the power to file complaints with the Constitutional Court against the unconstitutionality of a law (15 complaints); taking this route he was oen successful. Klaus as president almost never made use of this power, which was related to his reservations toward the Constitutional Court which, instead of being the “final stop” for many laws, he accused of becoming a “third chamber of parliament.” In writing the new constitution Havel was very emphatic that the president should have the right of legislative initiative as the Czechoslovak president did, but he was not heeded. His interests were shown in an outline for a constitution written by him in August 1992, on which he consulted with some members of the government team preparing the constitution. ese actual writers of the constitution displayed 7

8

According to Klaus’s proposal in the fall of 1992, the president would have the power to veto only constitutional laws, and could ask only the government as a whole for information. is refers to the number of vetoes, not the number of vetoed laws. In some cases the president used one veto for a pair of laws that were submitted and passed together. ese cases are counted as one veto.

46

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

a willingness to listen to Havel’s ideas.9 Havel, unlike Masaryk under the constitution of 1920, lacked the instruments of formal presidential authority that would have allowed him to directly shape the basic law of the state, but as an important “private individual” he was able to exert (limited) influence indirectly (Němeček 2010: 78–102). Also worthy of mention is one aspect, the consequences of which became clear only with the passage of time: the constitution’s brevity. e writers of the Czech constitution wanted to create a relatively short document (Filip 2003: 132), but with the passage of time this resulted in major battles over interpretation of some of its articles. is can be seen in some selected cases that will be placed in political context later in this article. One is the removal of ministers. e constitution does not say how much time the president has to remove ministers and name new ones. e head of state, namely Václav Klaus as president, made creative use of this gap to influence matters and advance his own agenda. e argument that he should always recall a minister immediately upon recommendation of the premier did not cause the president to hurry on this issue. Likewise, in forming a government the constitution simply states that the prime minister is named by the president, leaving both Czech presidents with plenty of room to maneuver. Another example is the president’s role in ratifying international treaties: to this day there is no consensus whether the constitution means that the president may or must sign a treaty (Molek 2010a: 756–761).

Václav Havel and new beginnings in the new republic e configuration of personalities was a main determining factor in shaping the first years of Havel’s presidency. According to Klaus’s view, Havel should represent the state abroad, but not be the one to determine foreign policy; and in domestic policy he should not intervene at all. In practice this was the concept that prevailed, given the ODS’s strong position as the dominant party in the governing coalition, and the weak powers of the presidency; the premier and president oen clashed, but mostly on the rhetorical level only. At that time, when 9

Havel’s idea for the constitution can be found in Chrastilová – Mikeš 2003: 371–389.

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

47

there was at least a somewhat stable majority in parliament, Havel was mainly limited to verbal commentary, intermittent criticism of the situation, and to reprising his traditional themes of human rights, responsibility for the world, criticism of party politics, and support for his ideal of civil society. Perhaps his most influential vehicle was the regular radio program Conversations from Lány, which he had previously used as Czechoslovak president to comment on events in the republic. Lány was the location of a Baroque chateau not far from Prague that served as the president’s official summer residence. TGM spent a great deal of time there, and the chateau was strongly linked to him in the historical consciousness; thus the name of Havel’s radio program hearkened deliberately to the Masaryk tradition. It was also deliberately reminiscent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats. e political instability following the 1996 parliamentary elections, brought a relative change aer Havel’s several years in office. Premier Klaus’s ODS came out ahead in the voting, but together the parties of the governing coalition, the ODS along with the liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) and the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU-ČSL), held only 99 seats in parliament, just under what they needed for a majority.10 Finishing behind the ODS in second place was the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) led by Miloš Zeman, which won over a quarter of the vote. e social democrats focused on lower income groups who felt themselves harmed by the continuing economic changes. Zeman’s campaign vocabulary was very aggressive, saying he would “go for the government’s throat.” e other parties to get into parliament were the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), and the far-right republicans led by populist Miroslav Sládek. Together the communist and the republicans held forty seats (one fih of the parliament), but because of their political extremism, making them part of any government coalition was unthinkable (Strmiska 1999, Kopecký 2006). erefore the key to forming the government was in the hands of the social democrats, the only other democratic party in parliament 10

e ODA was quite close in terms of program to the ODS, but were critical of Václav Klaus’s alleged authoritarian tendencies. Before the 1996 elections the coalition included a small Christian Democratic Party, which soon merged with the ODS.

48

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

aer the ODS, ODA, and KDU-ČSL. Václav Klaus wanted Václav Havel to authorize him to set up a government as soon as possible, to give him a stronger negotiating position. But Miloš Zeman tried to talk the president into setting up a kind of round table with the leaders of all the democratic parties, a feature hearkening back to the democratic transition of 1989. Zeman tried to sell his idea to the president with a remarkable argument: “My opinion is that now it is possible to renew the authority you had in the early Civic Forum. is moment will not come again”; so Miloš Zeman encouraged Václav Havel in post-election discussions – the moment was caught on camera by documentary filmmaker Pavel Koutecký, and is part of one of the most fascinating scenes from his full-length documentary Občan Havel [Citizen Havel] (Koutecký, Janek 2008). A round table would of course strengthen the position of the ČSSD leader as well. e round table was finally held at Prague Castle a few days aer the elections, to the great displeasure of Václav Klaus (who nevertheless attended). e format also suited the two smaller parties of the previous (and potentially future) governing coalition, the KDU-ČSL and ODA. e social democrats agreed to the continuation of the existing coalition, but with conditions. ese conditions were the subject of long and complex negotiations, which concluded in a vote of confidence for Václav Klaus’s second, minority government, a vote made possible by having the social democrat deputies walk out of the chamber, thus lowering the necessary quorum. In exchange the ČSSD was given the post of Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies for its party chairman Miloš Zeman, as well as other important posts in parliament, and some policy changes in the program statement of the new government. e 1996 elections strengthened the position of President Václav Havel, as the new political arrangement gave him more room for maneuver. Moreover, public opinion credited the president with playing a constructive role in solving the post-election situation.

The “Sarajevo Assassination” and the Tošovský cabinet Another situation in which Václav Havel could, in the words of Miloš Zeman, “renew his authority” came around sooner than predicted, when the second Klaus government fell in late 1997. At the end of

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

49

November 1997, finance minister Ivan Pilip and long-time interior minister Jan Ruml called for Klaus to step down while the premier was away visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. e two ODS politicians issued their challenge in the wake of scandals around the party’s financing. Klaus’s fall became known as the “Sarajevo Assassination” (Hanley 2005). ere were other reasons besides financial scandal for the fall of the second Klaus government, including its weakness as a minority government, the serious economic problems facing the country, and power struggles within the governing coalition and the individual parties. Economic difficulties and political instability were blamed more and more on Václav Klaus himself, and calls for him to resign grew louder. We have no space here for a more detailed analysis of the “Sarajevo Assassination”, but to summarize: aer the KDU-ČSL and ODA le the governing coalition, Václav Klaus resigned as premier, the government fell, and the ODS began to break apart. e core around Klaus found itself socially and politically isolated, and emotions ran high. Havel’s role in the political intrigue surrounding the fall of Klaus’s government and the formation of a new government became a target for criticism by some politicians, especially from the ODS, as well as some political commentators who accused the president of being part of a widespread conspiracy to do the Klaus government in. e existence of such a conspiracy cannot be proven, but Havel certainly welcomed Klaus’s fall, and subjected the “fallen” premier to withering public criticism, while retaining great hopes for the new political situation. Havel’s biggest attack on Klaus came at the so-called Rudolfinum Speech in early December 1997.11 Without naming Klaus directly, he criticized Klaus for placing too much emphasis on economics, blaming him for the corruption and embezzlement that accompanied the economic reforms of the 1990s. Vaclav Klaus was in attendance, and as the television cameras recorded, he was the only one in the audience who did not applaud. e enmity between the two men deepened greatly. Aer the fall of the Klaus government, Havel further expanded the array of broad practical interpretations of constitutional procedures by 11

e speech is named aer the building where the speech took place, the Rudolfinum in Prague. Today, the building serves as a concert hall, but it has a great political tradition as well – it was the seat of Parliament during the First Republic.

50

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

informally entrusting KDU-ČSL chairman Josef Lux to lead a series of discussions which were to result in a new government. In other words, Havel did not charge Lux officially with assembling a government; he simply asked a leading politician to sound things out and prepare the ground. e constitution made no provision for such informal negotiations – but it did not forbid it, either. Lux’s job was merely to identify someone who could be a new premier, and outline a new cabinet. Václav Havel was criticized for circumventing the constitution; nevertheless, this step can also be interpreted merely as an inventive approach to solving a political crisis. While the goal of some of the actors in the government crisis of late 1997 (president Václav Havel, and KDU-ČSL chairman Josef Lux) was probably to achieve an arrangement that could last until regular parliamentary elections in 2000, still they could not find enough political support (Fiala and Hloušek 2003: 31). At an extraordinary congress of the ODS in mid-December, Václav Klaus successfully defended his position as chairman. e group centered on Jan Ruml, Klaus’s opponent in the struggle for party leadership, who le the ODS and founded the new Union of Freedom (US). e ODS’s parliamentary caucus split up, too, losing almost half of its members to the new party. But the groups supporting the formation of a new government, i.e. the KDU-ČSL, the ODA, and those ODS deputies who were headed to the US, did not have a majority in parliament. A government was finally formed under Josef Tošovský, previously governor of the Czech National Bank (the central bank), but because the ČSSD had no interest in supporting the government over the long term, it was agreed the cabinet would be a temporary measure only. It was a government stocked partly with politicians and partly with non-partisan ministers. e First Czechoslovak Republic used the term “technocratic cabinet” for a government composed of ministers who were not members of any party. is was an instrument used in times of political crisis, with a major role in its formation being played by the president. Such governments were headed not by politicians, but by non-partisans with a professional reputation; thus the role was more oen filled by nonpolitical professionals (university professors, economists, civil servants, etc.). Although Tošovský himself fit the parameters of the “technocratic” premier, his cabinet ended up being more semi-political than purely technocratic. e technocratic government has no basis in the

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

51

Czech constitution, even though Havel advocated for it in his proposed constitution of 1992, precisely for use in political crises. At the end of January 1998 the Tošovský government won the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies, but only thanks to support from the ČSSD, which consented on the condition that the Tošovský government would be a transitional solution only, with the goal of leading the country until early elections in June 1998 (Novák 2004: 328). is government was very badly received by the ODS. By the beginning of 1998 the stage had been set for what would become the “Opposition Agreement”, which was itself an expression of opposition to the main forces behind the Tošovský government: against the Castle, the KDUČSL, and US. e socio-economic divide that had been the focus of competition between right and le, and between the ODS and ČSSD in particular (Deegan-Krause 2006), now gave way to a conflict over the role of the larger and smaller parties, as well as that of the presidency, in the country’s political life. us the previous conflicts between Havel and Klaus over the nature of politics and civil society came to a head. e status of the president in the Czech political system at that time resembled what we find in a brief description by Leonardo Morlino of the status of the Italian president, an indirectly-elected and mainly ceremonial head of state: “In Italy the president played a more important role during the transformation period of 1992–1994, when president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro named two governments, one led by Giulani Amato, the second by Carlo Ciampi, without having secured a clear parliamentary majority in advance. Disputes, conflicts, and above all the disintegration of the traditional parties (the Christian democrats and the Socialists) gave the president the opportunity to play a much broader political role” (Morlino 2001: 62–63). A regular presidential election was held in the tense social and political atmosphere of late January 1998. Havel was backed mainly by the parties that formed the Tošovský government, and by part of the ČSSD as well. But this time he was only elected in the second round; as the deputies and senators from the ODS probably withheld their votes to express displeasure with Havel’s attacks on Klaus and his party. e precise political composition of Havel’s support cannot be determined, however, as the voting was secret. e result of the election was relatively foreordained, given the absence of a moderate opponent. Havel’s only competitors were candidates of the far le and radical right.

52

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

The situation after the 1998 elections and the making of the “Opposition Agreement” e early elections of June 1998 were won by the social democrats with nearly a third of the vote. In accordance with the now-established constitutional custom, the president charged Miloš Zeman with putting together a government, but without yet formally naming him as premier. e election result offered several different scenarios for a resolution. A right-wing coalition of ODS, US, and KDU-ČSL would have had a slim majority in parliament, but relations between these parties now made this virtually impossible, given the way the KDUČSL had come out against the ODS since 1997. e US was created when the party opposition to Klaus split away; naturally the chairman and the remaining ODS leadership saw the actions of the US’s founders in late 1997 as a betrayal. For its own part the US leadership now set unacceptable conditions for any coalition with the ODS, including Klaus’s virtual retirement from high politics. Interparty antagonisms were inflamed by high emotions. Another possible combination aer the 1998 elections was a majority coalition of the ČSSD, KDU-ČSL, and US. Lux, chairman of the KDU-ČSL, wanted this, as did President Havel, who put intense pressure on US chairman Ruml with whom he had close relations dating back to their days as dissidents. However, all the ideas and proposals for some kind of participation by the US in a government, either by becoming part of a governing coalition, or supporting a minority ČSSD government, foundered on the indecisiveness and refusal of the US leadership, particularly Ruml, for whom Miloš Zeman was simply an unacceptable partner. As interior minister from the ODS Ruml had been the frequent target of Zeman’s hard attacks, and in the election campaign of 1998 the chief of the social democrats actually accused him of allegedly hatching a conspiracy while he was still a member of Klaus’s government. e KDU-ČSL meanwhile rejected the idea of joining a minority ČSSD government without the US, fearing that such a government would be dependent on the communists (Nováček 1998: 23, Fiala and Hloušek 2003: 35, Novák 2004: 330). Lux called on Ruml to lay aside his “ideological pose”, but in vain (Houska 1998: 1). Not even a proposal for a coalition between the ČSSD, KDU-ČSL and US with ministers

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

53

distributed in the ratio of 8:4:4 (even though the ratio of seats in parliament was closer to 4:1:1) with Lux as premier, could make Ruml agree to join a governing coalition. e inability of the social democrats and the US to come to an agreement laid the groundwork for an agreement between the ODS and ČSSD that came to be called the “Opposition Agreement”.12 e ČSSD formed a minority government with the assistance and tolerance of the ODS. e agreement included respecting the right of the election winner to form a government, not to call a vote of no confidence against this government, and promote changes in the rules of political competition to benefit the big parties.13 e goal was to make the workings of the Czech party system more like that of British two-party system. In return the ODS received various parliamentary and oversight posts, including Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies for Klaus. e civic democrats also welcomed the chance to occupy positions on the boards of state agencies and state-owned companies, although the agreement made no mention of this. From the beginning the arrangement was sharply criticized not only by the KDU-ČSL, US, and the president, but by many journalists and intellectuals, important shapers of public opinion who called it a “power cartel” constraining democracy. Havel’s first reaction was to question the constitutionality of the “Opposition Agreement”, and he vowed to take his time naming the ministers; but aer a few days he backed off and named Zeman as premier along with the ministers proposed by Zeman for the new government (Havlík 2011: 59–60, Kopeček 2012a: 101). Havel strongly objected to the agreement, and was one of its major critics the entire four years. But because the “Opposition Agreement” was made by parties that together had a large majority in parliament, all Havel could do to prevent the formation of a minority ČSSD government backed by the ODS was to delay it. e constitution gives the president the first two tries at naming a new 12

13

Its full name was the Agreement to Form a Stable Political Environment in the CR, signed on July 9, 1998. e exact formulation was more diplomatic. Both sides agreed to submit “a proposal for such changes to the Constitution and other laws that will more precisely define the powers of the individual constitutional organs, their manner of establishment, and in accordance with the constitutional principles of the Czech Republic strengthen the importance of the results of competition between the parties.”

54

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

premier, but if both those governments fail to get the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies, then according to the constitution the third attempt is in the hands of the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, who happened at that time to be Václav Klaus. Klaus would clearly give the government to Zeman. Eventually Havel, bowing to the inevitable, reluctantly acquiesced. e “Opposition Agreement” can be regarded as a clear political defeat for the president. is was partly due to the fact that the parties behind the Tošovský government earned only a fih of the mandates in the 1998 elections, while the ČSSD, which had conditionally supported the Tošovský government, was considered an unacceptable coalition partner by the US. e “Opposition Agreement” was also a reaction to the increased influence of the president on domestic politics in the period 1996–1998, which the big parties, the ČSSD and ODS, saw as a threat. It pushed the president into a limited role, with only one (very effective) weapon remaining: the Constitutional Court (another presidential weapon – the veto power over laws – was eliminated; the chamber of deputies overrode practically all the president’s vetos). In connection with the “Opposition Agreement” we must now take a closer look at one other topic: the most far-reaching attempt to alter the powers of the president that had yet been made in the Czech Republic.

The failed effort to make the president into a mere “wreathlayer” e debate over Havel’s role was the driving force behind an effort by the ČSSD and ODS to more clearly define and limit the constitutional powers of the president. It was part of a broader project of constitutional reform that concerned other areas as well; but the proposals for altering presidential powers were among the most radical. e president was to lose, among other things, the right to name members of the central bank council; these would instead be named by both chambers of parliament and the government (in three equal parts). Another proposed change was to lay out in detail the method and process of naming a government, whether aer elections or during the course of the electoral term; the president was to be stripped of his autonomy

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

55

in that area (Šimíček 1999, Kysela 2004). e head of state would wind up very much like his German counterpart; that is, as a mere “wreathlayer”, a figurehead president. However, these sweeping constitutional changes failed to make it through the upper house of parliament in 2001, for in the meantime the ČSSD and ODS had lost a set of interim elections, and thus the three-fihs majority in both houses needed to change the constitution. e loss of a constitutional majority also meant that electoral reform would have to consist of changes to the existing election law, for which a simple majority in both chambers was sufficient. Because Article 18 of the Czech Constitution stipulates that proportional representation be used for elections to the Chamber of Deputies, a proposal was floated to modify the existing proportional representation system and give the large parties a weighted advantage (Lebeda 2004). At the urging of the president, this change was rejected in most of its key provisions by the Constitutional Court in early 2001. ere is no room here for a more detailed analysis of the dispute, but it was summed up briefly by constitutional scholar Vojtěch Šimíček: “e Constitutional Court, which rejected the challenged provisions of the electoral law, did not do so because it was at odds with the principle of a democratic state of laws, but because in the final effect it ran counter to the constitutionally-stipulated principle of proportional representation” (Šimíček 2001: 290). e decision represented the president’s greatest success against the parties of the “Opposition Agreement.” Václav Havel, with the help of the Constitutional Court, managed to defend one of the strongest presidential powers, that of naming members to the Bank Council of the Czech National Bank at his own discretion, including the governor and vice-governors. From the end of 2000 through to mid-2001 a struggle was waged over the naming of the governor and vice-governors, and over the institution’s independence. In November 2000 President Havel named Zdeněk Tůma as governor and Luděk Niedermayer as vice-governor. is brought a harshly negative reaction from premier Zeman, (then-) chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Klaus, and previous governor Tošovský (who resigned from his post in the fall of 2000). is very emotional dispute crossed the line into personal attacks, joined even by the president’s wife, Dagmar Havlová (Kubík and Slonková 2001: 4, Skočdopole 2000: 28). e government argued that the Constitution gives the president the

56

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

right to name, without co-signature, members of the bank council, but makes no mention of its governor or vice-governors (who are chosen from the bank council) – these are mentioned only in the law on the Czech National Bank. According to the government’s interpretation, therefore, the naming of the governor and vice-governor did in fact require co-signature (Hrstková 2000: 3, Matulík 2001: 11). e government based its argument on another passage in the constitution according to which the president is authorized to exercise powers that are not explicitly set forth in the constitution if a law so stipulates. But in that case a decision by the president, the government argued, requires according to the constitution the co-signature of the premier or another authorized member of his government. With this argument the government turned to the Constitutional Court. During the same period the parliament passed a new law on the Czech National Bank designed to limit the independence of the central bank, in part by requiring the president to nominate the governor, vice-governor, and other members of the council based on the government’s recommendation. Václav Havel challenged this law before the Constitutional Court, arguing that this change cannot be made by the simple lawmaking process, but only by altering the constitution. In both cases the Constitutional Court decided in favor of the president, reaffirming his right under the constitution to name not only the members of the Bank Council, but its chief officers as well, without co-signature. Václav Klaus reacted to this by calling the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic the “Constitutional Court of the President” (Leschtina 2001: 4).14 (It is indicative that aer Klaus himself took office as president he chose to stick to this decision, making nominations to the bank council on his own, and likewise without consulting other constitutional institutions). From the standpoint of the constitutional and political system, the president’s challenge of the electoral law and the amended law on the central bank were two of the most important issues brought before the Constitutional Court by the president. Václav Havel was generally very successful with his complaints to the court, though it is difficult 14

Under the constitution the justices of the constitutional court are named by the president, but with the consent of the upper house of parliament, the Senate. Klaus’s statement reflects the emotions swirling around the entire cause.

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

57

to produce exact statistics in that regard: for the constitutional court oen backed the president on some of the points of a particular case, but not all.

Václav Klaus and the Social Democratic premiers e 2002 elections brought victory to the ČSSD, which formed a coalition with the KDU-ČSL and US; but this coalition had only a bare majority of one vote in parliament. For Václav Havel this outcome was probably optimal. He entrusted the victorious party’s chairman Vladimír Špidla with forming a government, and did not complicate the process by interfering (Mrklas and Sokol 2003: 169–171). By this time his second term in office was coming to an end.15 e surprise winner of the presidential elections at the start of 2003 was Václav Klaus, thanks to the loyalty of the ODS, the disunity and lack of discipline among the social democrats and the entire government camp, and last but not least to the willingness of some communist electors to support him. e era of Klaus’s presidency featured constantly unstable governments of chronically short duration. erefore we will focus only on the most interesting cases of the president’s interaction with the various governments. e first government crisis occurred in the spring of 2004, when aer a catastrophic showing in elections to the European Parliament the already-fragile position of party chief and premier Špidla collapsed, and under a wave of pressure he resigned. e ČSSD quickly agreed on a successor, first vice-chairman Stanislav Gross. Klaus respected the results of the parliamentary elections of 2002 and charged Gross with forming a new government. He thus kept the promise he made during the presidential election in exchange for the votes of some social democratic electors. e president placed some conditions of his own, however. He wanted the government to be a majority government, and to win a vote of confidence without the support of the communists (Klaus 2004a). Ostracism of the communists, who are regarded as the living remnant of the communist regime, has been 15

Under the constitution the president can only serve two terms consecutively. e constitution does not rule out a president coming back aer the five-year term of another president and running for the office again.

58

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

de rigueur in Czech politics since the beginning of the 1990s, and so the president could rely on public support – the willingness of some communist electors to elect him did not make him change his stance. e signatures of at least 101 deputies on the document supporting the government were to be the assurance that the government would not rely on the support of the communists. With this demand, which of course was without basis in the constitution, the president visibly demonstrated who was calling the shots. Initially Gross had not ruled out cooperation between the ČSSD and the communists, which would have given him a comfortable majority. e previous government with its bare majority had been shaken when two deputies from the US said they would be unwilling to support the new Gross government, and finally they le their party’s parliamentary caucus. Nevertheless Gross gave in to Klaus’s demand, and by gaining one deputy formerly with the ODS and with the surprise resignation of one of the rebellious US deputies, whose replacement was inclined towards the government, Gross got his 101 signatures. Klaus named Gross as premier at the end of July, 2004; the deputies voted in favor of the new government, and the existing coalition continued on with a new premier (Brunclík 2008: 291–293). e government coalition began to fall apart at the beginning of 2005 due to the scandals of the new premier related to the uncertain financing of his apartment and the business activities of his wife. For the Christian Democrat KDU-ČSL the revelation that Gross’s wife’s business partner was a woman who owned a house being used as a bordello was unacceptable. In this situation the Christian democrats demanded Gross’s resignation and the continuation of the government with yet a new premier, which the ČSSD rejected. Ministers from the KDU-ČSL responded by resigning, but Klaus did not accept their resignations for fear a reconstructed government would rely on the votes of the communists. As the president had said before, he might have to ponder over the proposed new ministers “for sixteen months” (Menschik 2005); that is, until the next scheduled elections. Again this was an approach that took a very broad view of the president’s constitutional powers, and Klaus reaped criticism from the social democrats for going beyond his rights. is criticism intensified as a result of his very active shaping of the political situation. Right aer Gross’s government survived a vote of no confidence called by the

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

59

ODS, and only because the communists were willing to abstain, Klaus himself called for a new vote of confidence; otherwise he would refuse to accept the resignations of the KDU-ČSL ministers (Bek 2005). In a vote of confidence (as opposed to a vote of no confidence) the communists would have to actively support the government; and it would not save the government this time to abstain. In this way Klaus put the pressure on Gross, because it was unlikely that the KSČM, despite its longtime goal of breaking out of political isolation, would agree to openly support a discredited premier. Over the course of the crisis the president made the analogy to the communist takeover aer World War II. From the beginning of the crisis he evoked parallels with February 1948, pointing out that at the time “the People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and other ministers submitted their resignations and expected that President Beneš would not accept them, that it would just be the signal for another reshuffling of the government. ey were terribly mistaken then” (Klaus 2005). At the height of the crisis he made veiled references to mobilizing the population against the communists. As Klaus’s secretary Ladislav Jakl put it, “the president may employ not only all constitutional measures. He is not a meaningless figure; he has a certain role and weight. He is prepared to use it all” (Korecký 2005). Soon thereaer Gross began to lose support within his own party, and announced his resignation as premier. e result of months of government crisis was the nomination of a new social democrat premier, Jiří Paroubek, who later also replaced Gross as ČSSD chairman. Otherwise the composition of the government remained unchanged. During the crises with both the Špidla and Gross governments, Klaus was very active. But he did not attempt to install a government of people close to him, as Havel had during the crisis of 1997 when he set up the Tošovský government.

The new ODS chief versus the old In the parliamentary elections of June 2006, the social democrats and communists won half of the seats. e ODS, KDU-ČSL, and Greens won the exact same number. Both the KDU-ČSL and the Greens preferred to work with the ODS, now led by Mirek Topolánek. Before the

60

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

elections Topolánek and Paroubek, to drum up enthusiasm among their supporters, both ruled out any post-election government cooperation between them, or anything similar to the “Opposition Agreement” of Klaus and Zeman of 1998–2002. In this atmosphere, forming any government with a chance of winning a vote of confidence in the chamber of deputies proved to be extraordinarily difficult. Aer the elections the president hung back for a long time; he only authorized the leader of the victorious party, Mirek Topolánek, to form a new government. But the standoff in negotiations between the parties could not be overcome, and the Chamber of Deputies, to which no leaders could even be elected given the situation, ceased to function for some time. e lack of a broader agreement was demonstrated by an attempt to gain support in parliament for a single-party government of the ODS under Topolánek in September 2006. For the first time in the history of the Czech Republic, a government failed to win a vote of confidence in parliament. e president sharply criticized one “solution” that began to crop up more and more oen in political discussions: to flip individual deputies from one bloc into the other, and form a majority in this way. As Klaus said, this would confirm “the most horrible suspicions (…) of political corruption in this country” (Balšínek and Korecký 2007). e quality of a vote of confidence based on a set of turncoats would be completely different in the president’s eyes than the quality of a government based on elementary political agreement; actually, it would not be confidence at all. In an effort to overcome the stalemate, Klaus began to pressure the ODS to come to an agreement with the ČSSD. He again named Topolánek premier, giving him a second chance at forming a government. At a congress of the civic democrats in November 2006, Klaus warned against “deepening the difficult-to-cross ditches and barriers” and “the simplistic black-and-white vision” that was making politics into “the clash of irreconcilable football club fans” (Klaus 2006a). But an agreement with the ČSSD was a non-starter for the ODS, and Topolánek began to consider the option so vehemently rejected by Klaus of a coalition between the ODS, KDU-ČSL, and Greens, relying on political shape-changers to tilt the balance: two former ČSSD deputies who le that party’s caucus. e result was a bitter conflict between the ODS chief and the president; Klaus was still ODS honorary chairman. At the end of December

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

61

2006, when Topolánek brought his list of ministers to the president at Prague Castle, Klaus refused to name the new government, saying the proposal threatened “to create more political or even constitutional crises” (Klaus 2006b). e president argued that there was no majority party support for the government, and rejected its reliance on fence-jumpers. Nor did he approve of the personal composition of the cabinet. He had special reservations toward foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg, nominated by the Green Party, because of his ties to Austria, where the nobleman had lived in exile during the communist era. In Klaus’s view Schwarzenberg’s nomination threatened Czech national interests in its disputes over the Temelín nuclear power plant, against which the Austrians frequently protested, and on the question of Czechoslovakia’s post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans. Klaus’s objections to the government also included the decision by the ODS to work with the Greens, a party he regarded as being “on the absolute other side of a kind of ideological barrier” (Balšínek and Korecký 2007). Although the Czech Greens are relatively close to the political center, their emphasis on environmentalism was anathema to a libertarian president known for his denial of global warming and support for nuclear energy. But the president’s refusal to name the government was little more than a political gesture. Aer two weeks the president named the government proposed by the premier. anks to the departure of the two “rebel” social democrats during the voting in parliament, the government won its vote of confidence (Brunclík 2008: 297, Havlík 2011: 69). Despite his best efforts, Klaus was unable to prevent a government he strongly disapproved of from taking power. e president’s reluctance to name Karel Schwarzenberg as minister was not unique in the history of the independent Czech Republic. An even more visible high-profile case was Klaus’s objection to David Rath’s nomination as minister of health in the government of Jiří Paroubek. Klaus refused to name him until he gave up the chairmanship of the country’s largest professional organization in the health care field, the Czech Chamber of Medical Doctors. Aer a time Rath stepped down, upon which Klaus named him minister. We can find conflicts between premier and president over the naming of ministers during Havel’s presidency as well. Before naming the members of Miloš Zeman’s government in 1998, Havel expressed individual

62

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

reservations against some of the nominees, especially foreign minister Jan Kavan. e main reason was probably the president’s concern over the minister’s skepticism towards the country’s membership in NATO. Neither in this case, nor in other similar cases, however, did the person nominated by the premier fail to become minister. Nevertheless some interpretations of the constitution attribute to the president the power to reject a nomination for serious reasons (Molek 2010b: 712). No such extreme situation has yet occurred, however.

The technocratic government of Jan Fischer and the sidelining of the president by the party elites Even at the outset of Topolánek’s triple coalition government, Klaus expressed his skepticism as to how long the government would last, and warned of the likelihood of early elections. Sure enough, the government fell at the end of March 2009, when the social democrats succeeded in their fih try at a no-confidence vote. Klaus was accused by Topolánek, the Greens, and some in the media of acting to cause the fall of the government. Several months before the government fell Klaus had cut his formal ties to the ODS, and renounced his title as honorary chairman. e president’s negative view of the government undoubtedly weakened its position; it was also important that Klaus was close to a faction within the ODS which was sharply critical of Topolánek’s “betrayal” of the party’s program. An even greater factor was evidently that the government’s politicians “misunderestimated” the convictions of the wavering deputies (the no-confidence vote passed by a single vote) and did much to undermine their own position (the Greens expelled two members who had opposed the party leadership shortly before the vote). e need for a quick solution to the government crisis was all the greater because the Czech presidency of the EU was underway at the time. e ČSSD, which brought about the government’s downfall, was inclined towards the idea of letting Topolánek’s cabinet serve out its term. e Eurosceptic Klaus, however, did not regard the EU presidency as sufficient reason to allow a government that had lost confidence to remain in office for several more months. He also rejected pressure from the ODS to let Topolánek set up another government. He

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

63

brought back the old demand from 2004 in an altered form that would entrust anyone who could bring him at least 101 deputies’ signatures with the formation of a government. He also demanded that the new cabinet should be based on agreement among the parties, not on the votes of turncoats. e party leaders were also pressured by a rumor going around that the president had drawn up his own cabinet to be put forward in case no agreement was reached. Ironically, the ODS’s “founding father,” Václav Klaus, had become its adversary. e result was a surprisingly quick agreement on a new technocratic government, struck between the leaders of the two biggest parties, Topolánek and Paroubek, who until then had been at one another’s throats. e impulse behind this quick agreement was not just the unpleasant situation with the Czech presidency of the EU, but also – and possibly mainly – fear of what the president might do next. Topolánek proposed Jan Fischer, head of the Czech Office of Statistics, as the new premier. e expedient of a technocratic government, last seen in 1998, was resorted to once again. Cabinet was filled entirely with ministers who were, like Fischer, not members of any political party. Not that the cabinet lacked political backing, as it was the result of an agreement reached between the ODS, ČSSD, and the Greens. e cabinet, which effectively continued in the tradition of the Tošovský government, was to see the EU presidency through to its conclusion, and lead the country until early elections. But tradition was also broken: for the first time the president had been shut out. In fact, the force gluing the cabinet together was fear of the president, which helped to dampen the overconfrontational and strongly personalized battle between the ODS and the ČSSD that had so burdened Czech politics in previous years. Paradoxically, what the president had unsuccessfully tried to achieve aer the 2006 elections had now come to pass.

The president and “his” cabinet? e relationship between Klaus as president and the ODS went through very dramatic changes over time, and came around again just before the elections in 2010. Topolánek, increasingly unpopular and bogged down in scandal, was removed from the party leadership and replaced as chairman by vice-chairman Petr Nečas. e new leader, given the

64

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

ODS’s decline in the polls, had a major interest in gaining the support of Klaus, whose popularity at the time was high; and he succeeded. e president, too, had an interest in renewing the alliance, in order to at least partially restore his influence in what was still the largest rightwing party, now back in government aer the elections. Klaus clearly indicated his preference by entrusting Petr Nečas with forming a new government. is was another break with long-time constitutional tradition, which dictated that the first in line to form a new government was the party that had won the most votes in the elections – which in 2010 was the ČSSD. e winds were blowing in Klaus’s favor when the chairman of the social democrats resigned his party leadership aer the elections because of the party’s poor showing compared to the previous election, and mainly because the ČSSD had little chance of putting together a government when the ODS, the conservative-liberal Tradition, Responsibility, Prosperity 09 (TOP 09), and Public Affairs (VV) quickly agreed to form a coalition among themselves (Haughton et al. 2011). Another evident factor was that the president did not feel bound by any of his promises to the ČSSD. Social democrats did not vote for Klaus in the presidential elections of 2008 as they had in 2003 (more on the 2008 election below). At the beginning, Klaus was unsparing in his words of support for the new cabinet, but as time went on he began to criticize its cautious and, in his view, mistaken economic policies. He especially criticized the raising of some taxes, miniscule cuts in state spending, and an ill-considered pension reform. e fact remained, however, that his attitude towards the Nečas government was clearly more positive than towards any previous cabinet. In fact Klaus would play an important role in keeping the everless-popular cabinet together, particularly in April 2011, when premier Nečas decided to kick most of the ministers from the Public Affairs out of the government. e premier was probably motivated by the fear that the VV’s control over the interior ministry presented a major security risk (the party was founded as the political branch of a private security agency). By then the strange workings of this unpredictable and irreputable security agency/political party had become a feast for journalists. Finally, two VV deputies were accused of taking bribes from party chairman and minister of transportation Vít Bárta in order to guarantee their loyalty. Bárta soon announced his resignation.

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

65

Klaus reacted to this new crisis by demanding that the premier present a plan for the future course of the government; until then he refused to accept the dismissal of any ministers, or Bárta’s resignation. e president justified his position by saying that the removal of the ministers would mean the end of the coalition, which “is of course one way forward, the world would not come to an end: but then again that’s exactly what it means” (Klaus 2011). Klaus’s action pressured the governing parties into agreement. e premier accepted a compromise under which the sensitive ministry of the interior was taken up by a non-partisan with no ties to Public Affairs. Meanwhile that party maintained its previous number of government posts (though their real weight in the government declined) by taking charge of a new government bureau aimed at fighting corruption. Minister of Education Josef Dobeš of the VV stayed in the government, though the premier had originally called for his removal. is was the first time in Czech political history that a minister survived a proposal to remove him. Klaus’s actions during this crisis were similar to his delaying action during 2005, when he refused to accept the resignations of the KDUČSL ministers. Again it was a broad reading of the constitution, but this time the president found himself in a somewhat different social context. While in 2005 Klaus enjoyed great popular support motivated by fear of communist influence in the government, this time popular attitudes towards the president were completely the opposite, given the low popularity of the Nečas government (Kopeček 2012b: 265–267). Klaus’s critics during this governmental crisis took aim at his good relationships with some politicians from Public Affairs including Bárta, which may indeed have played a role in the president’s actions. But we must also remember Klaus’s motivation to uphold the current government, as no alternative government had been prepared. e alternative finally appeared a year later, when Public Affairs broke up. e president did not intervene in the premier’s decision to continue the government coalition with a breakaway faction of the VV; on the contrary, he welcomed the possibility of early elections and thus hastened the VV’s breakup.

66

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

The Great Eurosceptic Unlike his Euro-optimist predecessor, Václav Klaus never made any secret of his skepticism towards the EU. As ODS chairman he was the EU’s most visible critic among the Czechs, and strongly influenced his party’s position on the issue (Hanley 2008). Klaus approved of the economic benefits of a common market, but criticized the deepening political dimension of European integration, especially aer the Maastricht Treaty of the early 1990s. As Klaus argued (2001: 85), “Unionization, the dominant European tendency, is nothing but an “ersatzprogram” [fake program], a mixture of “cosmopolitan intellectualism, superficial and simplified antinationalism, a bad reading of history, bad economics (according to the principle “big is beautiful”), and last but not least a bit of ambitious anti-Americanism.” Nevertheless Klaus never questioned the need for Czech membership; his positions can be classified as so Euroskepticism that questions the trajectory of European integration, but accepts remaining in the EU (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2002). Klaus’s opinions did not change when he took office as president, which led him into near-constant conflict with Euro-optimist centerle governments, at the core of which were the social democrats. In the Czech Republic’s official position on EU issues two very different tones sounded, one from the government and one from the president. While signing the accession treaty to the EU in April 2003, Klaus (2003) commented that this was a “marriage of convenience, not of love.” e irreconcilable positions of the government and president on European integration were completely exposed a year later, as the government was preparing to celebrate EU membership. Klaus reacted by climbing up Blaník Mountain, beneath which are said to sleep legendary knights who will awaken to save the country in its darkest hour. is he preceded with a speech at Prague Castle in which he emphasized the need to “assure that our identity is not blurred, and the basic attributes of the Czech state are not lost” (Klaus 2004b). e already deep division between the president and the government deepened even further during the debate on the Constitutional Treaty for Europe, which moved the EU closer to federation. e Euro-constitution became the subject of fierce confrontation. At its height in spring 2005, then-premier Jiří Paroubek accused Klaus of

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

67

exceeding his presidential powers and threatened to have the government limit the president’s foreign trips, on which Klaus would oen sharply attack the planned agreement. Paroubek suggested that approval of the president’s foreign trips should be accompanied by clear instructions from the government (Bek and Lidmila 2005). For a time aer the collapse of the European constitution resulting from negative referenda outcomes in the Netherlands and France the debate became moot. e debate arose again with the resuscitation of the Euro-constitution in the form of the Lisbon Treaty, against which Klaus continued to rail in 2008 and 2009. But since the Euro-constitution debate the political context had changed e elite of the ODS had moved from the opposition into the government, and now had responsibility for negotiating on the EU level, which tended to influence their positions. While the ODS had strictly rejected the Euro-constitution, to the Lisbon Treaty it gave a lukewarm yes, despite a strong current of opinion against it remaining within the party (Havlík 2009: 132, Haughton 2009). Klaus reacted with sharp criticism of ODS chief Mirek Topolánek and some other civic democrats: “ese people are always going to Brussels, talking about their wife and children and where they went on vacation. anks to these endless uninterrupted summits, politicians of this sort get to be better friends with politicians from other European countries than with the citizens of their own countries” (Klaus 2008).16 While Klaus’s opposition could not prevent the passage of the Lisbon Treaty by both houses of parliament in the first half of 2009, he found himself in no hurry to sign it. He let it be known he would wait for the opinion of the German constitutional court that had taken up the treaty; for the result of the (second) Irish referendum; and he would wait to hear the Polish stance on the treaty – there, too, because of reservations on the part of president Lech Kaczyński, the treaty had not yet been ratified. Klaus’s motivations were evidently not to retreat before it was necessary and thereby undercut morale among the treaty’s opponents. He employed delaying tactics. With his support, in the fall of 2009 a group of ODS senators filed their second constitutional 16

Differing opinions on the Lisbon Treaty became one of the key factors that cooled relations between the president and the ODS.

68

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

compliant against the treaty. Given the predisposition of the court it was unlikely to be successful, even though the new complaint, unlike the previous one, asked for a complete review of the treaty, not just the examination of specific passages. Klaus remained unshaken by the enormous pressure directed at him by various authorities, the media, or foreign actors; nor was he moved by interpretations of the constitution to the effect that the president was required to sign this international treaty. Klaus refused, and continued to argue against. Ideas were exchanged among the political elites over how to outmaneuver Klaus: by prosecuting him for high treason, or removing him from office for his supposed inability to execute his function. But these transparent tactics had no chance of success. In mid-October 2009 Klaus found himself the last obstacle to the Lisbon Treaty, which made his position untenable. e president therefore decided to cover his retreat by demanding a Czech exception to the EU Charter of Basic Rights, which is part of the Lisbon Treaty and contains a long list of various rights. To the Czech public Klaus justified his demand by the need to guarantee the irrevocability of the so-called Beneš Decrees, a traditionally sensitive topic. is was a very adept move politically. e decrees, issued aer the Second World War, provided the legal basis for confiscating the property of several million ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, and expelling them from the country. A major part of the population is sensitive to any questioning of the decrees, and this gained “Klaus’s exception” the active or passive support of most of the political spectrum. ere was some confusion about what the exception actually meant. ČSSD, which originally supported the exception, now protested that it prevented Czech citizens from enjoying the EU’s new social rights. “Klaus’s exception” was explicitly confirmed at the EU summit in late October 2009. A few days later Klaus signed the Lisbon Treaty. Because he secured the exception, the signing was not seen as a defeat for Klaus; but a political defeat it was. e events around the Lisbon Treaty nevertheless demonstrated the president’s ability to block the adoption of some international treaties – Klaus acted similarly in several less politically important cases. What’s more important is that Klaus, with the Lisbon Treaty and with his overall stance towards the EU, demonstrated the president’s ability to represent the country quite

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

69

independently abroad, even when the government’s stance was entirely the opposite.17

The introduction of direct elections: a history of paradoxes e last topic we would like to take up in this text is the debate over the direct election of the Czech president, which is interesting not only because of the result, but also because of how it came about. It is the remarkable story of the oen cynical playing of this political card, according to the momentary needs of individual actors. e debate over direct elections emerged from the first moments of the new democratic regime in late 1989. Following the resignation of the last communist president, Gustáv Husák, the communists immediately proposed direct presidential elections, assuming that their candidate former premier Ladislav Adamec had a much better chance of winning a direct election than little-known dissident Václav Havel. But Civic Forum succeeded in retaining the easier-to-control method of election by parliament, and Havel was elected without a hitch (Suk 2003, Kubát 2003). Paradoxically, the idea was revived by Havel himself in the fall of 1992, during the writing of the Czech Republic’s constitution. He argued that it was desirable for the head of state to have his own political legitimacy independent from the parliament (Kysela 2008: 237). is idea was supported by part of the opposition, and by some politicians from the smaller governing parties, but it ran hard up against the opposition of Klaus and other ODS politicians who pointed out the anomaly of direct presidential elections in a parliamentary regime. Behind the negative reaction by the ODS was the unwillingness to cede any more power to the Castle. e proposal had no chance given the political configuration of that time, and so Havel, who needed the ODS’s support to be elected, abandoned it. 17

Until the end of Klaus’s term in office there was never again such a deep conflict on the issue of the EU and foreign policy. e president was able to find a consensus position with the government of Petr Nečas on questions of foreign and European policy, quite curiously given that the minister of foreign affairs at the time was Euro-optimist Karel Schwarzenberg, but on key issues Schwarzenberg deferred to the premier.

70

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

e debate over direct presidential elections never completely disappeared from the Czech political dialogue, again resurfacing as the end of Havel’s presidency drew near. In the 2002 parliamentary elections, introducing direct election of the president was a campaign promise made by three different parties, the same parties that formed the government coalition aerward: ČSSD, KDU-ČSL, and US. For the latter two, which ran on a joint ticket, this was actually their most visible campaign promise (Hloušek 2008: 272). Nor were the communists against direct election. Only the fih party holding seats in the lower house of parliament, the ODS, was against. Aer the election, however, the coalition parties ignored their campaign promise, saying there was not enough time to implement direct elections before the end of President Havel’s term. But closer to the truth was that they seemed at the time to have enough votes in the two houses of parliament to elect their own candidate. Meanwhile, the ODS changed their minds and began to favor the idea of direct presidential elections for president, as the prospects for their candidate Václav Klaus in parliament appeared dim. (In a final paradox, when direct elections were finally adopted in 2012 Klaus bitterly criticized it as populism.) e debate over popular election further intensified when the parliament failed to elect any of the candidates on the first two presidential ballots in early 2003. e voting by deputies and senators was secret, and therefore uncontrollable. Now disunity among the social democrats and the entire coalition camp resulted in their inability to elect a president. At that point, rising public and media pressure to adopt direct elections became one of the most important factors pressuring the increasingly nervous electors from the governing parties to finally support Klaus in the third round, in exchange for Klaus’s promise of political moderation as president. Direct elections remained a topic of public debate, no matter how unlikely it seemed that they would be adopted. e parties in parliament, which supported the idea in principle, tended to be lukewarm on the topic. It was clear to all politicians, whether in the government or the opposition, that this would mean a dramatic loss of control over who would become head of state. is was especially true of the Senate, which would be deprived of one of its few important powers.

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

71

e turning point was the presidential election of February 2008, in which Klaus was reelected to a second term. en-chairman of the opposition ČSSD Jiří Paroubek, fearing lack of discipline on the part of his electors, induced some of the smaller parties including the Greens to join the ČSSD in changing the rules so that the voting was open, despite the opposition of the ODS. (e constitution, like the 1960 constitution of communist Czechoslovakia, which was in force until 1992, still does not specify whether the voting is open or secret.) For the first time in the history of the independent Czech state the vote was taken publicly. is seriously polarized the political atmosphere. ere was confusion in counting the votes, and the elections presented a very ugly picture: the pressure put on some electors took on an evermore-drastic character, with threats and accusations of bribery. Some electors even received a bullet in the mail. e result was a gravely compromised vote in parliament which, along with the steep decline in trust of the political class, raised public and media pressure to introduce direct election. Aer the 2010 elections, the government of Petr Nečas reacted by including this goal as part of its program statement. e direct popular election of the president was adopted in parliamentary voting in late 2011 and 2012. Despite stormy debate, the powers of the president remained practically unchanged, and there was no change in the president’s constitutional accountability for his actions in office (the government is responsible for the majority of his actions), which is very problematic now that he is elected directly. e history of paradoxes surrounding the direct election of the president was crowned by the campaign and the outcome of the first direct elections in January 2013. ere was a great deal of confusion over the poorly-written “technical” law about elections, and legal challenges that disqualified several candidates. Even more problematic was the polarization of society that revealed itself prior to the second round of voting in January 2013. Minister of Foreign Affairs and chairman of TOP 09 Karel Schwarzenberg was defeated by former leader of the ČSSD Miloš Zeman, who had meanwhile le that party and founded his own, which was named aer him. Most of the media and the intellectual-cultural elites who had vehemently supported direct election, interpreted the election of Zeman as a step backwards into the past, the return of a politician identified with the controversial era of the “Opposition

72

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Agreement”. In a parliamentary election of president, Zeman would have had no chance. Like Klaus in 2003, Zeman inherited a set of notinconsiderable presidential powers, the same powers he had worked to define and limit during the time of the “Opposition Agreement.”

Conclusion: differences between the formal constitution and political reality e character of the Czech president was indelibly marked by the historic tradition le over from inter-war Czechoslovakia, which was shaped by the figure of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. is founder of the Czechoslovak state deliberately and successfully built an institution whose influence far exceeded the usual role of the president in a parliamentary regime. Masaryk drew from varied sources of inspiration, including the American presidential regime. Especially remarkable was his successful transfer of the aura of monarchy surrounding the Emperor in the era before Czechoslovakia was founded, to the presidency under the newly-formed republic. His colorful set of strategies for strengthening the authority and influence of the president in the Czechoslovak political regime was so successful that even aer his death, the office of the president was seen as a powerful political institution that commanded an almost semi-religious reverence. is perception of the office survived the political tempests of 1938 and 1948, when the real ability of the president to influence political affairs proved to be limited; it even survived forty years of communism. Shortly aer 1989, the authority of the president was revitalized, and for a time, under Václav Havel, the status of the Castle almost equaled what it had been under Masaryk. But political developments, and Havel’s rapid loss of authority within the Civic Forum, undermined the permanence of this renewal. As Czechoslovakia gradually began to break apart, the president became an almost powerless political figure. Still, the creation of an independent Czech Republic at the beginning of 1993 did not produce a permanent weakening of the president’s role, nor did it transform him into a mere ceremonial figure. e living historical tradition, the personalities of Václav Havel and later Václav Klaus, and a set of powers not very well defined in the constitution,

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

73

presented an active president with a broad range of opportunities. But taking advantage of these opportunities depended to a large degree on the situation in party politics. During the Havel presidency a simple rule of thumb emerged that would apply during Klaus’s presidency as well: the more divided and weak the government majority, the stronger the president – and vice versa. When there is a consistent and strong majority in parliament, the president is the figure he is formally designed to be in the constitution: a weak head of state. For most of the ten years Havel spent as president of the Czech Republic, his power was blocked by a parliamentary majority. Only during the political earthquake of fall 1997/spring 1998 could he assume a position that resembled his power role from the beginning of the 1990s. Where Václav Havel did intervene in domestic politics, he did it more or less behind the scenes, utilizing his previous contacts within the political parties, especially the smaller coalition parties, who themselves used their ties to the president to strengthen their position against the dominant coalition party, the ODS. Without these ties to the parties, or to factions or particular individuals within these parties, the president could not have been an active or influential player even in times of political instability or crisis. Havel also took advantage of the conflicts, aversions, and ambitions among various party officials to use his power or at least exert influence in the role of arbiter, formally above party, but in reality very partisan and engaged in favor of a certain political constellation. Klaus as president had much more room to intervene in domestic politics. is was mainly due to much more frequent government instability, with premiers and governments following one aer the other. At practically no time during Klaus’s presidency was there a consistent, and at the same time strong, parliamentary majority. Klaus’s behavior when taking office was markedly different from that of Havel. In the spirit of the promises he had made during the presidential campaign, Klaus did not attempt to bring down the government coalition headed by the social democrats, even though “cohabitation” with them was not easy. Nevertheless, in view of his political past and honorary membership in the ODS, it was actually remarkable that at certain moments he acted as a stabilizer of the existing government coalition. is does not mean that Klaus had no preference as to the government, as we see clearly from late 2006/early 2007 when he tried

74

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

to block the formation of a three-party coalition government under Mirek Topolánek that depended on turncoats in parliament, and instead proposed a settlement based on cooperation between the two largest parties, which he saw as a more stable solution to the political crisis. Here it was shown that despite his honorary ODS chairmanship, Klaus lacked the truly strong structural support that would allow him to achieve his own political goals. Paradoxically, aer the elections in 2010, he was much more able to exert his will as he was no longer honorary chairman of the ODS. At that time he contributed to the installation of a center-right government by passing over the formal winners, the social democrats, and actually serving as the government’s patron for a time. Not even in this case, however, did the president acquire a major voice in government decisions. Both Havel and Klaus were helped by the vagueness of the pertinent constitutional articles. But especially at times of political crisis they were aided by another, almost mystical force: the presidential aura ignited long ago by Masaryk. It was this aura that legitimized, or helped to legitimize, certain actions and measures precisely because they were taken by the President. Some scholars conclude on the basis of their studies that the Czech president is in effect a guarantor of order and moderator of political conflicts (for example Wintr 2008). is is undoubtedly also true, but it does not capture the Czech president’s real position, which although part of a parliamentary regime can be unusually strong. us the political regime swings irregularly from a parliamentary regime in the direction of a semi-presidential regime (Kysela 2006). In a way it resembles a rubber band that stretches in the direction of semi-presidentialism at certain times when the political configuration and the party actors allow it. At these times the configuration changes; and when party actors gain a solid footing in the parliament, or find a certain consensus among themselves, the president returns to being the head of state in a parliamentary regime. To recapitulate the basic reasons for this, we see the legacy of a semi-religious aura, and the force of personality of both of the two first Czech presidents – Havel and Klaus. We also see the possibility of broad interpretation of some of the president’s constitutional powers; and we see a frequent lack of consistent and strong parliamentary majority that produces big problems in forming governments and

2. DIFFERENT CONFESSIONS, SAME SINS? VÁCLAV HAVEL AND VÁCLAV KLAUS AS CZECH PRESIDENTS

75

causes government instability. e overall result is that, as under the Czechoslovak First Republic, political reality and the way the constitution is observed in practice oen diverges from the usual workings of a parliamentary regime. e adoption of direct popular presidential elections has markedly deepened this divergence by giving the third Czech president Miloš Zeman a very powerful weapon in the form of his own independent legitimacy, and from the beginning Zeman has been prepared to use it. He has made strong efforts to expand the scope of his powers, most visibly in the creation of a de facto presidential cabinet appointed without any agreement from the parliamentary parties. In this he has gone much further than his predecessors. Even the Tošovský government installed by Havel in the late 1990s was formed in cooperation with a part of the party spectrum. As this text is being finalized in the summer of 2013 it is clear that Zeman has decided to advance his own political program as president, which will evidently lead to increased tension between the president and parliament. On the long-term horizon the possibility even exists of a transformation from a parliamentary to a semi-presidential regime. A populist, quasi-monarchical head of state may in the future become the country’s most powerful political actor.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

77

3 WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM GÁBOR DOBOS – ATTILA GYULAI – ATTILA HORVÁTH Introduction It is widely thought that the head of state has a weak, constitutionally limited position in Hungarian politics. Looking more closely, however, several important factors seem to be worth analysing. While the strong head of state is part of Hungary’s long political tradition, during the transition from communism to democracy, its role was constitutionally weakened. is discrepancy would suggest broad opportunities for strengthening the informal position of the president; still, only isolated efforts have been made over the last two decades. ese efforts, however, can always be traced back to the formal frameworks. is chapter proceeds as follows: Aer a short historical background, the subsequent section describes the formal position of the Hungarian president and provides a general outline of the legal framework and its interpretation by the Constitutional Court. e competences of the president are analysed in regard to how they might contribute to the increasing engagement of presidents in politics. is chapter is primarily devoted to how the presidents have built their informal positions considering their relatively weak constitutional powers. On the basis of political activity of the heads of state so far, we make an attempt to describe and separate different models of role perceptions.

Antecedents, traditions and historical background From its foundation until the early 20th century, Hungary was a kingdom. As a result of the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

78

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

in 1867, a constitutional monarchy was introduced that existed until 1918. e kingdom was abolished in 1918 and Hungary declared itself a republic. Although the kingdom was restored in 1920, no king wascrowned, and the national assembly voted to install Miklós Horthy as regent. According to the Act I of 1920, the regent’s power was relatively limited (although by no means symbolic). In the next decades, however, presidential power was systematically expanded. Given the fact that the regent and the prime minister both had strong political affiliations, this period can be described as a kind of authoritarian semipresidential system. Aer the chaotic years of 1944–1945, the Hungarian republic was created by Act I of 1946. is Act1 also created a president with little power as head of state. e struggle for democracy was fated to fail, however, since the communist party – with the support of the Soviet Union – systematically eliminated all of its opponents, and as a result, a communist dictatorship was established. Table 1: Simplified summary of the forms of government and head of state in Hungary2 Period

Form of government

Head of state

1000–1918

kingdom

king

1918–1919

(people’s) republic

president of the republic

1919

conciliar republic

President of the Revolutionary Governing Council

1920–1944

kingdom

regent

1946–1949

republic

president of the republic

1949–1989

people’s republic

Presidential Council of the People‘s Republic

1989–

republic

president of the republic

Compiled by the authors.

e communist constitution of 1949 changed the state from a republic to a ‘people’s republic’ and abolished the institution of the President of the Republic. Modelled on the 1936 Soviet Constitution, the 1

2

For more on the role of the president during the transition see Szűcs (2008) and for its limited legal relevance aer 1989 see Kovács (2001). e chart does not indicate some provisional periods (e. g. 1919–1920, 1944–1946).

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

79

Presidential Council of the People’s Republic (PCPR) was introduced which consisted of 21 members (a president, two vice-presidents, a secretary and 17 further members) and which acted as a collective head-of-state. e PCPR exercised not only the powers of the head of state, but also functioned as a substitution for parliament. When the parliament was not in session, most of its functions were exercised by the PCPR, which had the right to adopt a special kind of law, the decree law (a decree having the force of law)3.

The head of state of the Hungarian parliamentary government Political system Aer the fall of the communist regime, Hungary was turned into a parliamentary democracy. e transition proceeded through the socalled round-table talks, the amendment of the constitution by the last parliament of the communist regime, a referendum that affected the position of the head of state, the first free and competitive election in 1990, and a few further amendments of the constitution at the beginning of the democratic era. e main features of the Hungarian system of government are in line with the literature on the differences between presidential, semipresidential and parliamentary systems. e head of state is separated from the head of government, the latter being dependent on the confidence of the parliament while the former is without such political responsibility. Effectively, the president is not part of the government in the narrow sense of the term, although categorically, it makes sense to describe the Hungarian political system as adopting a dual executive. However, a closer examination reveals the particularities of the political system that affect both the overall functioning of parliamentarism in Hungary and the position of the president. Regarding the former, it can be argued that despite the fusion between the executive and 3

e number of laws adopted by parliament was extremely low through the whole era except the end of the 1980s. 227 laws were adapted from 1949 till 1987, which means an average of 6 laws per year. Meanwhile the number of decree laws was as much as 1306 during this period (more than 34 per year).

80

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

the legislative powers characteristic of modern parliamentary governments, there are features that institutionalize a ‘parliamentary separation of powers’ and maintain a dualism between the two. According to the constitution, the dissolution of parliament cannot be initiated by the prime minister and even the head of state is severely constrained in this regard. Effectively, it is only the legislature that can decide on its own dissolution; however, in turn, the position of the prime minister is strengthened by the constructive vote of no confidence. e strong Constitutional Court and its activist role, especially in the first decade aer the transition, as well as the independent Central Bank are also features that, among others, suggest a deviation from a ‘clear’ parliamentary model. (Körösényi et al. 2009: 265–273). us, the Hungarian version of parliamentary government reflects both the expectation of a potent government and the fear of concentrated rule of those who happen to win the election. Altogether, the outcome of the transition was a parliamentary government in which the prime minister has become a central figure who, on the one hand, is responsible to the legislature but, on the other, the latter is actually led by the former. Because of the presidentialization of the role of the prime minister and the constructive vote of no confidence, the Hungarian system of government can be compared to the German system of Kanzlerdemokratie. e emergence of the office of the prime minister both in terms of its formal and informal position became obvious in the late 1990s, shortly aer the consolidation of the institution of the head of state. As it will be shown later, aer the first presidential term, systemic rivalries between the two constitutional offices terminated and it became clear that it is not the president who is the effective leader of the government4. For the sake of comparability, we accept and stress the view of the mainstream literature according to which the Hungarian political regime is defined by the dependence of the executive on the confidence of the legislature or, at least, it is its most important feature (Strøm 1995: 53; Lijphart 1999; von Beyme 2000: 73; Laver 2006; Müller – Bergman – Strøm 2006). With regard to the constitutional position of the president, it makes sense to use Siaroff ’s (2003) dispositional combinations in the description of the system of government. Follow4

On similar conflicts in more countries in the Eastern European region see Baylis (1996).

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

81

ing this, firstly, the head of state in Hungary is not also the head of government which defines a dual executive. Secondly, the head of state is not popularly elected; rather it is a normal session of the parliament that selects the president. irdly, the head of government is accountable to the legislature (Siaroff 2003: 294). is pattern suggests a weak president in Hungary, whose role is more than being only a figurehead but whose corrective powers (Siaroff 2003: 309) are limited. We describe these powers and their limitations in the following with regard to the political contexts in which they were shaped before we move on to the actual powers. Acknowledging the aims of this volume, however, we will not try to find out how the position of the Hungarian head of state can be moved closer to abstract comparative categories5, rather, we will analyse it from the inside and interpret its powers according to the local political and constitutional context. Developments after 1989 e position and powers of the head of state in the Hungarian system of government are rooted in the daily political conflicts of the transition. A particularity of the Hungarian parliamentary government is a typically weak head of state that, in a few respects, is stronger compared to other parliamentary democracies. e explanation to this contradiction was the dual presence of trust and distrust in a political power that stands above parties and is able to handle their strife, but at the same time is weak enough to be constrained by other political players in case the position were to be seized by the communists. e constitutional role of the president was shaped by the roundtable talks during the transition, that is, a compromise between the ruling communist party and the new opposition forces also divided along internal ideological and tactical frontlines. Although the negotiations may be termed successful and crucial amendments to the constitution were applied to create a new political system (modifications were approved by the round-table but were enacted by the parliament of the old regime), the role of the president remained an open question even aer the first free election in 1990. 5

For an analysis of the methods and categories used to measure presidential powers see Fortin (2012).

82

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

It was the role of the president that provoked the sharpest conflict among the opposition forces during the round-table talks. e most contested issue was how the president should be elected; whether directly by a popular vote or indirectly by members of parliament. It was the aim of the ruling party to get the president elected directly for they hoped to win and safeguard at least one important position by nominating the reform-leaning and apparently popular Imre Pozsgay. e centre right MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum, Magyar Demokrata Fórum) led by the future prime minister, József Antall, seemed to support the idea, partly because they hoped to maintain the communist party’s cooperation in the transition process. However, the more radical parties of the opposition supported the election of the president by parliament aer the first free election. Two parties, the SZDSZ (Alliance of Free Democrats, Szabad Demokraták Szövetsége) and the FIDESZ (Alliance of Young Democrats, Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége) even abstained from signing the closing document of the round-table talks that, regarding the president, included a direct election. Instead, they initiated a referendum on this question that, thanks to smart tactics, resulted in postponing the election of the president until aer the general election. e constitutional position of the president was a compromise between the new government party and the largest opposition party just weeks aer the election. e centre right MDF led by the prime minister and the liberal SZDSZ joined forces to amend the constitution by the necessary two-thirds majority. e agreement helped the government to become more autonomous and capable of running a potent and more responsible government (e.g. by reducing the number of bills that were bound to a two-thirds majority, even the budget among them). In turn, the major opposition party was entitled to nominate the first president of the newly founded republic. A few important conclusions follow from the political circumstances outlined above. Besides the rule of the constitution (according to which the president safeguards the democratic functioning of the state), it is the mirroring of the government-opposition confrontation embodied in the prime minister and the head of state in the first term. From this, the expectation follows that the president should be a counterweight to the government. It was also a peculiarity of the Hungarian debate regarding the role of the president that it was more

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

83

about the method of the election than the scope of presidential powers and authority (Kovács 2001: 354). Competences of the president e competences of the president may be categorized in several ways. Considering that this volume does not follow the viewpoint of constitutional law, we refrain from in-depth analysis of constitutional powers. It is more fruitful to emphasize those powers which may contribute to a president’s increased engagement in politics. Given the fact that Hungary is a parliamentary republic, most of the president’s powers are symbolic and a number of his or her actions and decisions require the counter-signature of a member of the government6. e head of state has ‘common’ competences, for instance, he or she represents Hungary, sets the date for elections, appoints certain high officials, exercises the right to grant presidential pardons, and may dissolve the parliament7. Apart from these competences, the president of the republic has limited power. Some of the competences give him or her certain room to manoeuvre. Firstly, the two kinds of veto – the constitutional8 and the political9 – must be mentioned. ese are oen viewed as an indicator of a president’s political activity.10 e use of the veto power (especially 6

7

8

9

10

e counter-signature is not a general requirement. e Fundamental Law of Hungary declares the actions and decisions which require and the ones which do not require counter-signature in two separate subsections. [Fundamental Law of Hungary, Article 6, Subsection (3)–(4)]. e judgement of the reasonableness of the countersignature is rather controversial among the Hungarian scholars. Kovács (2011: 12) argues for the extension of counter-signature, meanwhile Szalai (2011: 79) brings on the abolishment of counter-signature. e right of dissolution of parliament may be exercised only in two highly exceptional cases, under unusual circumstances. [Fundamental Law of Hungary, Article 3, Subsection (3)]. “Should the President of the Republic consider the Act or any of its provisions to be contrary to the Fundamental Law, […] he or she shall send the Act to the Constitutional Court to examine its conformity with the Fundamental Law.” [Fundamental Law of Hungary, Article 6, Subsection (4)]. “If the President of the Republic disagrees with the Act or any of its provisions […] he or she may return it, together with comments, to the Parliament for reconsideration on one occassion.” [Fundamental Law of Hungary, Article 6, Subsection (5)] e two kinds of veto have been used 86 times since 1990. For details, see Annex I.

84

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

the constitutional one11) may temporarily block the legislative process and thus the head of state becomes a relevant actor on the political scene. However, the significance of the political veto should not be overestimated since it can be overridden by a simple majority of the parliament (contrary to Poland, for instance). Secondly, the head of state enjoys some autonomy in the field of nomination as well, since he or she may nominate certain high officials to the parliament (e. g. prosecutor general, president of the Curia (supreme court), the commissioner for fundamental rights)12. e head of state has certain powers which are rather unusual in a parliamentary republic and are oen considered to be ‘semi-presidential deviations’ (Kukorelli, 1995: 80), since he or she may initiate an act of parliament and may initiate national referenda (N. B. without counter-signature). Although these powers have not been used in the last two decades13, they might be powerful tools in the hand of a future president, with the aim of extending his political influence. It must be highlighted that the legal status of the president (including his powers, duties and the method of election) has been almost constant since 1990 and only minor changes have been made in the new Fundamental Law of Hungary adopted in 201114. Even within the unchanging legal framework, the actual position of the president in the political system aer 1990 has not been unambiguous at all. Certain powers of the president were interpreted and specified by the Constitutional Court in the early 1990s. e findings of the Constitutional Court can be summarized in the following: Although the Constitution declared that “e President of the Republic shall be the Commander in Chief of the Hungarian Armed Forces”, this competence had to be interpreted in a rather symbolic sense. As the 11

12

13

14

Until 2012 no deadline had been set for the Constitutional Court for its decisions. If an act had been referred by the president of the republic to the Constitutional Court, the introduction of this act may have been postponed for up to a year. Despite this autonomy, presidents (with the exception of László Sólyom) used to consult with parliamentary parties on the candidates before making a nomination. No more than three acts have been initiated since 1990, each of them by Árpád Göncz in the beginning of the 1990s. National referendum has never been initiated by any head of state. e Fundamental Law has refined some of his competences, redefined the power of the dissolution of parliament (although without any significant change) and amended the method of election.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

85

Constitutional Court pointed out, “is supreme command function was a constitutional one and did not thereby give him a rank or post in the Hungarian armed forces. Since the commander-in-chief was outside the structure of the forces, being its leader but not chief commanding officer, he therefore did not act as superior officer in respect of the armed forces since the commands (…) were issued by the commander of the Hungarian Army”15. All appointments, approvals and dismissals effected by the president become valid by the countersignature of the prime minister or the respective minister. e president might not reject the appointment of a candidate (e. g. appointment of a minister or a state secretary) unless ‘he is of the opinion that the necessary legal preconditions (e. g. Hungarian citizenship, professional qualification) for such appointments were absent’ or ‘if he came to a well-founded conclusion that his compliance with the proposal could seriously endanger the democratic functioning of the State’16. Beside the previous aspects, the president has no right of discretion and he is not entitled to set up further conditions beyond the legal conditions of the appointment or dismissal17. Concerning the president’s position in the system of separation of powers, the Constitutional Court declared that ‘the President of the Republic stands outside the executive power and has independent presidential powers. It cannot be derived from the Constitution that the Government and the President of the Republic hold executive power jointly and that they mutually monitor and counterbalance each other or come to consensual decisions’18. e previous declarations of the Constitutional Court were essential in the final clarification of the competences of the President. As seen above, the Court interpreted the powers of the president in a restricted way and thus the conception of a ‘semi-powerful’ head of state that might have been an effective counterweight of the government, was defeated. 15

16

17 18

48/1991. (IX. 26.) decision of the Constitutional Court, Part A), Chapter IV. Translation: Sólyom–Brunner, 2010: 160. 48/1991. (IX. 26.) decision of the Constitutional Court, Part B), Chapter II. Translation: Sólyom–Brunner, 2010: 161. 36/1992. (VI. 10.) decision of the Constitutional Court, Chapter III. 48/1991. (IX. 26.) decision of the Constitutional Court, Part A), Chapter IV. Translation: Dezső, 2010: 98.

86

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Constitutional powers and informal positions Preliminary evaluation e Hungarian heads of state did not develop a strong and durable informal position that extended their constitutional roles. While there have been cases when efforts were made by some to become stronger than a usual president of a parliamentary democracy, these remained isolated examples and they did not create a pattern in subsequent terms. Figure 1: Formal and informal activity of the presidents in Hungary Arpád GÖNCZ II: Pál SCHMITT

Ferenc MÁDL (János ÁDER)

Árpád GÖNCZ I. László SÓLYOM

LEVEL OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY Compiled by the authors.

In figure 1. we have sorted the terms of presidents since 1990. e first term of Árpád Göncz, (the first presidency aer the regime change) was mostly about the contestation of the constitutional limitations of the head of state. László Sólyom’s presidency (in office between 2005 and 2010) was about redefining the role of the president, whereas his successor, Pál Schmitt even narrowed it. e remaining three terms (those of President Göncz’s second term, Ferenc Mádl’s term from 2000 to 2005 and President Áder’s ongoing term) could be described as being as close to the constitutional role as possible. at does not mean that they were all weak on an equal level, however. Still, informal position broadening was not significant. Examples of (constitutionally) limited positions Before we analyse the ways in which some presidents have attempted to broaden their informal position, it is necessary to briefly describe some examples of presidents who seemed, at first, to maintain a weak

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

87

role as head of state in a parliamentary democracy. All further cases of informal position building can be evaluated only if one has determined the basis from which exceptions stem. In addition, the rules of the constitution cannot serve as measures or criteria for that basis because it is always the application, not the mere rules, which are comparable. It follows that, theoretically, the examples of non-deviations do not mean that the three presidencies in question (Árpád Göncz’s second term, Ferenc Mádl’s term and the first year of the current president, János Áder) are nothing more than pure rule-following. ere are, however, some principles which should be considered in these cases as well. Firstly, all presidencies imply some sort of informal position; politically, it is impossible to run a presidency only according to constitutional rules. Secondly, all presidencies are influenced by contextual factors. ese are, among others, the political landscape and the political agenda during the given term, the nature of political cycles, as well as the personal habits and political background of the actual head of state, etc. irdly, even if it is only about the authorities and measures provided by the constitution, the selection of these creates a certain (and singular) presidential position that could be termed informal. Whereas Árpád Göncz’ first election was the outcome of an exceptional agreement between the largest government and the largest opposition party in 1990, his re-election five years later followed from the coalition between the socialists (Hungarian Socialist Party, Magyar Szocialista Párt – MSZP) and the liberal party SZDSZ in 1994. Four years aer the transition the socialists came back to power by winning the absolute majority of the mandates but because of certain political circumstances a coalition government was formed that possessed a two-thirds majority in the legislature. Gyula Horn, the future prime minister announced during the campaign that his party was going to support President Göncz’s re-election, a move that was intended to suggest democratic commitment from a political group which was created on the basis of the communist state-party only a few years earlier. Árpád Göncz who was a prominent member of the opposition to the communist regime, belonged to the future coalition partner SZDSZ, therefore, Gyula Horn aimed at reassuring them as well as the domestic and international public. Although Ferenc Mádl had no real chances of becoming head of state (since the coalition had a two-thirds majority), his nomination

88

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

in 1995 was an important event in Hungarian politics. e Hungarian centre-right fell to pieces aer its serious defeat in the election in 1994, and it was Fidesz’s strategy to recreate its unity. e nomination and support of Ferenc Mádl, a former minister of the Antall-government was a sign that Fidesz was willing to join forces with the defeated centre-right forces. Moreover, it was Ferenc Mádl who personally helped to get Fidesz acknowledged among the conservatives and Christiandemocrats19. Five years later, when Árpád Göncz’s second term terminated, it was, therefore, a sound move to nominate Ferenc Mádl again in order to exhibit continuity. Ferenc Mádl was elected only aer serious tactical battle with the Smallholders’ Party, the coalition partner that wanted to nominate its own party chairman. Aer the resignation of Pál Schmitt in 2012 the Fidesz decided to elect János Áder as the new head of state. Unlike his predecessors, János Áder belonged to the inner circle of the party that nominated him. Until 2012, János Áder was a member of the European Parliament but he returned home when the two-thirds majority of the government parties decided to nominate someone with significant political weight aer the unsuccessful half-term of President Schmitt. While President Áder has not yet served a full term as head of state, his example is worth mentioning because it can be characterized as a return to the role perception of the second term of President Göncz and the term of President Mádl. Whereas it is not as crucial as in semi-presidential systems, the political balance of forces during the term of a certain president is significant in relation to their formal and informal position. President Göncz commenced his second term in 1995 with a friendly political majority in the legislature but served his last two years during the term of Viktor Orbán’s cabinet whose coalition came to power in 1998 as a sharp contrast to the socialist-liberal alliance. President Göncz’s first term between 1990 and 1995 was the most debated period in relation to the powers of the head of state (see section 4.3) but he became passive when a friendly coalition came to power. It is a proof of con19

Between 1996 and 2000 Ferenc Mádl chaired a rightist civic association that has become one of the most important organizations behind Fidesz. e Association of the Hungarian Civic Cooperation has been the host of Viktor Orbán’s yearly ‘state of the country’ speeches since 1999, but its informal role is to provide intellectual background for Fidesz.

.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

89

solidation, however, that his relative silence continued aer the right emerged again in 1998. Whereas, his first term was a clear intention to extend the boundaries of the position he held, in the second, he significantly reduced his use of the informal power of the presidency in issues of governance. While he initiated 7 constitutional vetoes during the term of the centre-right government of József Antall, 2 political vetoes were initiated aer the cohabitation terminated and only 1 during his last two years when the Fidesz was in power (see Table 3.). If president Göncz’s first term exemplifies the role of the head of state as the counterbalance to the government (or, at least, an intention to create it), his second, in contrast, established the role of the president as the ‘uncle of the nation’ which later became an expectation related to the apolitical attitudes in Hungarian society. e second half of President Mádl’s term also ended up in a different political landscape compared to its beginning. In 2002, the socialist-liberal coalition won the election but until 2005 the centre-right leaning president remained in office. Although the political differences were mirrored in the growing number of constitutional and political vetoes (see Table 3.), it did not result in the broadening of the position of the head of state. On the contrary, when President Mádl vetoed the act on hospitals in 2003 but the legislature passed it on the same day without actual reconsideration, a decision of the Constitutional Court20 declared that the head of state cannot use the constitutional and the political veto successively but he or she has to choose between them. On the other hand, however, the same resolution declared that the political veto has to be taken seriously, that is, it needs to be, at least, reconsidered and opened to debate in the legislature with real opportunity given to the president to participate the session. Being a professor of law and aristocratic in habit21, Ferenc Mádl strictly adhered to the 20 21

Declaration of the Constitutional Court, No. 62/2003. (XII. 15.). Both the personality and the previous career of the presidents contributed to their understanding and shaping of the office. Árpád Göncz, being an author and known for his translations of literary works (Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and works by William Faulkner among them), was a 1956 revolutionary who was sentenced to death, and who remained out of public and professional life during the communist regime. It is not only because of this that he attempted to run an office as close to the ordinary people as was possible. It helped him to shape his office into being above party politics, on the one hand, but being involved in the sharpest political conflicts on the other, as was seen in his confrontations with the right wing cabinet of József Antall.

90

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

rules of the constitution. However, partly because of this, his stance was criticized by some on the right for not intervening in the change of governments in 2004 when Péter Medgyessy stepped down as the prime minister and Ferenc Gyurcsány was elected by the same coalition. In fact, the head of state has no real authority in government formation according to the constitution but there were speculations that the ‘nomination of the prime minister’ might give the authority of an effective selection. In this regard, Ferenc Mádl reassured the limits of the formal rules of his office by ruling out any political intervention.22 Aer the extraordinary but unsuccessful presidency of Pál Schmitt, the term of János Áder suggests a return to a limited but, at the same time, independent understanding of the office. However, the overall character of his presidency is not yet known and it could be affected by, among other things, the next general election in 2014. ese narrow understanding of the office of the president suggests that if there are any differences at all regarding the informal position,

22

President Göncz’s successor, Ferenc Mádl took a more distant stance and retained the traces of his academic background. Whereas he was a member of the cabinet of József Antall, the understanding of his office was shaped more by his professional background than his political involvement aer the transition. In contrast to him, László Sólyom, also a professor of law, was a more active personality. He was the former President of the Constitutional Court and an important figure of the Hungarian green movement, a factor that remained important during his years in the office. Similarly to Árpád Göncz, the resigned president, Pál Schmitt tried to become a head of state close to the people. Being an Olympic champion and a public person well-known for his TV-program that promoted everyday sport before the transition, he exemplified an adaptive personality who was able to get along with the leaders of the communist regime so much so that he was a deputy manager of one of the most important hotels in Budapest, which definitely was a position of trust during the communist era. In contrast to all of the previous presidents, János Áder did not have any significant professional past except for minor positions related to his judicial qualification. He has been a professional politician since the transition, a member, faction leader and the Speaker of Parliament. Consequently, if there are similarities in János Áder’s presidency to the previous ones, they are not so much related to his professional background as to the two-decade long traditions of the office, the patterns he inherited and the experiences of a professional politician. Besides, he is famously known for his cold-blooded and extremely moderate personality that is definitely reflected in his understanding of the office. For more on the overall – limited – role of presidents in government formation in Hungary see Horváth (2009). On the legitimacy and the political context of the nomination of Ferenc Gyurcsány by President Mádl aer Péter Medgyessy’s resignation see Körösényi (2005).

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

91

they must depend on how the respective presidents were using the power of words23. at is, the designated issues they intended to emphasize, the conflicts in which they took a stand even without referring to their formal powers steps except for the constitutional obligation of ‘safeguarding the democratic operation of state organisation.’ Besides, there were certain values which all the presidents thought to be worth of emphasizing, for example in their inaugural addresses however, neither President Göncz in his second term, nor President Mádl seemed to have a special agenda they intended to pursue, as is the case with President Áder. at is, as it will be shown later, that separates them from President Sólyom whose informal position was, at least partly, the outcome of the agenda he construed. Contesting the constitutional framework: the first presidency of Árpád Göncz In 1990, as a result of the MDF-SZDSZ pact, the Speaker of the Parliament, Árpád Göncz became the first elected president of post-transitional Hungary. Despite his restricted constitutional authority, he tried to create a wider legal and political space and act as a counterweight to the government (Körösényi et al. 2009: 110). In more than the half of his presidency, there were continuous conflicts with the government regarding the presidential scope of authority. e conflicts resulted in declarations of the Constitutional Court that established and constricted the position of the president within the Hungarian political system24. Árpád Göncz had clear connections to the SZDSZ, the main opposition party of the first governmental period: he was a founding member of the party and even gained a mandate in the parliament in 1990. As president, he positioned himself to be the opposition to the prime 23

24

It exemplified both the power of words and the constraints of the powers of the Hungarian head of state when President Mádl reflected upon the socialist Prime Minister’s involvement in the communist secret service that leaked shortly aer he was elected in 2002. In his own words, Mádl did not know about the case, therefore he was not able to make a well informed nomination to the office of the Prime Minister. Should the President have been informed of the facts in question, his role would have been by all means constrained. While Ferenc Mádl was able to indicate his disapproval, at the same time, he declared that the head of state does not possess the necessary powers to intervene in such a situation. See the declarations of the Constitutional Court cited in 3.2.

92

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

minister and his cabinet and acted in line with his party’s ideological position in his first tenure. e first years of his presidency were about finding his formal position in the political system: the contingencies of the transition created ‘blind spots’ in the constitutional structure that seemed to offer opportunities for increasing the power of the president. Examining this counterweight function, one cannot separate President Göncz’s political motives (his criticism on policies of the government) from the institutional ones: he tried to extend the power of the presidential office and this effort always resulted in a conflict with the governing parties. He did not follow any particular agenda but a reactive politics in a series of political issues and events. As we pointed out earlier, declarations of the Constitutional Court regulated the presidential institution. All of these decisions can be linked to the conflicts between President Göncz and the Antall cabinet. In the first year of Árpád Göncz’s presidency, the so called ‘taxi blockade’ set him against the government. e taxi drivers were protesting against the increase of petrol prices by blocking the traffic of Budapest. e situation was almost a state of emergency; the whole political system was shocked by the out-of-law nature of the protests shortly aer the transition, while the president even called upon the cabinet to withdraw the price increase25, obviously intervening in a policy issue appertaining to the cabinet. He also had an argument with the Minister of the Interior about the right to put the army in action because the Constitution declared that ‘the President of the Republic shall be the Commander in Chief of the Hungarian Armed Forces’. A few months later, the conflict continued when President Göncz wanted to intervene in the appointment of the staff of officers. e Constitutional Court issued a declaration in September 1991 which clarified the situation: the commander-in-chief position is outside of the structure of the forces, therefore the president cannot act as superior officer with respect to the armed forces. e decision was a milestone in the establishment of the constitutional structure of the Hungarian political system, because it declared that the president stands outside the executive power and holds ‘independent presidential powers’. 25

e ‘taxi blockade’ showed that President Göncz did not refrain from turning against the MDF government: he openly supported the taxi drivers against the cabinet, and aer the incident he initiated a new law about the amnesty of the protesters.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

93

Another infamous affair of the early 1990s concerning the position and powers of the president was the so called ‘media war’. In 1991, the government (with reference to a decree from 1974) wanted to place the public media under the supervision of the cabinet by appointing a vice president in the directorates of both public television and radio. Árpád Göncz rejected the appointments and later, also refused to sign the release of the television/radio directors whom the government saw as being biased towards the opposition. e strife was about whether the president has the right of discretion regarding government appointments or whether he has to approve them without hesitation. is affair also ended up in a declaration of the Constitutional Court that restricted the power of the president and severely limited the scope of possible rejections. To sum up, the decisions of the Constitutional Court eliminated the ‘blind spots’ of the constitutional structure and in each case restricted the power of the president. erefore, Árpád Göncz’s efforts to broaden the space of his presidential activity were fruitless. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that his actions helped him to develop a ‘political counterweight’ role as the opposition’s president: by continuously presenting an opposing political stance reinforced by the authority of his office, he could successfully hamper the Antall cabinet’s work. us, he established the role of the head of state as a potential political player in daily politics by being active in conflicts. In his first tenure, President Göncz used his formal powers actively: he regularly attended parliament sessions and even took the floor 22 times. He also proposed three bills, a peculiarity among the powers of presidents of parliamentary democracies26. He used the constitutional veto of statutes moderately, while most of his objections were approved by the Constitutional Court. Broadening informal position through agenda-setting: the presidency of László Sólyom Ten years aer the transition, László Sólyom brought a radical change to the patterns of the modern presidencies27. His past and his strong 26 27

No other president exercised this particular power aer President Göncz’s first term. Even his election in 2005 was unprecedented in the history of post-transitional Hungary. Because of the division related to the nomination within the governing coalition,

94

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

character destined him to redefine the office of the head of state. As former President of the Constitutional Court (between 1990 and 1998, under the terms of Árpád Göncz), he played an active part in shaping the institution of the president, that is, constraining its role. László Sólyom’s presidency might be characterized by his declared intent to become a passive head of state which, eventually, turned into unprecedented activity. Before his inauguration, he declared to break with the traditions of earlier presidents. President Sólyom emphasized his independence from party-politics and wanted to change the image of the presidency. Borrowing his own words, he did not want to be the people’s beloved president28. In his early interviews, he clearly pointed out the directions of his presidency: First, he wanted to limit the number of his public appearances to increase the importance of his messages. Second, he did not want to initiate independent bills because, in his approach, a president cannot expose himself to the danger of the parliament’s rejection. And finally, he also wanted to reduce meetings with political leaders to emphasize his independence29. His intentions, however, were coupled by a particular activity: he was the first president of post-transitional Hungary who had a pro-active agenda. One may identify two policy fields where he tried to broaden his presidential position: that of environmental protection and that of the Hungarian minorities in neighbouring countries. Referring to the Constitution, he emphasized his responsibility for Hungarian people all over the world and tried to build connections to the Hungarian civil society abroad by organizing a series of conferences and meetings.

28

29

the opposition managed to get László Sólyom elected. (Árpád Göncz was also a candidate of the opposition in 1990, but his election was a result of the extraordinary compromise between MDF and SZDSZ.) At the end of his term, President Mádl rejected his nomination for a second term, and therefore Fidesz and MDF supported László Sólyom, who was suggested by the environmentalist organization called Védegylet. President Sólyom had a peculiar coalition behind him that crossed the settled party cleavages: during the days of the transition, he was a member of MDF, became a known environmentalist and a centrist who was supported by human rights liberals and the centre-right parliamentary opposition as well. It was a factor that contributed to his independent and oen anti-party role perception. Newspaper article: ‘Nem akarok szeretett elnökünk lenni’ Magyar Hírlap, 5th August 2005. Newspaper articles: ‘Nem akarok szeretett elnökünk lenni’ Magyar Hírlap, 5thAugust 2005.; ‘Az emberi méltósághoz való jogot soha nem lehet korlátozni.’ Népszava, 19th August 2005. ‘Most tehát akasztják a hóhért.’ HVG, 11th August 2005.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

95

President Sólyom’s commitment to environmental protection was part of his political past but even this aspect of his role perception caused inner tensions in his presidential activity when he opposed the installation of a NATO radar30. His reluctance to liaise with leaders of the parliamentary groups on issues that required the cooperation of the head of state and the legislature also led to several conflicts. While in cases of nomination (according to the rules of the Constitution) it is up to the discretion of the president whom he or she proposes to the parliament, the actual election has always been dependent on party cleavages. In this regard, President Sólyom took his constitutional role literally; he expected the parliament to approve anyone he nominated; he conceived of his presidential rights as being truly independent. Since the problem concerned several nominations, fruitless debates and deadlocks followed, harming the political position of the parties and the head of state alike31. Besides, it should be mentioned that regarding the use of veto, he was by far the most active head of state (see Table 3). e political crisis of the autumn of 2006, the spark of which was the famous leaked ‘we lied’ speech by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, evoked serious comments by President Sólyom. He metaphorically revoked confidence from the Prime Minister as he was describing the situation as a moral crisis caused by the words of Ferenc Gyurcsány32. Among presidents aer the transition, it was László Sólyom who most intended to create a strengthened informal position. Firstly, his 30

31

32

On the one hand, László Sólyom fought for the preservation of the designated mountain’s natural values, on the other, however, he had to take responsibility for the security of the country – even as the Commander in Chief of the Hungarian Armed Forces. In other cases President Sólyom achieved some success: he tried to establish the “network of green presidents”, which resulted in a collective declaration of the Finnish, Austrian, Lithuanian and Hungarian Presidents on the preservation of Europe’s environmental diversity. For example, he nominated a Prosecutor General in 2006 without any recourse to the (governing) parties and he did not get the support of the parliamentary majority. However, the conflict affected other high officials such as the ombudsmen (whose nominations were rejected three times leaving the positions unfulfilled for months) and the President of the Supreme Court. e relation of the two remained manifestly hostile: during the economic crisis in 2008 Ferenc Gyurcsány hoped to extend his elbow-room by summoning an extraparliamentary consultation chaired by the President. ‘e state functions not that way’ – answered László Sólyom thereby hindering the strategy of the Prime Minister.

96

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

strategy was to emphasize the independent position of the head of state in the Hungarian political system by referring to the Constitution and opposing the established patterns of how the office was run by his predecessors. Secondly, his efforts were also supported by the designation of his own issues which helped him to be active on his own right instead of reacting only to the acts of the government or the legislature. irdly, opposed to his own declared intentions, he did not remain in the background running a silent presidency; on the contrary, he was an active player in the daily political process. Constraining informal position voluntarily: the presidency of Pál Schmitt e election of Pál Schmitt in 2010 had two unique features. On the one hand, compared to his three predecessors, he had much stronger party affiliation: he became the first president of the republic who was a par excellence party-politician33. It was a break with the practise that existed aer 1990, that an active party-politician may not be nominated as president of the republic34. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that Schmitt’s election did not take place in the middle of the parliamentary term, but coincided with the establishment of the new government, thus the office of the head of state became part of the patronage for the two-thirds majority. e new Fidesz–KDNP cabinet animatedly embarked on various reforms. In this unique political situation the government preferred a head of state who was not expected to become a strong political actor in the ongoing term35. So it did not come as a surprise that Pál Schmitt, before being elected, declared that ‘I will not be an obstacle to the legislative dynamism of the government but the engine of it”36. 33

34

35

36

In 2003, he became a deputy president of Fidesz. He led the party’s European Parliamentary list in 2009. e MSZP made the first attempt to break this practise: in 2005 the party nominated Katalin Szili, vice president of the MSZP and current speaker of the parliament for president of the republic. at is the reason why the re-election of the outgoing president László Sólyom did not come into question at all. Despite his centre right orientation, being an autonomous head of state, he did not meet the requirements of the ruling party. Newspaper article: ‘Meghallgatták Orbán Viktor államfőjelöltjét a Fidesz-KDNP frakcióban. ‘Népszabadság, 25th June 2010.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

97

e role perception of Pál Schmitt fundamentally differed from his predecessors, and may be described as unconditional loyalty. During his presidency, the parliament passed as many as 336 acts and the president, unlike his predecessors, never used either the political or the constitutional veto, even though a number of laws had been adopted which were heavily criticized not only by the parliamentary opposition, but also by Hungary’s international partners and the EU (e.g. the media law). e Constitutional Court then annulled a number of laws which had been signed by President Schmitt. It can be concluded, therefore, that his constitutional measure did not function properly. Schmitt refrained from the veto even if the unconstitutionality of a certain law was obvious (e. g. the amendment of criminal procedure act)37. Schmitt did not even attempt to manoeuvre in the field of nomination of high civil servants, since all of his personal propositions made to the parliament were in accordance with the government’s expectations. However, it does not mean that Pál Schmitt had no preferred issues; as head of state he wished to emphasize the protection of the Hungarian language, the propagation of healthy lifestyle, sports and the importance of lifelong learning as well as to represent the belief of ‘national togetherness’. According to his own political credo, he desired to create the image of a politician who is one among the people. It should be mentioned, however, that the president failed to achieve even his own under-positioned goals and thanks to his political mistakes he became a constant target of criticism, and, in the end, aer 21 months in office, he had to resign because of a plagiarism scandal. In contrast to his predecessor (László Sólyom) President Schmitt was not successful in developing his own agenda in order to broaden his informal position. He looked instead for alternative fields of activity to replace the formal powers he ‘gave up’ voluntarily. It can be concluded that the most important factor of President Schmitt’s underpositioned term was his party-affiliation and his personal dependence on the Prime Minister’s political will. 37

is kind of attitude obviously differed from the period of 1995–1998 and 2000– 2002. Although the political colour of the government and head of state more or less coincided, both President Göncz and President Mádl used their formal or informal powers if they found it justified.

98

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Evaluation and conclusions According to our findings, while there were obvious efforts to broaden the role of the head of state in Hungary aer the transition, no actual president was able to build successful politics based on such a strategy. e most important factor behind the relatively weak informal position of Hungarian presidents is a structural one; it is the system of parliamentary government in which the prime minister has become more ‘presidential’38 than the presidents themselves in influencing governments. at is, the formal and informal characteristics of Hungarian parliamentarism hindered presidents who have tried to become more than their constitutionally proscribed role. Moreover, efforts to broaden the informal position of the presidency either proceeded from formal conflicts and dilemmas or ended up in formal decisions. e best example in this regard was the first presidency of Árpád Göncz whose attempts were constrained by declarations of the Constitutional Court. Ultimately, the consequence of such conflicts was the elimination of the blind spots that were leovers of the contradictious transition agreements. Furthermore, while anti-party sentiments are not far from the attitudes of Hungarian society39, the presidents did not base political strategies on them and there were only a few attempts in this respect. We found that among the informal measures, only public speaking (e.g. constructing a personal agenda independent from the parties) was available to presidents who wished to broaden their position. However, the most consequent effort in this regard did not prove to be successful; the case of László Sólyom showed that independence from parties does not create distance from them; rather continuous conflicts follow, which easily erode the perception of the office of the head of state as well.

38

39

e ‘presidentialization’ of the Hungarian prime ministers can be observed in three fields (see Körösényi et al. 2009:273–274): – strengthening the executive power within the political system – increasing the independence of the prime minister from its party background – personalization of the electoral campaigns. Trust in parties has been consistently low since the transition. While in the case of presidents, it was always over 60 %, the trust in parties has stabilized around 35 %.

3. WEAK BUT NOT POWERLESS: THE POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT IN THE HUNGARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

99

To sum up, in Hungary, we conclude, the pattern is complicated: leaning on formal powers (e.g. the use of veto) combined with the power of words can be a successful way of creating and maintaining presidential authority, at least within the framework of the parliamentary government. ereby, formally weak presidents might be potent political players even without contesting the boundaries of the office.

Appendix Table 2: Elections of presidents in Hungary 1990–2012 President

Other Candidate

Árpád GÖNCZ Affiliation: SZDSZ

—

Árpád GÖNCZ Affiliation: SZDSZ Ferenc MÁDL Affiliation: Fidesz-MDF

Election 3rd August 1990 – first round Yes: 295 votes; No: 13 votes

Ferenc MÁDL

22nd April 1995 – first round

Affiliation: MDF-Fidesz

Göncz: 259 votes; Mádl: 76 votes

—

4th August 2000 – first round Yes: 243 votes; No: 96 votes 6–7th Juny 2005 – third round

László SÓLYOM Affiliation: Fidesz-MDF

Katalin SZILI Affiliation: MSZP

Szili: 183 votes; Sólyom: 13 votes (first round) Sólyom: 185 votes; Szili: 178 votes (second round) Sólyom: 185 votes; Szili: 182 votes (third round)

Pál SCHMITT Affiliation: Fidesz-KDNP

András BALOGH Affiliation: MSZP

János ÁDER Affiliation: Fidesz-KDNP

—

Compiled by the authors.

29th Juny 2010 – first round Schmitt: 263 votes; Balogh: 59 votes 2nd May 2012 – first round Yes: 262 votes; No: 40 votes

II

III

IV

V 2002–2005

0 7 7 1,8

Number of political vetoes in the period

Number of the constitutional vetoes in the period

Number of total vetoes in the period

Average number of vetoes per year in the period 0,5

2

0

2

4,0

0,5

1

1

0

2,2

Árpád GÖNCZ (SZDSZ)

2,2

4

3

1

1,8

Ferenc MÁDL (Fidesz-MDF)

VI

VII Fidesz-KDNP

2010

VIII Fidesz-KDNP

2010–2012

IX Fidesz-KDNP

2012–

4,7

15

10

5

3,2

8,9

43

15

28

4,8

23,5

4

1

3

0,2

0,0

0

0

0

1,8

12,0

10

1

9

0,8

Ferenc MÁDL László SÓLYOM László SÓLYOM Pál SCHMITT János ÁDER * (Fidesz-MDF) (Fidesz-MDF) (Fidesz-MDF) (Fidesz-KDNP) (Fidesz-KDNP)

MSZP-SZDSZ

2005–2010

Compiled by the authors.

* Until March 2013. Notes: – ‘Period’: a new period starts if either the government or the president changes – The unusual high number of average vetoes (23,5) by László Sólyom (Period VII) may be explained by the short length of this period. It lasted only two months; however, four vetoes were exercised. Similarly, neither should Period IX be overestimated, since János Áder came into office only 10 month ago.

4,0

Length of the period (years)

Árpád GÖNCZ (SZDSZ)

Árpád GÖNCZ (SZDSZ)

2000–2002

President

1998–2000

MDF-FKgP-KDNP MSZP-SZDSZ Fidesz-FKgP-MDF Fidesz-FKgP-MDF MSZP-SZDSZ

1994–1998

Government parties

I

1990–1994

Period

Year

Table 3: Constitutional and political vetoes in Hungary (according to the political affiliation of the presidents and the cabinets)

100 PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

101

4 THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN? THE HISTORICAL, CULTURAL AND LEGISLATIVE DETERMINANTS OF THE POLITICAL ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT OF POLAND PIOTR SULA – AGNIESZKA SZUMIGALSKA Introduction Most democratic states in both Western and Central Eastern Europe have applied the parliamentary form of governance. Among these forms of governance, however, the president’s position is much stronger in some systems than in others. Moreover, primarily in new democracies, the process of decision-making requires certain modifications aimed at the improvement of the state’s effectiveness. For this reason, certain initiatives have emerged, oriented at broadening or restricting the president’s competencies. In the case of Poland, the latter tendency (e.g. the restriction of the president’s competencies) may be observed aer 1989, while the inter-war tradition serves rather as an example of the opposite. e inter-war period also inspired the politicians who participated in the creation of the foundation of the democratic state aer 1989. is analysis of the presidency will therefore be preceded by reflection on the president’s role in the Second Republic of Poland, while in the section devoted to the developments aer 1989, particular periods will be delineated, revealing the main directions, characteristics and tendencies concerning the president’s position in Poland. In this analysis, the main issues under scrutiny pertain to the determinants of the president’s role in the political system of Poland. Here, both the historical background and the conditions of cohabitation are the points of reference for further analysis. Moreover, one should not neglect the individual features and political ambitions of particular

102

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

presidents. ose personal characteristics and institutional frameworks that shape the conditions for the president’s competencies and powers should therefore be taken into consideration. Moreover, it is worth noting that the institutional framework is oen not merely the consequence of the quest for the most “logical” solution (considering the historical background), but it is rather determined by the expectations of the political actors. is was the case in Hungary, where the president was elected by parliament because only the communist party had a recognizable candidate (Ilonszki 1993: 258).

The competencies and the political relevance of the president in the Second Republic of Poland World War I ended with the defeat of all countries that participated in the three partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century (i.e. Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia). is allowed for the reconstruction of the Polish state. In 1918, the most popular politician was Józef Piłsudski, whose authority rested upon his achievements in regaining the independence of Poland. Piłsudski was Temporary Chief of State until the first democratic election to the Sejm (called a Legislative Sejm), which was organised on 26 January 1919. He held this function until the establishment of the new constitution. According to the rules introduced in February 1919 with regard to the temporary functioning of the state (the so called “Small Constitution”), the Sejm had legislative power, while the Chief of State and the cabinet executed the acts introduced by the Sejm. is solution involved the considerable restriction of the Chief ’s competencies (Roszkowski 1992: 19–21). e Constitution of 17 March 1921 was the next normative act that thoroughly regulated the relations between legislative and executive powers. is act, known as the March Constitution, provided for the dominance of the legislative power over the executive power. is construction was primarily determined by the right-wing parties’ reluctance toward Józef Piłsudski, as well as their belief that Piłsudski would become the president (Kallas 1997: 309). According to the March Constitution, the president was the head of legislative power. He was elected by the National Assembly (i.e. both chambers of parliament – the Sejm and the Senate) for a seven

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

103

year term. e constitution did not provide for the president’s parliamentary accountability nor his accountability before the law. Nevertheless, he could be held constitutionally accountable in the case of high treason, criminal offence or the infringement of the constitution. Such cases were adjudicated by the Tribunal of State by the motion of 3/5 deputies in the presence of at least half of all deputies (Kallas 1997: 313). Apart from the competencies which are traditionally associated with the institution of the president (e.g. the representation of the state in international relations), the March Constitution provided him with competencies in the following fields: − the nomination and the dismissal of a prime minister and, at his/her request, particular ministers, − issuing of decrees; all the president’s normative acts required the countersignature of the prime minister or the competent ministers, however. In this manner the president in fact depended on the cabinet’s decisions when using his competencies and rights − the right to summon, end and prorogue the ordinary and extraordinary sessions of both chambers of parliament − the dissolution of the Sejm aer obtaining the Senate’s consent (Kallas 1997: 314). According to Piłsudski’s adherents, the aforementioned competencies of the president were too narrow. erefore, as a result of the May coup d’état (a military coup conducted between 12 and 15 May 1926), on 2 August 1926 the Act Amending and Supplementing the Constitution of the Polish Republic on 17 March 1921 was introduced, also known as the August Amendment. On the basis of this amendment, the president had the right to dissolve parliament on the motion of the Council of Ministers, issue decrees with the rank of legislative acts, order the promulgation of the Budget Act in the version proposed by government when parliament neither enacted nor withdrew the project of the Budget Act, and issue decrees with the rank of legislative acts until the new Sejm and Senate were formed (which occurred in 1928). As the result of the August Amendment, the range of the president’s competencies with regard to parliament were significantly broadened. is fact is interpreted in different ways – some scholars claim that the executive power was only strengthened, while others argue that the last

104

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

years of the March Constitution’s validity (1926–1935) were marked by increasing authoritarian tendencies (Kallas 1997: 317–318). In the aermath of the parliamentary election in 1928, Józef Piłsudski’s adherents who were affiliated with the Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government (Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem, BBWR, established in 1927) obtained 29 % seats in the Sejm. Although the BBWR did not have the majority in parliament, they were able to initiate the process of constitutional reconstruction due to the support of other groups (Ajnenkiel 1990: 273). e efforts aimed at the establishment of a constitution which were taken up by the Sejm (formed in 1928) did not bring any results. On 29 September 1930, parliament was dissolved by President Ignacy Mościcki, at the request of Józef Piłsudski (the then-Prime Minister). e new election resulted in the victory of Piłsudski’s circle, known as the Sanation (Lat. sanatio – healing) (Ajnenkiel 1990: 273). One should note that the success of the BBWR (they obtained almost 56 % of the seats) stemmed from a range of events, i.e. the arrest of political opponents, the commitment of state administration in the election campaign on the side of the adherents of Piłsudski, and the invalidation of almost half a million opposition votes (Roszkowski 1991: 63). In the 1930’s the so-called Sanation camp intensified their efforts to establish a new constitution. For the BBWR members, the deteriorating health of Józef Piłsudski was an additional mobilising factor during the last stage of constitutional work (Roszkowski 1991: 72). e new constitution was established on 23 April 1935, a few weeks before Piłsudski’s death. According to the April Constitution, the president was elected, as he had been previously, for a seven year term. He was elected by the Assembly of Electors which was comprised of the Speaker (Marshal) of the Senate as chairman, the Speaker (Marshal) of the Sejm as vice-chairman, the Prime Minister, the First-President of the Supreme Court, the Inspector-General of the Armed Forces and 75 Electors chosen from among the worthiest citizens (50 chosen by the Sejm and 25 by the Senate). e outgoing President of the Republic had the right to propose another candidate than the one chosen by the Assembly of Electors. If the outgoing president exercised this right, the general elections would be organized in order to choose the president from the list of two candidates: one elected

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

105

by the Assembly of Electors, and one proposed by the outgoing president. According to the April Constitution, the president “coordinated the activities of the supreme organs of State“. Consequently, the president appointed the prime minister at his own discretion and nominated the other ministers on the prime minister’s recommendation. He also convened and dissolved the Sejm and the Senate. is right also concerned the opening, adjourning and closing sessions of both chambers of parliament. Other prerogatives of the president were as follows: representation of the state abroad; decisions on war and peace; concluding and ratifying treaties with other states; nominating particular state officials. Apart from these prerogatives, the president also had the right to issue official acts, however he was not accountable for them. e constitution did not include provisions for the president’s accountability during his presidency if his activity was not directly connected with his office. Official acts required the countersignature of the prime minister and the appropriate minister. erefore, the prime minister and ministers were politically and legally accountable for the introduced regulations. With regard to the relationship between the president and the cabinet, one should emphasise the president’s competencies regarding the dissolution of the cabinet, regardless of parliament’s position (Ajnenkiel 1990: 302–304). In the context of the aforementioned reflections, one may claim that the April Constitution marked the last stage of institutionalisation of the authoritarian regime with the president who had broad competencies and no accountability (Roszkowski 1992: 73).

The institutional determinants of the position of the Polish President after 1989 e office of the president was part of the Polish constitutionalist tradition in the Inter-war period. e presidency was formally disestablished in 1952 through the constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL). e idea of the reestablishment of the president’s function was proposed in 1981 by the Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne). Nevertheless, at that time, the idea was supported neither by the Polish United Workers’

106

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) nor the active members of Solidarity (Wiatr 2006: 148–149). e discussion reappeared during the Round Table talks in 6 February – 5 April 1989. As a result, on 7 April the Sejm accepted the constitutional amendment, which was to a large extent devoted to the manner of electing the president and his competencies. e president was to be elected by the National Assembly (both chambers of parliament) for a six year term (Ajnenkiel 1990: 485). In this context one should also stress the fact that the constitution envisaged very few possibilities for shortening the president’s term of office (i.e. in the case of his death, resignation, permanent incapacity to exercise his duties or the decision of the Tribunal State). is amendment was considerably relevant, as its statements, although created with the main aim of reconstructing non-democratic order, provided the principles which were useful in defining the president’s role in the institutional system of Polish post–1989 democracy. Here, the notion of political reconstruction needs to be elucidated. One should bear in mind that the establishment of the institution of a president was primarily aimed at guaranteeing the maintenance of power by the communist camp. is indicates the instrumental character of this initiative (Dziemidok-Olszewska 2003: 24). us, it might be concluded that, as a result of the Round Table talks, the opposition was given certain political concessions (partly free election to the Sejm and thoroughly free election to the Senate) in exchange for their concessions at the constitutional level, which may be proved by the broad scope of the president’s competencies. According to the constitutional amendment of April 1989, “the President ensured observance of the Constitution, safeguarded the sovereignty and security of the State, as well as the inviolability and integrity of its territory, and the compliance of international and military alliances”. Nevertheless, there appears some ambiguity regarding the interpretation of this statement. e main doubts regard the dilemma whether this statement is a general instruction for the president, or it is just one of the president’s competencies. is ambiguous notion was repeated in the Constitutional Act of 17 October 1992 (so-called Small Constitution). According to Leszek Garlicki, considering such broad yet unclear presidential competencies, this solution could be perceived as “antiparliamentary or even – potentially – antidemocratic”, as it allowed the president to take action in any

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

107

direction (Garlicki 2007: 16–20). e reality of political life proved that these statements brought the considerable potential for conflict. Considering the range of competencies which were assigned to the head of state on the basis of the constitutional amendment of April 1989, the competencies regarding the Sejm are worth special attention. e president had the right to dissolve the Sejm in the following cases: when the Sejm was unable to form the government in the period of 3 months; when the Sejm did not adopt the budget act in the version proposed by the Council of Ministers; when the Sejm adopted a legislative act or the resolution which did not allow the president to fulfil his constitutional tasks (Alberski 2005: 235). On the basis of the right to dissolve the Sejm in the two former cases, the president was to stand guard over the stability of the political system. is right was aimed at the prevention of long political crises. One should treat the president’s competencies regarding the dissolution of parliament, in the situation when parliament adopted a legislative act which did not allow the president to fulfil his constitutional tasks, differently. is statement provided the president with remarkably broad opportunities for interpretation. e only argument which could prevent the overuse of this right by the president was the threat of his accountability before the Tribunal of State due to the lack of sufficient conditions for the dissolution of the Sejm. e motion in such a case would be formed by the following National Assembly (Wiatr 2006: 150). When reflecting upon the political role of the head of state, special attention should be paid to the regulations which concern the president’s participation in the law-making process. Pursuant to the amendment of April 1989, the president was assigned competencies in the following fields: initiating legislative proposals; signing and announcing legislative acts; referring legislative acts to the Constitutional Tribunal for verification of their compliance with the constitution; refusing to sign a bill and having the right to return the bill to the Sejm (Alberski 2005: 237). e regulations regarding the participation of the head of state in the law-making process, which were the consequence of the Round Table talks, were subsequently incorporated (with slight modifications) into the “Small Constitution” of 1992 and the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of 1997. Pursuant to the statements of 1989, within

108

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

30 days the president could refer a bill to the Constitutional Tribunal for adjudication upon its conformity to the constitution. is condition was sustained in the “Small Constitution”, while in the constitution of 1997 it was shortened to 21 days. e relevance of the judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal has also been changed – until 1999 (the constitution of 1992 introduced a two-year transition period) the judgments of the Tribunal could be withdrawn by the Sejm by a two-thirds majority vote. Since 1999, the judgments of the Tribunal have been final, which means that the president is obliged to sign the bill that has been judged by the Constitutional Tribunal as conforming to the constitution. However, particular provisions of the bill may be adjudicated as lacking conformity with the constitution. If the Tribunal does not judge that they are inseparably connected with the whole bill, the president, aer hearing the opinion of the Marshal of the Sejm, shall either sign the bill with the omission of those provisions which have been considered to be in non-conformity to the constitution, or shall return the bill to the Sejm for the purpose of removing the nonconformity. It is worth noting that the president’s right to refuse to sign a bill has been considerably weakened. Until 1997, the withdrawal of the president’s veto required a two-thirds majority vote in the presence of at least half of the statutory number of deputies. Since the establishment of the new constitution, a three-fihs majority vote is required (Alberski 2005: 238–239). Aer 1997, the president lost the right to refer a bill to the Constitutional Tribunal, if this bill had been previously vetoed by him, and that veto was withdrawn by parliament. e right of veto cannot be used with regard to the budget act. It should be also mentioned that the head of state cannot use his right of veto with regard to the judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal concerning the bill. With regard to the president’s competencies, one should not ignore his rights concerning the executive power. In particular, the president proposes the motion to the Sejm to nominate or dismiss the President of the Council of Ministers. e head of state, on the motion of the prime minister, conducts changes in the government. In the period of 1989–1997, the president could convene and preside over the meetings of the Council of Ministers “on issues of particular importance”. Since 1997, the president has had the right to convene the Cabinet Council

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

109

(i.e. the session of the Council of Ministers presided by the president). e Cabinet Council does not possess the competencies of the Council of Ministers. On the basis of the Small Constitution, the president also had the right to influence the appointment of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Interior (the Act of 7 April 1989 on the Amendment on the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland; the Constitutional Act of 17 October 1992 on the Mutual Relations between the Legislative and Executive Powers of the Republic of Poland and Local Government). As noted by George Sanford, the period between 1989 and 1997 is marked by a shi from “the semi-presidential-parliamentary system” (1989–1997, with the special relevance of the 1992 constitutional act) to a system similar to that of a “prime-ministerial-cabinet-parliamentary” system (initiated by the establishment of the 1997 constitution). Moreover, the political practice of cohabitation should also be considered as one of the crucial factors determining the shape of the Polish presidency (Sanford 1999: 771). Besides this, one should note that both acts defined the president’s powers and competencies in a relatively broad (and sometimes ambiguous, primarily in the Small Constitution) manner, leaving space for interpretation (Sanford 1999: 771–772). In general, one may state that since 1990, the Polish presidency has been defined by universal elections and a relatively strong political position of the president. Moreover, due to these factors, presidential campaigns play a relevant role here, primarily when the use of the system of mass media in Poland is taken into consideration (Sanford 2002: 139). To sum up the presented reflections, the relevance of the president in the first years of the democratic transformation not only stemmed from the scope of the competencies of the head of state regarding parliament and government, but it was also the result of the president’s political legitimacy. e range of this legitimacy was significantly broadened aer the amendment to the constitution, introduced in 1990 on the initiative of Wojciech Jaruzelski, in which the universal election of the president was introduced. e first presidential election based on the new rules was organised in 1990 and resulted in the election of Lech Wałęsa as the head of state.

110

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

From the semi-presidential to the cabinet-parliamentary system e post-1989 evolution of the Polish political system, from semi-presidentialism to parliamentarism, was partly the result of a well-considered strategy of decision-makers. However, it was also conditioned by the period’s political context. e goals of particular actors engaged in the creation of the foundations of the democratic order were not only linked with the set of values of good governance. e applied solutions were also considered irrational as they involved the mechanisms which could result in political tensions instead of eliminating them. In this context, one should take into account vague competencies of the president with regard to the executive power. Here, the main stress is put on the president’s competencies, which were not merely confined to symbolic participation in the decisionmaking process. Hence, attention is paid to those particular presidents’ activities, which allows the authors to indicate the main directions of the Polish political system’s evolution. is evolution was initiated in a relatively characteristic manner. On the one hand, the head of state was assigned the attributes typical of presidentialism. On the other hand, however, President Wojciech Jaruzelski was elected by the National Assembly, not in the universal election. Moreover, as Andrzej Antoszewski noted (1998: 112), in the period 1989–1990, presidentialism was of a normative and not actual nature. It was clear that communists had lost their political control. Under those circumstances, even a president with a broad scope of competencies could not prevent the loss of influence. It should be also noted that the parliamentary legitimacy for President Jaruzelski (who was elected on 19 July 1989) was weak due to his election by the National Assembly by a majority of only one vote (Wiatr 2006: 151). However, the election of Jaruzelski suggested that communists were still in power, which was to “appease” the Soviet Union (Sanford 2002: 55). According to Antoszewski, the second period in the development of the political system in Poland embraced the presidency of Lech Wałęsa, and lasted until the establishment of the Small Constitution. At that time, the political system was close to presidentialism, both in its formal dimension and in political reality. As the author notes, in the

111

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

third period moderate presidentialism was adopted, which was initiated by the introduction of the Small Constitution (1992). e fourth stage, aer 1995, was actual (but not normative) parliamentarism with elements of semi-presidentialism. e last period in the modern history of the Polish political development was initiated by the establishment of the 1997 Constitution. is date marks the beginning of the cabinet-parliamentary regime, complemented by the elements of semi-presidentialism (the universal election of the head of state, as well as the president’s right to veto the bills adopted by parliament). Some scholars define such regimes as “dualistic/ divided executive power” (Herbut 1998: 13). Continuing the aforementioned reflections, the presidents’ activities should be analysed with regard to his legislative initiative and the right of veto. In this section, several conflicts in the cohabitation period will be presented. When answering the question about the extent to which particular presidents used their constitutional prerogatives with regard to legislative initiative, one should refer to the quantity data, presented in Table 4. Table 4: Legislative initiatives of the Presidents of Poland in the period 1989–2012 President

Term of Office

Number of legislative initiatives

Wojciech Jaruzelski

1989–1990

2

Lech Wałęsa

1990–1995

24

Aleksander Kwaśniewski

1995–2000

20

Aleksander Kwaśniewski

2000–2005

24

Lech Kaczyński

2005–2010

47

2010–2012 (to 31.12.2012)

11

Bronisław Komorowski

Sources: Alberski 2010: 71; http://www.prezydent.pl/, http://www.ilw.org.pl/

e data concerning Bronisław Komorowski refer to the number of legislative initiatives in the first half of his presidential term. Nevertheless, it appears that Komorowski’s legislative activity is comparable to other presidents’ activity in this area (20–24 legislative initiatives during a term), considering the current tendency. In this context, the presidency of Lech Kaczyński shows an extraordinarily high level of

112

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

legislative activity. President Kaczyński proposed 47 legislative initiatives and it may be assumed that if he had not died in the plane crash in Smolensk, he would have proposed more initiatives. As a result, his active role in the legislative process would probably have been emphasised in the election campaign. Despite the fact that President Kaczyński actively initiated the legislative process, Donald Tusk claimed that the role of the president in Poland was restricted to “guarding the chandelier”. For this reason Tusk resigned from taking part in the presidential election in 2010, claiming that the position of the prime minister would allow him greater influence in the decision-making process. President Wojciech Jaruzelski, elected by the National Assembly in 1989, has also been included in Table 4. Nevertheless, his role in the legislative process (or generally, in the decision-making process in the period between 1989 and 1990) was rather marginal, despite the initial intentions of the communist camp. Although he was assigned a broad scope of prerogatives, Jaruzelski in fact contributed to the parliamentarisation of the Polish political regime. e relevancy of particular presidential initiatives was different. Some of them were merely symbolic (e.g. the act on state medals), while others aimed at improving the efficiency of particular institutions (e.g. the amendment to the act on judiciary). e presidents’ activity also varied with regard to other instruments of influencing the legislative process. Here, the frequency of using the right of veto, as well as the referrals to the Constitutional Tribunal (for the verification of legislative bills’ conformity to the constitution) should be taken into account. ese data are presented in Table 5. Considering the data presented in Table 5, none of the presidents may be considered a “leader” with regard to the use of the legislative veto or the referral of bills to the Constitutional Tribunal. However, the activity of Lech Wałęsa proves that his presidency was more confrontation-oriented than other presidencies. is can be concluded from the discrepancy between the use of veto power and the referrals to the Constitutional Tribunal. Table 5 indicates that Wałęsa’s reservations were primarily of political, and not judicial, character. In the case of all the presidents, their questioning of the bills adopted by parliament were politically (not constitutionally) motivated. e only exception was Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s first term of office, when he questioned

113

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

the constitutional conformity of the bills, rather than use the right of legislative veto. Table 5: The use of the presidential right of legislative veto and referrals to the Constitutional Tribunal President

Legislative veto

Referrals to the Constitutional Tribunal

Wojciech Jaruzelski

1

2

Lech Wałęsa

24

5

Aleksander Kwaśniewski (1996–2000)

11

13

Aleksander Kwaśniewski (2001–2005)

24

12

Lech Kaczyński

18

17

Bronisław Komorowski

2

5

Sources: Alberski 2010: 70; http://www.prezydent.pl/, http://www.ilw.org.pl/

e right of legislative obstruction was used much more oen during the periods of cohabitation, i.e. when government and the president were from different parties. is was evident at the beginning of Aleksander Kwaśniewski’s second term of office, and during the presidency of Lech Kaczyński aer 2007, i.e. aer the formation of the coalition cabinet by the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) and the Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL) (Alberski 2010: 71). e periods of cohabitation in Poland (1993–1995, 1997–2001, 2007–2010) were marked by political tensions, as already indicated by the data concerning the commitment of the head of state in the legislative process. Here, particularly interesting and “spectacular” are those conflicts which focused on the interpretation of the division of competencies regarding the dualistic executive power. At the very beginning of Lech Wałęsa’s presidency, certain tensions appeared between him and Prime Minister Jan Olszewski, who was supported by the parliamentary majority. e conflicts regarded the powers of the president, as well as Lech Wałęsa’s activity concerning foreign relations and the armed forces. e tensions between the president and government culminated when the Minister of Interior, Antoni Macierewicz, presented the list of the alleged secret agents of the communist Security Service (the report is known as the “list

114

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

of Macierewicz”), including people surrounding Wałęsa. During the night of 4 and 5 June 1992 (the so-called “briefcases night”), a motion of no-confidence was approved by the parliamentary majority who supported the head of state (Wiatr 2006: 152). Hanna Suchocka, who succeeded Jan Olszewski as prime minister, accepted the ambitions of Lech Wałęsa. However, in May 1993, a motion of no-confidence of Suchocka’s government was proposed. President Wałęsa decided to dissolve parliament, as he expected that the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms (Bezpartyjny Blok Wspierania Reform, BBWR, supported by Wałęsa) would win the elections. is decision resulted in the creation of parliament and the formation of the coalition cabinet composed of the Democratic Le Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD) and the Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL). From the very beginning of cohabitation, Lech Wałęsa adopted a confrontational strategy with regard to the coalition and refused to nominate the ministers appointed by prime ministers – Waldemar Pawlak (PSL) and, subsequently, Józef Oleksy. Main tensions concerned the appointment of the so-called presidential resorts (the Ministries of: Defence, Interior and Foreign Affairs). It seems, that the president’s personal ambitions and his attitude did play a relevant role in shaping his relations with parliament. In the case of Józef Oleksy, an additional dimension of conflict was introduced by the Minister of Interior, Andrzej Milczanowski (recommended by Lech Wałęsa). Aer the presidential election in the autumn of 1995 which resulted in Wałęsa’s failure, Milczanowski accused Józef Oleksy of espionage activities for the Soviet Union and Russia. ose accusations led to the collapse of Oleksy’s cabinet. In that period, cohabitation ended with the election of Aleksander Kwaśniewski (SLD) as president. e second period of cohabitation in Poland began in 1997, when Jerzy Buzek was nominated as prime minister. As already mentioned, Aleksander Kwaśniewski vetoed the bills adopted by parliament in the period 1997–2001. Nevertheless, as opposed to Lech Wałęsa, he did not attempt to influence the composition of the government nor its style of work (Wiatr 2006: 154). It appears that the comparison of these two presidents’ terms of office requires the consideration of two basic factors.

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

115

First, the circumstances of their presidencies were different. Aleksander Kwaśniewski operated in a much more institutionalised and stable political environment than Lech Wałęsa (despite the legislative weakening of presidential powers due to the 1997 reform) (Millard 2000: 42). Here, special attention should be paid to the first period of Wałęsa’s presidency when he had to form the foundations of communication and potential cooperation with the Sejm (Millard 2000: 44). us, the initial conditions of the democratization process, as well as internal political tensions during that period need to be considered. What is more, the power and form of political support should be taken into account (i.e. relatively strong and united support for Kwaśniewki as the only candidate of le-wing parties versus internal tensions and competition between Wałęsa and other candidates representing the right) (Millard 2000: 45). Second, both presidents’ personalities and “visions” of the presidency differed. It seems that Wałęsa perceived his office in terms of strong and active leadership, and his personal ambitions determined his political decisions and the directions of his activity. As an example, one may refer to the conflicts regarding the discussions on the voting system of Poland, where Wałęsa attempted to play a considerably active role (Cf. Millard 2000: 47), or his engagement in the creation of a new constitution (Millard 2000: 48). In many cases Wałęsa’s active position resulted in his conflict with parliament. It seems that Wałęsa’a crucial aim and ambition was to strengthen the presidential office and guarantee a broad scope of executive competencies and powers, while Aleksander Kwaśniewski revealed such ambitions to a much lesser extent. It seems that, when opposing parliament in the first period of his presidency, Kwaśniewski aimed to confirm his political independence from the pressures of his “home party”, i.e. the SLD (Cf. Millard 2000: 52). Moreover, it should be noted that Kwaśniewski focused on strengthening Poland’s international position. Nevertheless, in the cohabitation period (1997–2001) Kwaśniewski adopted a more active approach, which oen led to certain tensions with the government and contributed to mutual distrust between both parties. (Millard 2000: 54–56). As an example, one may refer to the president’s position toward the government’s proposal of a territorial reform, which was finally amended in accordance with his conception. As Sanford notes, in this case Kwaśniewski presented “superior political

116

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

footwork, timing and judgement compared with his predecessor” (Sanford 1999: 773). Nevertheless, in comparison with Wałęsa, who lacked the ability to mediate in political tensions, the cohabitation between President Kwaśniewski and the Buzek government was rather “smooth” (Sanford 2002: 145–146). e third period of cohabitation in Poland occurred between 2007 and 2010, when Lech Kaczyński was president and Donald Tusk served as prime minister. e main disputes during this period concerned the competencies of both organs. For the first time in a long period of time, the conflicts led the opponents to question particular constitutional principles. e debate regarded the scope of competencies which should be assigned to the head of state and the prime minister. ese disputes were anchored in the context of the presidential election (2005 r.), in which Lech Kaczyński and Donald Tusk were rivals in the second round. It appears that their mutual conflicts were, to a certain extent, the continuation of the election campaign, but they were also a prelude to the expected competition in the following presidential election in 2010. Nevertheless, the election was not conducted due to the death of Lech Kaczyński in the plane crash in Smolensk. It should also be mentioned that Donald Tusk had decided not to campaign for the position of the president. With regard to the rough relations between the president and the prime minister during 2007–2010, one should note the conflict concerning the participation of the head of state in the European Union summit in 2008. e main aspects of this conflict were the place at the conference table and the use of the plane to transport the president and the prime minister to Brussels (Chruściak 2011: 14). e dispute regarding the representation of Poland at the EU summit was adjudicated by the Constitutional Tribunal. According to the Tribunal’s judgment, the head of state has the right to participate in all EU summits, but the state shall be officially represented by the prime minister. Conflicts between the president and the prime minister outside the periods of cohabitation are unique. As an example, one should consider the conflict between Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Leszek Miller. As a result of this conflict, the prime minister resigned from his position in 2004 (Wiatr 2006: 154). Summing up the presented reflections, one may conclude that normative aspects were not always the crucial factors defining the

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

117

president’s position. Wojciech Jaruzelski, despite having a wide range of prerogatives, did not use them, whereas Lech Wałęsa fully used his rights. Basing on the justifications prepared by the Chief of the Presidential Chancellery (Lech Falandysz), Wałęsa attempted to reinterpret his competencies. e most conspicuous proof for the “Falandisation of the law” (“Falandyzacja prawa”, the term derives from the surname of Lech Falandysz and refers to the flexible interpretation of the law) was the president’s dismissal of two members of the National Council of Radio Broadcasting and Television who had been appointed by the president. e law did not stipulate any opportunity to dismiss the members of this institution, but Lech Falandysz argued that this right was in fact “presumed” since it was not mentioned in legal acts. It is worth noting that, according to the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court, the dismissal of both members of the National Council of Radio Broadcasting and Television was unlawful. Much more aloofness with regard to the use of the president’s rights (with the exception of the right of veto), was presented by Aleksander Kwaśniewski, although formally, for a two year period, he was assigned the same scope of competencies as Lech Wałęsa. e presented examples, as well as the position of Lech Kaczyński, indicate that presidents’ activities stem from their personal ambitions, and depend on their political affiliation, i.e. the adherence to the party (co-)creating the government. erefore, in the analysis of Polish presidencies, one should consider the personalities of particular presidents (Millard 2000: 40, Sanford 2002: 141). Nevertheless, one should also note that the presidents who used their competencies to a greater extent and who engaged in political disputes more intensively were evaluated in a more negative way than the heads of state who presented more restrained approaches. is trend is illustrated by the data presented in Table 6. In this context, the presidency of Wojciech Jaruzelski is worth consideration. As already mentioned, he did not interfere in the work of the government. It appears that the low level of public support of Jaruzelski was, instead, connected with the negative perception of the communist regime (which he was identified with) than with the perception of his presidency, per se.

118

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Table 6: Public opinion on the presidents of Poland (1989–2013) President Wojciech Jaruzelski Lech Wałęsa Aleksander Kwaśniewski Lech Kaczyński

Bronisław Komorowski

Year

Positive evaluation

Negative evaluation

1st year of term

1989

74 %

—

Last year of term

1990

32 %

—

1st year of term

1991

60 %

10 %

Last year of term

1995

22 %

65 %

1st year of term

1996

54 %

11 %

Last year of term

2005

52 %

38 %

1st year of term

2006

39 %

16 %

Last year of term

2010

31 %

58 %

1st year of term

2011

67 %

18 %

3rd year of term

2013

74 %

16 %

Source: CBOS, www.cbos.pl

Conclusions Concluding the reflections on the role of the president in the Polish political system, one should stress the fact that up to now no consensus has been reached with regard to the amendment to the Constitution, despite regular disputes concerning the president’s competencies. Public opinion on the shape of the political regime is not coherent, which is illustrated in Table 7. Table 7: What political construction should be applied in Poland? 2008

2010

Mixed, with the executive power shared by the President and the prime minister

41 %

34 %

Parliamentarism (the executive power is exercised primarily by the government)

32 %

35 %

Presidentialism (the executive power is exercised primarily by the president)

13 %

16 %

No opinion

13 %

15 %

Source: CBOS, www.cbos.pl

4. THE GUARDIAN OF THE CHANDELIER OR A POWERFUL STATESMAN?

119

One should also note that opinions on the political regime, as well as the postulations for its change, are determined by the evaluation of current issues, which may be gathered e.g. from research conducted by the Public Opinion Research Center (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej, CBOS). e attitudes toward the regime also correlate with voters’ party sympathies and their party affiliations. As examples, one may refer to Lech Kaczynski’s term of office – the supporters of the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), adhered more oen to the concept of the extension of the president’s competencies than the supporters of other parties did, while the adherents of the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) advocated for the strengthening of the prime minister’s position. e intensity of the discussion on the president’s role in Poland has been eased in both political and scholarly debates. e history of the last two decades proves, however, that no single normative act may guarantee the elimination of political tensions, including conflicts which stem from cohabitation. Hence, one may expect the next wave of strong emotions in the discussion on the role of the president during the next period of cohabitation. is situation may emerge in 2015, when both the parliamentary and presidential elections will be conducted. Nevertheless, in many scholars’ opinions, these elections do not have to result in the alternation of power. erefore, when forecasting political changes, one should refrain from making categorical judgments.

121

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

5 SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS PETER SPÁČ Historical traditions of the role of president Slovak politics experienced a relatively turbulent period of development prior to the introduction of the communist regime in 1948. At this time the Slovak territory was located in various states, all with rather divergent characteristics. e tradition of a presidential post began with the creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 and continues to this day. As the character and nature of the political societies of which Slovakia was a part during the twentieth century changed, so also did the role of the president. e First Czechoslovak Republic originally envisaged a fairly weak formal role for its president. is notion stemmed from a negative view regarding the concentration of power in one pair of hands, a view that was informed by the direct experience of the Austro-Hungarian empire and which characterised political opinion at the time. e republic was conceived of as parliamentary with the head of state serving a symbolic function rather than that of a crucial political actor (Balík et al. 2003: 61). However; the reality was significantly removed from the theory, largely due to the personality of the first president, T. G. Masaryk. Not only did he gain stronger competencies over other bodies of state power shortly aer his election1, he also overstepped the formal framework and regularly put himself into the role of a very active head of state. An informal network of individuals allied with Masaryk, the so-called ‘Castle’ (Hrad), was the clearest expression of this tendency. In the first years of the new republic in particular, the ‘Castle’ established 1

Examples include his suspensive veto against parliament, and his power to appoint as well as dismiss government members (see the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 (Ústava ČSR z roku 1920)).

122

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

itself as something of a counterbalance to the relevant parliamentary political parties. Masaryk’s halo of ‘President-Liberator’, widely recognised by the public, assisted him significantly in this transformation of the role of the president from the weak one originally intended. e specificity of Masaryk’s position is illustrated by the fact that the constitutional limitation stipulating that no one may hold the presidential office for longer than two subsequent terms was not applied to him. Indeed, Masaryk held the post four times (1918–1935), occupying it throughout almost the entire duration of the First Republic (Heimann 2009: 67–68; Balík et al. 2003: 61–65). e so-called Second Republic of 1938–1939 is largely irrelevant to this chapter, as at that time Slovakia was already autonomous and, within a few months it gained independence. e same cannot be said of subsequent developments, however. What has been described as the Wartime Slovak State (1939–1945) introduced an entirely different concept of the president’s role. is was a non-democratic regime with a firmly established leading position associated with the only permitted party: Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (Hlinkova slovenská ľudová strana, HSĽS). e president (the office was occupied by J. Tiso for the duration of the state) was also HSĽS leader, thus embodying the role of central political actor, both in formal and real terms. e regime gradually transformed itself and, following an initial period, an attempt was made to shi it towards totalitarianism. is further underlined Tiso’s role, as reflected in the fact that he was officially entitled Führer (Vodca) from October 1942 onwards (Kopeček 2006: 92)2. In domestic politics, he faced no equal opponent, but this must be put into context, as the Slovak State fully conformed to the ideas of Nazi Germany. When World War II ended Czechoslovakia was restored as the socalled ird Republic (1945–1948). Although formally this represented a continuation of pre-war developments, its realities were entirely different3. e presidential office was occupied by E. Beneš, whose mandate was viewed as a continuation of his term during the First Republic and his time in exile. ere was then something of a parallel between his position and that of T. G. Masaryk, and it was widely perceived 2

3

e description of the Slovak state as ‘Tiso’s regime’ testifies to the key role Tiso played as its president (Cf. Heimann 2009: 115). Legal acts following the Munich Agreement were declared null and void.

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

123

as such: both were personalities whose contributions to the establishment and renewal of the republic respectively were undeniable. Both approached their constitutional roles in an activist fashion. Beneš had the power to rule by decree and used this fairly extensively in political and, especially, economic spheres. As president, Beneš was a key political actor in 1945, but in later years the balance of power shied to the gradually strengthening communist party (Balík 2002). In summary, Slovak politics in the twentieth century was mostly marked by strong presidencies, whether the formal framework granted them wide competencies or not. e influence of these historical legacies is highly problematic, however. e non-democratic, and at times even totalitarian, nature of the wartime Slovak State precluded the possibility of this state serving as a consensually accepted model for contemporary politics. Although part of today’s polity is somewhat sympathetic to this model generally speaking it is contradictory and divisive (Bútorová – Gyárfášová 2008: 246–247). Similar objections apply to the short post-1945 period, during which democracy was also strongly violated. Although the First Republic also had its deficiencies, in comparison with what followed it can be considered a fully-fledged democratic system. Contemporary Slovak politics draws almost no inspiration from it. e idea of Czechoslovakism and the artificial creation of the Czechoslovak nation not only did not lead to the proclaimed unity of the common state, in fact it had almost the reverse effect. roughout the First Republic, the Slovak polity kept its distance from the centre in Prague; it featured an independent party subsystem and gradually stepped up its demands for autonomy. Reservations about the First Republic were transferred into post-1989 Slovak politics; indeed, there is no mention whatsoever of this tradition in the preamble of the Slovak constitution4. Symbolically, this is apparent from the lukewarm remembrances of the First Republic on its anniversaries. us, while it is true that although the period preceding the communist regime (which itself lasted for more than forty years) did provide sufficient political 4

Whereas the preamble of the Czech constitution refers to the Czechoslovak tradition, in the Slovak constitution such reference is entirely omitted, though the document alludes to a more distant past. See the Czech and Slovak constitutions (Ústava ČR and Ústava SR).

124

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

traditions that could have determined the role of the Slovak president, its actual influence and legacy have been fairly negligible.

The formal position of the Slovak president e transition to a democratic regime in post-1989 Czechoslovakia meant profound changes to the country’s political system. Many of the mechanisms that had been employed under the communist leadership were not established to support real competition and could only operate because all power was executed using a top down approach5. As such, the political framework in place was incompatible with the democratic system, and various changes had to be made to support the formalising and democratisation of politics, including the removal of the clause concerning the Communist Party’s leading role in society from the constitution. ese changes resulted in Czechoslovakia’s adoption of a parliamentary model of governance, which was preserved by both successor states when the federation was dismantled6. e fundamentals of the contemporary political system in Slovakia are as follows: Legislative power is vested in the proportionally elected unicameral National Council of the Slovak Republic consisting of 150 MPs. Executive power is divided between the president and the government, and the latter clearly has the upper hand. With his competencies, the Slovak head of state is among the weaker presidents in the world. Although his role is not limited to ceremonial and representative functions, he is not a key political actor. Specific points of his remit have only gradually been enshrined in the constitution. 5

6

e so-called zákaz majorizácie is a typical example. is was a parliamentary mechanism that prevented the adoption of certain measures unless agreement was reached from both Czech and Slovak MPs in sufficient numbers. As Karen Henderson (2002) implies, several of these mechanisms from the communist era played a supportive role in the process of division of Czechoslovakia. e above mentioned zákaz majorizácie proved its incompatibility with the post 1989 period very shortly as it led to the so called hyphen war where Czechs and Slovaks argued about the new official name of the federation. Apart from that, Henderson points out that similar negative consequences were connected with the differing perceptions of the role of national councils by both nations or by the fact that Czechs did not fully understand the need of Slovaks to stress their otherness. According to her, these problems contributed to the final collapse of the federation.

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

125

e Slovak president is elected for a five year term which is about the European average. Although he has various powers, what matters here in terms of the political sciences are his relationships with other branches of state power. In his relationship with the government he is limited to only matters related to personnel: he appoints the prime minister and removes him from office, and, on his suggestion, also appoints other members of the government. Originally the president was not bound by the prime minister’s proposals (see below for more details), but since constitutional changes were made in 1999 he has simply become an executor of the prime minister’s will in this regard. He cannot therefore significantly affect the workings of the government, although he can attend its meetings7. His position vis-à-vis the parliament is similarly weak. He is not among the bodies which can propose new laws; he does, however, have a suspensive veto, which the National Council can override if it has an absolute majority of all MPs. He can likewise appear in parliament with an address evaluating the running of the state. Moreover, the president can dissolve the National Council; although this only applies under strictly limited conditions. His main competency towards the judiciary consists in appointing judges (see Ústava SR). e manner in which the Slovak president is elected is important. Originally he was elected indirectly by the National Council, and a constitutional majority of 90 MPs was needed. is mechanism failed in practice, as significant polarisation of the party spectrum in the second half of the 1990s made it impossible to elect the head of state in parliament8. e parliamentary opposition responded by proposing a constitutional law, and when that failed, initiated a referendum on the issue of the direct election of the president; this was subsequently foiled (Michalič 1997). Circumstances only changed following the 1998 election. Having achieved a constitutional majority, the government 7

8

Real developments have revealed shortcomings of the Slovak constitution in this respect. e document did not envisage the possibility that an already established government would not be given confidence by the National Council, which is precisely what happened to Radičová’s cabinet in 2011. An ad hoc solution was adopted whereby the president obtained a certain supervisory power over such a cabinet. See below for more details. For over a year, beginning in March 1998, Slovakia was without an elected head of state.

126

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

coalition was able to push for direct election through parliament. Today the Slovak president is elected by the citizens in a two round system combining absolute and simple majorities. If no candidate obtains an absolute majority of votes in the first round9, a second round is held in which the two most successful candidates from the first round compete. e candidate who wins the most votes in the second round becomes the president. Together with the transition to the direct election, the procedure for removing a president from office was also altered. It is now possible to do so by popular vote which is set in motion by a parliamentary resolution passed by the votes of at least 90 MPs. If the absolute majority of eligible voters favour removing the president from office in the popular vote, his term ends; otherwise, he dissolves the National Council and his term starts anew. is in fact means that the Slovak constitution considers a president who has withstood his attempted removal from office by popular vote to be essentially re-elected. is is problematic, as Slovak referenda have shown that majority turnout is very unlikely except for parliamentary and local elections10. Just as the president is limited in his abilities to dissolve parliament, so there are also strong obstacles to his removal from office. Although direct election is more typical of semi-presidential and presidential systems, its introduction in Slovakia was not followed by a substantial strengthening of the president’s competencies. Indeed, precisely the opposite happened: his remit as set out in the constitution was narrowed in some areas. e original constitution did not require the countersignature of any documents, and so multiple authorities, such as the appointment of diplomats or the office of commander-inchief of the army, were placed fully in the hands of the president. e 9

10

e unclear definition of ‘absolute majority’ (nadpolovičná väčšina) makes evaluation of the first round somewhat problematic. e constitution requires ‘an absolute majority of valid votes [cast] by those eligible to vote’ (nadpolovičnú väčšinu platných hlasov oprávnených voličov; Article 101 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic). On the one hand, this refers to ‘valid votes’, i.e. actual votes cast by citizens who participated in the election; on the other, the expression ‘those eligible to vote’ focuses our attention on all individuals who can participate in the election. e only valid referendum to date was that on acceding to the EU in 2003 (cf. Sedlár 2005). e head of state can also be removed from office by the decision of the Slovak Constitutional Court if he intentionally violates the constitution or commits high treason. is possibility is hypothetical rather than realistic.

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

127

amended constitution from 1999 significantly altered this, and many actions of the president now require countersignature of a government minister. In this way, responsibility for the implementation of his actions was shied onto the cabinet. On the other hand, in 2001 the president obtained the power to appoint various positions, both judges at various levels and the Attorney General. In these areas his obligation to follow the will of the bodies which propose the individuals for these positions is less strict than when appointing government ministers11. Another important indicator of the position enjoyed by the head of state is the fact that he cannot directly address citizens by initiating referenda. Although it is true that he is the only authority who can call a plebiscite, a vote in parliament or a popular petition is first required. e president’s role is limited to evaluating whether the motion fulfils the legal requirements and deciding whether the referendum will be called or not (Spáč 2010: 187–189). e constitution therefore does not provide the president with a direct link to society that would ‘circumvent’ other state authorities. In summary, the institutional standing of the Slovak head of state has undergone some development since 1993. Following the introduction of the direct presidential election, his position was altered in several respects, but there is no clear tendency towards either the strengthening or weakening of his position. Generally speaking, the present legislation puts the holder of the highest state office in the position of a non-partisan authority, and does not explicitly consider him a primary political actor at the same level as the government or the National Council. However, following substantial amendments around the year 2000, the constitution now contains multiple vague formulations, especially concerning powers to appoint, which potentially provide the holders of the presidential office with space in which to realise 11

e 1999 amendment shied the wording concerning the appointment of ministers to the imperative: on the prime minister’s suggestion, the president ‘will appoint and dismiss’ (vymenuje a odvolá) these individuals (and does not have any choice in this regard). e original wording ‘appoints and dismisses’ (vymenuváva a odvoláva) was much subtler and allowed the president the choice not to appoint. It remains in the constitution for most of the president’s other powers to appoint individuals to office, including the Constitutional Court and the Attorney General (Cf. Constitutional Law No. 9/1999 (ústavný zákon 9/1999 Z.z.)).

128

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

their personal ambitions. Moreover, actual developments have indeed shown that they do not hesitate to do so.

Informal position of the Slovak president Since the establishment of independent Slovakia, the country has had three presidents. In 1993 Michal Kováč was elected to the post – this was done indirectly as was the practice at that time. When his term concluded, Slovakia was without a president for more than a year as polarisation of the party spectrum blocked the National Council. When the direct election system was adopted, Rudolf Schuster was elected in 1999, having beaten the HZDS12 chairman Vladimír Mečiar in the second round. In the next election he was replaced by Ivan Gašparovič, the only president so far to secure re-election. Today (2012), Gašparovič is in the third year of his mandate and, due to constitutional constraints, he cannot stand in the next election. All three presidents have displayed some activist tendencies vis-à-vis the Slovak political scene. M. Kováč stood for election as a member and a nominee of HZDS. is party was dominant at the time and its parliamentary group consisted of 74 MPs, which effectively precluded the possibility of a president being elected against its will. Kováč was also supported by other parties, namely the Slovak National Party (Slovenská národná strana, SNS) and the Party of Democratic Le (Strana demokratickej ľavice, SDĽ). Having successfully campaigned to win the support of other parliamentary parties, Kováč obtained 106 votes and became Slovakia’s first head of state (cf. Horváth 2005: 3–4). Given Kováč’s party affiliation, a degree of loyalty towards his mother party could be expected. is did not occur, however, and only a few months into his term Kováč’s relations with Mečiar worsened significantly, and matters only became further aggravated in later years. is resulted from Kováč’s disagreement with HZDS’s principles of semi-democratic governance; between 1993–1994 and 1998, it overshadowed all other existing animosities and, to use Mesežnikov’s 12

HZDS is the abbreviation of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (Hnutie za demokratické Slovensko).

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

129

(1997: 19) fitting expression, ‘had become a constant of Slovak politics at the time’. In the initial years of the new political system, a foundation was thus laid for institutional conflict between the president and the government, whereby the real power held by both components of the executive could be demonstrated. Kováč became the main target of the attacks mounted by Mečiar’s governments, especially by the third Mečiar cabinet (in office 1994–1998). e head of state was gradually stripped of the powers granted to him by law (not by the constitution) and repeatedly had the budget of his office reduced. Several measures clearly overstepped the boundaries of liberal democracy13. As HZDS and its partners did not have a constitutional majority at their disposal, they were unable to remove Kováč from office. In 1995, the National Council passed a vote of no confidence in the president. is was a somewhat absurd measure, as the parliament had no authority in the constitution to do so, and therefore this act was without any legal consequence whatsoever (Leško 1996: 200–201). What is significant here is how the president responded to the conflict. e problematic nature of HZDS governance, which was difficult to reconcile with democracy, propelled him from the position of a neutral actor, and Kováč became a powerful critic of the Mečiar set. His activism covered two areas in particular. Firstly, he made good use of his right to present reports in the National Council evaluating the country’s situation. His spring 1994 address, in which he subjected the second, now minority, Mečiar government to scathing criticism proved especially important14. Kováč’s speech was instrumental in the parliamentary opposition’s subsequent motion of no confidence in the government, which ended the latter’s term (Kopeček 2007: 152–153). When HZDS was re-elected to government, Kováč repeatedly made use of this competency, but given the distribution of power in the parliament at the time, its effect was limited. 13

14

One might mention here the repeated accusations made by HZDS that the president had links with the criminal underground or that he had committed high treason. e most severe case of intimidation was the kidnapping of the president’s son, allegedly committed by the Slovak secret services controlled by the government (Mesežnikov 1997; Hloušek and Kopeček 2003). Several MPs gradually le HZDS aer the 1992 election. is also affected Mečiar’s later coalition partner, SNS (Kopeček 2006: 177–178).

130

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

e president’s approach to personal matters displayed intervention in real politics of an altogether different kind. As described above, the constitution originally did not oblige the president to respect the suggestions of the prime minister in terms of appointing government ministers, and the president’s proposals of individuals to occupy diplomatic posts did not require countersigning. In theory, the president could intervene in the composition of government, according to his own will, thus potentially obtaining significant control over its function. Despite the strongly adversarial environment, Kováč only used this option sporadically. In 1993, for instance, he refused to appoint Ivan Lexa to the position of minister for privatisation (Lexa was later made the head of the secret service, and during his term the service was at its most problematic). Similarly, in 1996 he repeatedly blocked the appointment of HZDS vice-chairwoman, Oľga Keltošová, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (Mesežnikov 1997: 19). It is true that in doing this, President Kováč overstepped his role as simple executor of the prime minister’s will, and directly interfered with the latter’s idea of who should be in the government, how it should operate, and what the wider scope of its functions should be. But the extent of these interventions was in fact minimal, and the prime minister retained overall control over the make-up of the executive. Despite claims made by government politicians15, the head of state was not creating an alternative centre of power to act as a counterweight to Mečiar’s governments. A counter-argument could be made by pointing towards the so-called letters which Kováč regularly published in countrywide and regional media in which he was critical of the executive (Mesežnikov 1998: 23–24). Whilst it might seem that this was an attempt to circumvent the established institutions and create a direct link with the public, the true rationale for Kováč’s actions lay in the problematic, but at the time essentially normal, situation, in which the public media controlled by the government largely ignored the president, who used the private media to compensate for this. In summary: Kováč’s term was strongly marked by the conflict that flared up between himself and the HZDS chairman and prime min15

Keltošová herself described Kováč’s discharge of duty as monarchist and absolutist (Cf. Mesežnikov 1997: 19).

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

131

ister, Mečiar. Among other things, their dispute was a test of Slovak democracy and its institutional framework. Whereas the government used almost every opportunity to weaken the head of state and exerted pressure in an attempt to make him stand down, he, in contrast, acted with considerable restraint. Although the constitution at the time would in fact have allowed the president to strengthen his position to some degree, Michal Kováč did not make use of these opportunities. On the contrary, he publicly supported parliamentarianism and its central mechanisms16. e era of Kováč’s presidency could be framed in a wider process of destabilization of horizontal accountability in Slovakia under the rule of HZDS in the 90s. e party of Vladimír Mečiar made a great effort to minimalize all potential mechanisms which could control or limit the governments which it formed. is trend became stronger aer the 1994 general elections and it was symbolically boosted during the infamous parliamentary night in November 1994 when the coalition of HZDS, SNS and ZRS occupied a sum of positions ranging from public broadcasting to parliamentary commissions. As the coalition had no power to remove Kováč from his post, it aimed at weakening him even by using unlawful methods until his last days in office (cf. Deegan-Krause 2000). e second Slovak president, Rudolf Schuster, was directly elected in 1999, and was the candidate of most parties in Dzurinda’s government. He was the leader of the Party of Civic Understanding (Strana občianskeho porozumenia, SOP), which he established before the 1998 parliamentary elections. Although the main proclaimed aim of this project was to bridge the divide in the then polarized Slovak party system, further development proved that Schuster used SOP mainly for his own purposes to become the head of the state. is became quite clear aer his election, as SOP lost its original purpose and started to fade and disintegrate. In the 2002 general elections, the party did not 16

It cannot be said, however, that the space afforded to the president in the original wording of the constitution would allow him to introduce semi-presidentialism. Other elements would be needed for the emergence of this system, including public tolerance of such a model of governance. Kováč never questioned parliamentarism, and in evaluting the problematic state of democracy in 1990s Slovakia, he proposed a parliamentary election as the only solution. He did not entertain the idea of changing the position of the head of state (Cf. Mesežnikov 1997: 21).

132

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

cross the threshold17 and in 2003 it ceased to exist by merging into the Smer party (Kopeček 2007: 272–279). When Schuster took office, some presidential competencies were already weakened by the amendment described above18. In particular, this concerned his relationships with the government and the prime minister. On the other hand, the direct election endowed Schuster with a stronger legitimacy, and one that was essentially independent of the government. As subsequent events were to show, the new head of state was well aware of this fact19. e pivotal moment of the Schuster presidency was his attempt to devise a doctrine of state that would overcome the existing polarisation of the party spectrum. Schuster’s intention was to hold roundtable talks with the leaders of the parliamentary parties (Mesežnikov 2000: 28–29). One might wonder how successful this endeavour would be in creating an alternative arena – effectively a substitute for the parliament under the patronage of the president – but it is doubtful that it could play a major role. Indeed, the president’s initiative was not endorsed by the political parties and Schuster had no means of making them submit to his will. e president’s attempt to become a mediator was thus substantially relative and, objectively speaking, can be deemed unsuccessful. Rudolf Schuster’s somewhat activist approach was also apparent in his relationship with his contemporary government, or rather, governments, which were all led by Mikuláš Dzurinda during Schuster’s term. Given that this was the environment from which Schuster himself arose, he initially maintained a positive stance towards it, gradually emancipating himself from the cabinet. He used multiple measures to this end, of which the most important was his suspensive veto. Although the constitution does not set any specific limits on its use, under the logic of parliamentarianism it is arguably a correction mecha17

18

19

SOP did not compete in the election as an independent subject, but nominated its candidates on the list of SDĽ. is common list got only 1.36 percent votes. However it has to be noted that this modification was done in a democratic and peaceful way unlike the changes made by Mečiar’s government before 1998 which were leading to further destabilization of the system’s horizontal accountability. In 2000, Schuster criticized the public media for not affording him enough space. In this context, he rejected comparisons with the prime minister and speaker of the parliament, whom he described as ‘politicians’, but considered himself ‘a directly elected independent individual’ (Mesežnikov 2000: 32).

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

133

nism allowing the head of state to respond to significant shortcoming in the legislative process20. Whilst Michal Kováč acted in accordance with this view (even when faced with conflict, he used this option only sparingly), Schuster grasped the possibilities afforded by his right to suspensive veto, using it widely as a way of opposing the government21. In 1999, he returned only three laws to the parliament, although the number increased significantly in later years, reaching up to twenty per year. is trend continued aer the 2002 parliamentary election when the new Dzurinda government, now made up of only the centre-right parties, began a large scale economic reform, oen at odds with the stance of the head of state. In addition to the veto, Schuster frequently appeared in parliament presenting evaluative reports which, generally, were strongly critical of the government. e 1999 amendment to the constitution prevented the president’s interference in the personal make-up of the government, leaving only one avenue open for his influence during the formation of the government. Over and above the legal framework, a practice was established in which, before appointing the prime minister proper, the president entrusted a specific politician with a mandate to form the government. is mandate has no legal standing, however. e head of state can thus enter into the process of government formation and, to a certain degree, complicate the position of parties whom (s)he views unfavourably. e 2002 election provided Rudolf Schuster with such an opportunity. Although the president let it be known in advance that in making his choice he would favour an individual able to secure a majority in the National Council, he broke his promise and the mandate went to the victorious, yet isolated, HZDS (Mesežnikov 2002: 32–33). e tradition of granting the mandate to form the government to the victor, which was later preserved by Ivan Gašparovič can, it is true, delay the formation of a government. But this step also exhausts the president’s possibilities, since if he were to assert his will any further he would be ignoring the results of the parliamentary election – an absurd consequence, most certainly. ere is no doubt that Schuster was aware 20

21

According to Petr Kresák, one of the authors of the substantial amendment to the constitution, the intention was not to involve the president significantly in the legislative process (SME 2002). During his tenure, Kováč returned 38 laws to the parliament, while Schuster returned 103 (Horváth 2005: 20).

134

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

of this, as HZDS’s mandate only lasted for five days, aer which the former prime minister Dzurinda was entrusted with the task. Schuster’s most noticeable intervention in his country’s politics came in 2004, towards the end of his term. In that year, the trade unions in conjunction with the opposition party Smer, led by Robert Fico, sought to call a referendum to decide whether an early parliamentary election would be held. A presidential election for which Schuster intended to stand was also scheduled for the same year. Aer submitting their petition, the trade unionists asked Schuster to hold both elections on the same date, which was tantamount to them supporting his candidacy. e head of state responded positively to this appeal, thus effectively abandoning his non-partisanship and directly entering into political affairs. Holding both elections on the same date would be damaging to the government parties: by mobilising the electorate to vote for their candidates they might also ensure the validity of a referendum which for them was undesirable22. Nevertheless, Schuster’s calculation failed, as Smer supported another candidate before the election and the trade unions simply asked the citizens to vote without citing a preference. Rudolf Schuster eventually failed to defend his post, placing fourth in the election (Spáč 2010: 235–237). In comparison with his predecessor, Rudolf Schuster’s legitimacy was of a different character, and the scope of his competencies was also different. Schuster ultimately adhered to the formal framework, yet he also strove to emancipate himself, as was apparent from his attempts to establish for himself the role of mediator, or even patron, of national politics. He also sought to influence specific political issues by criticising the Dzurinda cabinets. As the events of 2004 were to show, these activities were not intended to strengthen his institutional standing, but rather to help secure his re-election. Ivan Gašparovič is the current Slovak president. Supported by a group of nationalist parties and Smer, he emerged victorious from the 2004 election. is result was quite surprising because Gašparovič finished second aer Vladimír Mečiar in the first round, and he finished just ahead of the main favourite Eduard Kukan. In fact, all 22

In Slovakia a referendum is only valid if more than half of those eligible to vote participate. If it is held concurrently with an election, this condition is more likely to be met, as the referendum held on the same date as the 1998 parliamentary election has demonstrated.

135

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

candidates of the centre-right parties, including one independent candidate of similar ideological background, failed. For their voters, the run-off represented a tough choice, because if they wanted to prevent Mečiar from becoming president, they had to support his former party vice-chairman. As a result, Gašparovič was hugely supported by centre-right voters including the ethnic Hungarians. is completely modified the character of his electoral support and helped him to win (Pink and Spáč 2012: 190–193). Gašparovič managed to defend his post in 2009 with the support of the then-dominant Smer. Iveta Radičová, whom he defeated in this election, went on to become prime minister (Krivý 2009). Gašparovič’s tenure has been the most controversial of the three presidents. Gašparovič’s terms have differed from those of his predecessors in that there have been full government alternations, and this has undoubtedly influenced him. His affiliation with the centre-le Smer in particular has been apparent from his highly loyal stance towards the Fico governments – a loyalty that has sometimes bordered on subordination. Gašparovič has been much more critical of, and active in his relationship with, the centre right cabinets. A reliable indicator of this is the rate at which he has been vetoing laws. With the outgoing minority Dzurinda government, this tendency was not so marked, but when comparing Fico’s cabinets with the period when Radičová was prime minister, it is very noticeable. Whereas during the years 2006–2010 Gašparovič returned approximately five percent of laws to the Smer government, during Radičová’s tenure the rate was almost three times higher (see Table 8). Table 8: President Gašparovič’s use of suspensive veto Government (prime minister)

Term

Laws passed

Returned by president

Returned by president (in %)

Fico

2006–2010

530

28

5.28

Radičová

2010–2012

208

29

13.94

2012–

61

0

0

Fico

Source: The National Council of the Slovak Republic.

e president’s different approach has been apparent throughout his incumbency. During Smer’s government, Gašparovič was passive and

136

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

avoided all conflict with the government and prime minister. is was consistent with the closeness of their programmes; indeed, prior to the 2009 presidential election (SME 2009), the president likened himself to a Smer member. In exchange for this loyalty, he has received repeated support from Fico’s party which helped him to secure his re-election. However, towards the centre-right parties, the head of state has assumed a much more vigorous stance, actively entering into political affairs. An instance of this was the liberal party’s Freedom and Solidarity (Sloboda a solidarita, SaS) attempt to link a referendum initiated by the party with the 2010 parliamentary election, by which SaS hoped to improve its electoral chances, among other things. e president made full use of the manoeuvring space granted to him by the legal framework and, by using obstructions open to him, he efficiently eliminated the attempt (Spáč 2010: 245–247). Perhaps the most controversial case of the current president’s activism concerned the choice of the Attorney General during the term of Radičová’s government. e constitution stipulates that the Attorney General is appointed by the president on the basis of a proposal passed through parliament. e parliament initially voted in a secret ballot, but the centre-right government coalition’s inability to secure the necessary majority for its common candidate led to the subsequent adoption of an open ballot. e coalition then managed to get its nominee elected (Smer’s candidate failed), but Gašparovič remained passive and, pointing out the problematic procedure of the voting, refused to appoint the new Attorney General, thus supporting the status quo convenient to Smer. To some degree, this situation was analogous to 1993, when Michal Kováč did not respond to Prime Minister Mečiar’s nomination proposal. Gašparovič’s actions (or rather, his passivity) were contested by the centre-right parties at the Constitutional Court and the nominee himself also filed a petition. e Court issued a fairly controversial ruling in October 2012, asking the president to act, but also allowing him to retain his stance as long as he provided an acceptable rationale for it (cf. Nález Ústavného súdu PL. ÚS 4/2012-77). Finally, in January 2013, Gašparovič officially refused to appoint the candidate selected by the parliament23. is situation once again pointed 23

President Gašparovič thus waited more than a year and half to make a decision regarding the whole situation. Aer his refusal to appoint the candidate selected by

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

137

to the lacunae existing in the Slovak constitution, which in a range of areas allows the head of state to intervene substantially in political developments. e motion of no-confidence in I. Radičová’s cabinet in 2011 was something of a test of the Slovak political system’s institutional setting24. e constitution did not anticipate this situation and a swi solution had to be sought. Together with Smer, the government parties pushed through a constitutional amendment which allowed the Radičová government to remain in office until the early election, but only under the president’s patronage, without whose assent no important step could be taken25. Although it might seem that in formal terms the president’s position was substantially strengthened by this, actual practice did not confirm this assumption. Although, for several months, Ivan Gašparovič held something of a supervisory position over the government, aer the 2012 early election which returned Smer’s chairman Fico to the prime minister’s office, the aforementioned ‘passive’ model of presidential behaviour was restored.

Why not a strong president? e Slovak presidents thus far have not been limited to discharging symbolic roles – there are examples of them having directly entered into real politics. As the preceding section has shown, this activism has typically manifested itself in the use of presidential suspensive veto as a tool to block, or at least delay, government policy in parliament. e occasional personal conflicts provoked by the head of state’s unwillingness to appoint the ministers and senior civil servants proposed by the government, and the evaluative reports on the state of the country

24

25

the parties which formed the previous government under I. Radičová, huge protests emerged. e SaS party officially made a proposal to the parliament to accuse the president of violating the constitution. is was a vote on Slovakia’s accession to the European stability mechanism. e prime minister connected the voting with a vote of confidence in her government, as SaS, one of the parties in the coalition, rejected the idea of the Eurozone’s firewall. e government could not negotiate international treaties, or appoint the occupants of multiple state offices. In the Smer chairman’s description of the situation, the government’s task until the early election would be limited to ‘keeping the heating and lights on’ (Constitutional Law No. 356/2011; Webnoviny 2011).

138

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

presented by presidents are similar in this respect. e intensity of these interventions has varied over time; although the formal framework laid down by the constitution was never significantly overstepped. Despite occasional interference by the head of state, the government keeps its prominent position within the executive branch of power. A fundamental question is why the basic logic of parliamentary democracy has not been violated. e most likely explanation is that none of the Slovak presidents had behind them a strong enough political party of which he would concurrently be the leader26. ere was not a single case in which a political organisation was aligned with the head of state, providing him with significant political influence. Michal Kováč and Ivan Gašparovič (in the case of the latter, this was especially true in 2009) were nominated by parties in which the dominant roles were played by their chairmen, i.e. Vladimír Mečiar and Robert Fico respectively. Although Rudolf Schuster was elected as leader of the SOP, the party was weak and fairly rapidly became marginal. It cannot be said that Slovak presidents were weak or bland personalities, but that the most motivated political leaders so far have sought the post of prime minister and not that of president. is supposition was also apparent in the activities of the individual presidents. No president has effectively aimed to create an alternative locus of power to the government. In fact, the only such attempt consisted of the proposal of regular round-table talks suggested by Schuster; an idea that foundered in its infancy as the political parties rejected it outright. Normally, Slovak presidents have not sought to act in an overarching position ‘above the parties’, and repeatedly they have become involved in party competition. ere was a gradual rapprochement between President Kováč and the anti-Mečiar opposition at the time he was in office, and Kováč’s successor Schuster took a similar step, albeit under a different political party constellation. Ivan Gašparovič was a case in point: his political activities changed profoundly depending on whether Smer, the party close to him, was in government or in opposition. is last point significantly reveals why Slovak heads of state did not even have the potential to accrue much power during their stays 26

Here we disregard the established tradition of non-partisanship in which the elected president typically suspends or even formally ends his party membership. Such steps can be purely declamatory and without real consequence.

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

139

in office. Oen involved in party conflicts, they were never in the position of actor standing against all, but were always standing against a limited section of the party spectrum. us, disputes of the type president vs. political parties or president vs. government and parliament as a whole, envisaged by the model of delegative democracy proposed by O’Donnell, have never emerged in Slovakia. In other words, the multiple disputes between president and government that we have recorded were not primarily conflicts between institutions, but rather involved concrete office holders at a specific time. Michal Kováč and Ivan Gašparovič did not argue against the government as a body of state, but against the policies carried out under the leadership of Vladimír Mečiar and Iveta Radičová respectively27. On this account we must therefore clarify and ask: what were the real motives for the activism exhibited by Slovak presidents if, as indicated above, they were not seeking the emancipation of their position? e political developments thus far indicate that the primary reason lay in their personal ambitions; namely, in their working towards reelection. e presidential elections that have been held to date make it abundantly clear that party support for candidates is crucial, and the latter are obviously aware of this fact. is explains both the longterm loyalty of Ivan Gašparovič towards Fico’s Smer, and the steps Rudolf Schuster took in 2004 to combine the parliamentary election and the referendum initiated by trade unions on the same date. Such a rationale does not apply to Michal Kováč, however, and his active approach can be explained by the strongly problematic governance of the Mečiar cabinets during the 1990s, which required correction from Kováč’s side. What remains to be considered are the perspectives of the Slovak presidency. In the past there have been discussions about formally strengthening the post, but they were without consequence. Ivan Gašparovič, for instance, proposed to extend the president’s term from five to seven years, and Rudolf Schuster entertained similar notions (Mesežnikov 2009: 35). Such discussions have recently (2012) re-arisen 27

As for the conflict between Michal Kováč and Vladimír Mečiar, if we had to label it from the latter’s point of view, it would have some institutional background, because HZDS, the ruling party of the 90s, wanted to destabilize the horizontal accountability of the system in its own favor. is included the weakening of an uncooperative president.

140

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

in the Smer party, and the information available does not allow us to rule out the possibility that in 2014 the Smer chairman and current prime minister Robert Fico will seek the highest office of state. is is a point of fundamental importance, as Fico’s election would break with the trend hitherto, in which the presidents were not backed up by a strong political organisation of which they might be leader. Currently there is no need to suppose that the combination of these two issues, the strengthening the competencies of the head of state and the election of a strong political leader such as Robert Fico into this office, would lead to the gradual abandonment of the parliamentary model and a transition towards a (semi-) presidential system. However, this possibility must be taken into consideration. In order to realise this model, the individual in question would have to accumulate the majority of 90 votes in the National Council, which Smer does not have despite its excellent election result. S/he would also have to deal with the possible public resistance to the concentration of power into one pair of hands28. And it is here that the historical tradition described at the beginning of this chapter could play a role: the only previous regime that was not overwhelmingly ignored by Slovak politicians and the public, and which had a powerful head of state, was fully nondemocratic in character. And such a legacy hardly serves as a strong foundation and inspiration for an extensive strengthening of the role of the Slovak president.

Conclusion Aer the demise of the Czechoslovak Federation in 1992, the position of the Slovak president was largely formulated afresh. One of the reasons for this was that the Slovak polity and public lacked a shared vision of a steady historic democratic tradition upon which they might draw. e competencies of the head of state were adjusted several times following the establishment of independent Slovakia, and this gradu28

Although public approval of Smer is currently high (at around 40 %) and its chairman is very popular, such strengthening of his position might be seen as excessive by the public. ere is no empirical ground for such speculations, however, as there has been no discussion of (semi-) presidentialism in Slovakia thus far, and to venture further at this stage would be absurd.

5. SLOVAKIA: IN SEARCH OF LIMITS

141

ally defined his position within the political system. As this chapter has demonstrated, the basic idea of a relatively weak president has remained a constant, however. is remains true even when we take the president’s informal position into account. ree politicians have served in this office thus far. In all cases there were attempts to overstep the competencies as formally defined, but this never resulted in a comprehensive strengthening of the president’s role. e activism displayed by the individual presidents was not caused by their attempts to seize more power, but was largely determined by the existing political situation. Ultimately, the presidents were not arbiters and independent political actors standing above the parties, but formed part of the existing party rivalry. e future of the role of Slovak president is not entirely clear. Developments to date suggest that it will continue to be a comparatively weak position. But the recently opened discussions regarding the possible strengthening of his competencies might indicate a potential for other trends to emerge as well. Ultimately the question remains open, partly due to the fact that none of the presidents to date have had solid political party backing. e election of a politician with such backing might be something of a ‘litmus test’ for identifying the true potential of the position of highest state representative in Slovakia.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

143

6 THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC ALENKA KRAŠOVEC AND DAMJAN LAJH In 1991 Slovenia proclaimed its independence and in the same year set in place a new constitution. e new constitution introduced the principle of the separation of powers, a parliamentary political system, and the office of President of the Republic for an individual to hold. According to the new post-socialist constitution, the President of the Republic would – despite being directly elected – play a chiefly representative and ceremonial role, and only enjoy some significant powers in the event of a state of emergency or war. In spite of the head of state’s limited formal powers, some political scientists have argued that the fact that the head of the state is directly elected is an indicator of Slovenia having a semi-presidential political system (See Elgie and Moestrup 2008). ese formal powers can be supplemented, however, through the use of stronger informal influence. is can be a regular or an extraordinary event in a given political system. is article analyses the formal and de facto role and function of the President of Republic of Slovenia. Although we partly lean on our 2008 chapter, published in Elgie and Moestrup (2008), this article additionally includes and discusses the entire mandate of Danilo Türk and the beginning of mandate of Borut Pahor. e article begins with a brief evaluation of the historical tradition of the head of the state in Slovenia and proceeds to the discussion of the constitutional decisions at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, and the reasons for introducing a parliamentary system with a weak and mainly ceremonial president who is nevertheless elected directly. We then outline the constitutional powers of the president. e third section presents an analysis of the informal influence of the president and the reasons – structural, political or personal – for such a development. We should emphasise that this will be analysed mainly via an analysis of struggles,

144

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

frequently mirrored in conflicts between different office-holders. We conclude with a brief summary of the main findings.

The Slovenian Head of State – Historical Perspective and Slovenia’s Constitutional Choices roughout its history until 1991, Slovenia was never an independent state. For a long time, from the 14th century until 1918, the territory of Slovenia held the status of an hereditary province ruled by the Habsburgs, with a short-lived period (in the first half of the 15th century) of a sort of independent state (Prunk 2000: 6). Because the Slovene nation had failed to realise national-political autonomy within the Habsburg Monarchy, and believing that prospects for its national development would be more easily secured, it decided to leave the Austrian Empire at the end of First World War and, together with the Serbs and Croats, established the Yugoslav state (Prunk 2000: 7), becoming a part of a new state under a (Serbian) king – e Kingdom of Yugoslavia1. Until the introduction of the socialist system following the Second World War, the position of the head of state was formally occupied by the king. e origins of the position of the head of state as someone not of royal lineage can be traced back to the Second World War (1941–1945), when the organs2 of the Liberation Front formally occupied the position of the head of the state. It is necessary to stress that, as a rule during the war, one body held several functions; for example, one body simultaneously represented the executive power, the presidency of the state (the head of state) and the presidency of the Parliament (Grad et al. 1996). is period, therefore, is defined by unity rather than by a separation of powers. According to the Slovenian and Yugoslavian Constitution of 1947, the organisation of powers was the same at the federal and individual levels of the Yugoslav republics. A collective head of the state was 1

2

On 29th October 1918 the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was established. is was soon reconstituted on the 1st December 1918 as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and in 1929 the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Several bodies of the Liberation Front were established during the Second World War and some of them were re-formed several times.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

145

formed – the Presidium of the People’s Assembly. It was elected by the People’s Assembly, and, in conjunction with the head of the state, it held the leadership of the Assembly, as well as of the supervisory body of the executive council (Grad et al. 1996: 138). In 1953, a constitutional law was passed which abolished the abovementioned Presidium on both levels, and instead established an individual person as head of the state at the federal level, simultaneously reserving the position of President of the Federal Executive Branch and a Supreme Commander of the Army (Ribičič and Tomac 1987) for Tito. At the level of the republic, Slovenia’s powers of the Presidium were, according to the Constitution, transferred primarily to the Slovenian Assembly and its executive council, and partly to the President of the Assembly. e Slovenian Executive Council at the time was in charge of representing Slovenia, and therefore possessed a function which is usually reserved for the head of state (Grad et al 1996: 138). It is quite telling that the position of the head of state was abolished only at the level of the republics. It was thought that all of the major functions performed at the republic level (e.g. international relations and national security) should be reserved for the federation (see Grad et al. 1996: 138). Aer 1963, the Slovenian Assembly slowly began to acquire some of the functions of the head of state which were previously performed by the Executive Council. In 1971, amendments to the Slovenian Constitution formally granted the Assembly additional functions, for example, the promulgation of laws, conferring decorations, the proposition of a candidate to form the Executive Council, as well as certain powers in the field of national defence, especially in the case of the war, etc. (Grad et al. 1996: 139; Rizman et al. 1982). A major change came with the 1974 Constitutions (federal and republican). At both levels, the collective body of the head of the state was formed. But temporarily, at the federal level, an individual the head of state continued to exist, with Tito holding the position until his death. Aer his death, the situation formally defined by the 1974 Constitution was implemented, thus introducing a collective body as the head of state (Lajh 2003: 103). e Slovenian Constitution granted the head of the state, named the Presidency of Slovenia, a stronger formal position in the political system than the constitutions of other republics (Grad et al 1996: 139). e Slovenian head of the state had the power to represent Slovenia. e Presidency also held important

146

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

powers in the fields of national defence and international relations, and had the authority to propose a candidate for the President of the Executive Council, and candidates for the Constitutional Court. e head of state also promulgated laws and could grant clemency, etc. e Presidency was composed of nine members. Two of them were ex-officio members (President of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia and President of the Republican Committee of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People), while seven of them were elected by municipal assemblies which emphasised the body’s independence and its relatively autonomous status in relation to the Slovenian Assembly (Grad et al 1996: 139). Formally it was possible to remove the Presidency from its position, but this could be done only by a majority of all delegates in the three Chambers of the Slovenian Assembly, together with 2/3 of assemblies in the municipalities. As Grad et al. noted (1996: 140), the Presidency was therefore very stable and unusually emphasised within the assembly system. Within the Presidency, the special position of the Head was established with the authority to represent the collective body and Slovenia. Amendments to the Slovenian Constitution in 1989 abolished ex-officio membership in the Presidency; the body was formed by four members, and all four of them, plus the Head of the collective body, were elected directly. At the federal level, following Tito’s death in 1980 and according to the 1974 Constitution, the collective body, the Presidency of Yugoslavia, was established. Its composition was based on the parity principle, meaning each of the six republics, along with the two autonomous regions, each had one representative, and an annual rotation of the position of the Head of the Presidency of Yugoslavia was introduced. e Presidency was designed to assure the reconciliation of common interests of all the republics and autonomous regions, to represent Yugoslavia, to be the supreme commander of the army, to discuss international relations and national security matters, to promulgate federal laws, to propose a candidate for a President of the Federal Executive Council to the Federal Assembly. e Presidency, in the case of a direct threat of war, had the power to issue legally binding decrees. Members of the Presidency were elected by national assemblies in the six individual republics3 3

In 1989, for the first time in socialist Yugoslavia, a Slovenian was elected directly as a member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia. e election results came as a major sur-

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

147

and two autonomous regions. Members of the Presidency held a 5 year mandate, without the possibility of a consecutive re-election. e Presidency of Yugoslavia elected in 1989 was, for most of its mandate, faced with functional and decision making problems – this was a period of critical and deep disputes within Yugoslavia, and the Presidency was frequently divided into two equal blocks (four votes vs. four votes). As seen above, the Presidency had formally limited powers, especially in ‘normal’ times; however, due to tumultuous times in Yugoslavia at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s the body was de facto among the most important bodies and almost the last one to remain active in the political system. Last but not least, in its hands lay the decision to mobilise the army and/or proclaim a state of war (Rizman et al. 1982). In 1991, during the period of the transition to democracy, the Constitution of Slovenia was passed. is represented the final break from the former socialist system and its constitutional tradition – introducing the separation of powers instead of a long-lasting unity of powers, and an individual holder of the position of the head of the state instead of a collective one. Both principles represented a completely new constitutional position for Slovenia. Aer all, from the Middle Ages until the Second World War, no elected head of the state existed in Slovenia, since the position was occupied by royal families. In the socialist period, Slovenia predominantly experienced a unity of powers, and later, a collective form of the head of state with relatively weak formal powers. e head of the state at the federal level in socialist Yugoslavia was strong only when it was occupied by Tito; in fact, the position was tailored precisely to him. Although it soon became clear that an individual holder of the position of the head of state would be introduced, those who were deciding on the post-socialist Slovenian Constitution were faced with the key dilemma: whether to introduce a parliamentary system with a presidential figurehead, or a mixed semi-presidential system with a stronger President of the Republic (Ribičič 1996: 32; Lajh 2003: 105). e dra Constitution thus took both alternatives into consideration. e final choice – despite the elite-led process – was partly le to the general prise since an outsider, Janez Drnovšek, beat the seemingly untouchable candidate of the League of the Communists of Slovenia, Marko Bulc.

148

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

public to debate, including academics (lawyers, political scientists) and other interested members of the public (Krašovec and Lajh 2008). Although both models were envisaged in the dra constitution, the constitutional commission relatively quickly reached an agreement on the greater suitability of the parliamentary system with a ceremonial role for the president. e majority in the constitutional commission, as well as in the broader general public debate, therefore advocated for a directly-elected president with limited responsibilities (Cerar 1999: 238; Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 202). At this point it should be noted that the common candidate of new political parties from the then governmental coalition, Demos, Jože Pučnik (the leader of Demos), who held the majority in the Slovenian Assembly4 (in two of the three chambers) lost the first democratic and direct elections for the Head of the Presidency in 1990 to Milan Kučan, who had for several years led the League of Communists of Slovenia. We believe this result significantly influenced the narrowing of the constitutionally-defined responsibilities of the President of the Republic (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 203). Accordingly, it might be argued, at least in part, that the 1991 Slovenian Constitution was ‘written’ for Milan Kučan who earned enormous respect due to his highly successful leadership of the League of Communists in the 1980s and during the period when it fought against the centralist and hegemonic tendencies of the pro-Serbian Yugoslav League of Communists (Cerar 1999: 239). Consequently, particular parliamentary parties associated with the Demos coalition, most of which opposed Kučan’s election as President of the Republic, sought to reduce the influence of Kučan as the ‘president-to-be’ by opting for relatively minor presidential powers (Cerar 1999: 239). e question thus remains open as to what role the president would have been granted under the new constitution had Jože Pučnik won the 1990 presidential elections. ese events also support the theoretical predictions that the main key to understanding democratic transition and constitutional choices lies in the conflict between the old and new political elites (e.g. Kasapović 1997; FinkHafner et al. 2005). 4

e first democratic and plural elections held in 1990 were still to the socialist consitutionally designed Slovenian Assembly with three chambers: the Chamber of Associated Work, the Chamber of Municipalities and the Socio-Political Chamber.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

149

The Powers and Role of the President of the Republic of Slovenia Although the President of Slovenia is elected in direct elections5 (through a majority system, with a mandate of five years and the possibility of re-election in two consecutive terms), which is sometimes treated as an element of a semi-presidential political system (Shugart and Carey 1992; Elgie and Moestrup 2008), the country’s constitution ensures that Slovenia operates as a parliamentary system with the main focus of political decision making lying with the government and parliament6. As Fink-Hafner and Lajh (2003: 59) observed, although the Slovenian system is quite close to a typical parliamentary regime in which the president is indirectly elected, in Slovenia the President of the Republic has even less influence on and fewer responsibilities with regard to both parliament and the government than is typical of many such systems. In this respect, much like the German model, the president proposes a candidate for the PM but, unlike the German system, the president plays no role in the appointment of the ministers (Cerar 1999: 243). e President of Slovenia proposes a candidate for PM aer consultation with representatives of the deputy groups but he/she is not bound by their opinion. If the proposed candidate does not receive enough support (the majority of all MPs, i.e. at least 46 votes) in the National Assembly then a second round of elections is organised. In this case, the president can propose a new candidate or once again propose the same candidate. However, in the second round, the group of MPs and deputy groups can also propose their own candidates. Yet, the first vote is organised according to the candidate proposed by the president. A third round is also possible but must be implemented in 5

6

ere are only a few restrictions on candidacy: Slovenian citizenship; aged over eighteen; and legal capacity must not be withdrawn. In the Slovenian legal system a person achieves legal capacity by becoming an adult (eighteen years old), which is the assumption of an objective legal capacity. Subjective assumption of legal capacity represents the ability to understand the significance of his/her acts, and the ability to act in line with his/her will. Slovenia has a bicameral parliament; however legislative power is formally and de facto centred in the National Assembly, whereas the National Council plays a limited role. e executive is formally subordinated to the National Assembly but, as is the case in many parliamentary democracies, its de facto power is greater than its formal power (Zajc 2004).

150

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

a very short time and only under very specific conditions (Kaučič and Grad 1999). e president is also the titular Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, although the defence minister has the most influence in the military and defence sphere as a whole. e president holds more significant powers only in the event of a state of emergency or war. Consequently, when the National Assembly is unable to convene due to a state of emergency or war, the president may, on the proposal of the government, issue decrees with legal effect. e president must immediately submit such decrees for its confirmation to the National Assembly when it next convenes, however. In some countries the president possesses a special or reserved domain for his/her activities or even policymaking powers (e.g. security or defence, international relations), but this is not the case in Slovenia, despite the fact that the constitution states that the president represents the country (Krašovec and Lajh 2008). e president accredits and revokes Slovenian ambassadors and also accepts letters of credence of foreign diplomatic representatives, but he/she does not ratify international treaties. e President of Slovenia has very limited powers when it comes to dissolving the National Assembly. ere are just two such possibilities. e first is linked to the procedure of electing the government. Namely, it is the responsibility of the President of the Republic to propose to the National Assembly a candidate for PM, who then must obtain the required support in the National Assembly. If no candidate manages to secure the required majority of votes aer three rounds, the president dissolves the National Assembly and calls new elections. In the second case, under carefully detailed conditions and procedures, the National Assembly may be dissolved when the government fails to carry a vote of confidence (Cerar 1999: 242–3). is means that the president does not have a discretionary right to dissolve the National Assembly, but is obliged to do so in some constitutionally-defined instances. An analysis of the constitution demonstrates that the President has no powers in policy-making processes since he/she has no legislative initiative, he/she has no right to issue a suspension veto, neither can he/ she call or initiate a referendum or issue constitutional amendments; however, he/she does promulgate laws. On the other hand, the Standing Orders of the National Assembly provide the president with an op-

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

151

portunity to present his/her opinion and a statement if he/she desires. It is thus up to the president to share his/her opinion with the MPs and indirectly with the public. Under the Standing Orders it is possible for the president to present his/her opinions personally at a session of the National Assembly. But the National Assembly can also request that the president explain his/her public statements. e president has no authority to call an extraordinary session of the Assembly, and in the relation to the Government he/she has no right to participate in governmental sessions. e president does participate in certain electoral functions, as he/ she proposes candidates, for example, for Constitutional Courts judges, half of the members of the Judicial Council, Governor of the National Bank, the Ombudsman, the President of the Court of Auditors, etc., who all still have to be elected by the National Assembly. According to the constitution, the president also formally calls elections to the National Assembly, decides whether to grant clemency and confers decorations and honorary titles. As is the case in other countries, the accountability of holders of different functions in the political system is also assured in Slovenia. Under the constitution, the president can be brought before the Constitutional Court if in the course of carrying out his/her duties he/she breaches the constitution or seriously breaches the law7. is step takes place in the National Assembly, where thirty MPs can demand a vote on the supposed violation of the constitution or the law, and the National Assembly must then accept the proposal for the impeachment with an absolute majority of all MPs; only aerwards does the procedure continue in the Constitutional Court, which can by a two-thirds majority of all judges decide to depose the president. Overall, according to Shugart’s and Carey’s (1992: 155) classification of formal presidential powers, we may classify the President of Slovenia as having minimal powers. If we compare the formal presidential powers of the President of Slovenia with the powers of heads of state in other post-Yugoslav countries, the closest similarities can be found with the President of the Republic of Macedonia (Lajh and Krašovec 2003: 92–93). 7

Similar provisons are established for the PM and ministers, but they can be impeached if they breach the Constitution or the law.

152

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Formal Powers versus Informal Influence An analysis of the formally defined powers and the role of the President of the Republic in the post-socialist constitution enables us to identify two things: a) the President of Slovenia holds a predominantly weak and ceremonial position with more significant powers being reserved only for the state of emergency or war; b) the Constitution only briefly defines the powers and role of the president. If we also take into account the lack of a presidential tradition in Slovenia, it is possible to say that the individual incumbent determines how influential the position of president is. is was particularly true for the first President, Milan Kučan, but also in the case of the subsequent two presidents8, Drnovšek and Türk, who both attempted to expand their. Since the adoption of the new constitution in 1991, five presidential elections have been held in Slovenia (1992, 1997, 2002, 2007 and 2012)9. e first two elections were marked by the persona of Milan Kučan (the former leader of the Slovenian Communists) who, due to his great popularity and charisma, won both elections in the first round although eight candidates competed in each. e 2002 presidential elections took on a new dimension as the window of opportunity opened up to ‘other’ candidates with Kučan out of the running, since under the constitution the president is not permitted to run for a third consecutive mandate (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 210)10. In the 2002, 2007 and 2012 elections, the second round of voting was required and the winners were Janez Drnovšek in 2002, Danilo Türk in 2007 and Borut Pahor in 2012. It is interesting to note that two presidents occupied the position (almost) immediately aer leaving the office of PM – Drnovšek competed in the 2002 presidential elections whilst still performing his duties as the PM (upon being elected president, he le the position of PM)11, whilst Pahor was deposed from the position of 8

9

10

11

It is difficult to discuss the mandate of Borut Pahor since he has occupied the position only since December 2012. In 1990, the elections to the position of Head of the Presidency were still conducted within the framework of the former socialist Yugoslav constitutional arrangement. It may be worth mentioning that opinion polls indicated that Kučan would have easily won in the 2002 elections had he been able to stand (Boh and Lajh 2003: 155). Drnovšek was the PM from 1992 until 2002 (with a short interruption of six months in 2000).

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

153

PM (he lost a vote of confidence in the National Assembly) a year prior to the presidential elections of 2012. Since the formally defined and de facto situations do not necessary overlap, a discrepancy between formal powers and informal influence can be observed in different organisations and/or systems (van Biezen 2000). More or less intense conflicts between people or office-holders, working in organisations and/or systems can serve as indicators of an attempt to conquer or retain (some) (in)formal power or influence. In the parliamentary political system such conflicts are to be expected between the main political actors – the head of the state on the one hand and the parliament, the government and individual parties on the other. Until 2004, all Slovenian presidents were nominated and/or supported12 by the centre-le parties. From the 1992 elections until the 2004 elections13, Slovenian politics was dominated by the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia. Since then, the alternation of centre-right and centre-le governments has become the prevalent pattern (Fink-Hafner2006). is means that we can speak of coexistence14 between the centre-le presidents and centre-right governments only in the periods 2004–2008 and 2012–2013 when the governments were led by the Slovenian Democratic Party whilst the position of president was held by Drnovšek and Türk, and in the short period of six months in 2000 when the government was led by New Slovenia15 and Kučan held the presidential office. As some analysis shows (e.g. Fink-Hafner and Boh, eds. 2003; Krašovec and Lajh 2008; Krašovec and Lajh 2009), conflicts between 12

13 14

15

Some of the presidents were clearly and explicitly supported by an individual party or parties, but formally were nominated by the people (a candidate can be nominated with the backing of 5000 voters). With a short interruption of six months in 2000. It is interesting that the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia had its own presidential candidates at the 1992 and 1997 elections but both received only a very small share of the vote (1.5 % in 1992 and 2.7 % in 1997). As argued by Prunk (2003), the LDS and PM Drnovšek accepted Kučan as the best choice and did not attempt to find a ‘good’ candidate of their own. In April 2000, the Slovenian People’s Party and the Slovenian Christian Democrats merged into one party (SLS+SKD) and Andrej Bajuk (SLS+SKD) was elected to become the PM in the National Assembly until the end of the legislative term. is happened when Drnovšek failed to win a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. In August 2000, the PM, together with certain other visibile SLS+SKD members, le the party and established a new party called New Slovenia.

154

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

the PM (and government) and the president, as a rule, were not openly evident in public during the ideological harmony of both office-holders, although these periods de facto cannot be simply described as periods of harmony. In such a manner, two strong politicians, Kučan as the President of the Republic, and Drnovšek as the PM, were engaged in several disputes and conflicts over the power and role of the head of state. Some of these instances were more symbolic, such as the question of who would be the speaker on different occasions, such as celebrations or commemorations. At the time, probably more important were the several conflicts on how the PM and government should provide the president with the information he required to carry out his functions and responsibilities (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 212). e likely reason for this situation was the absence of any permanent institutionalised (political) co-ordination between the two institutions and their officeholders (Krašovec and Lajh 2008). Even though Kučan and Drnovšek had different areas of special personal interest – the domestic political stage on one side (Kučan) and the economy and foreign affairs on the other (Blondel et al. 2007; Krašovec and Lajh 2008), the question of the president’s role in representing the country abroad provoked a dispute between the two men on the above-mentioned topic. As observed by Krašovec and Lajh (2008: 212), a similar type of situation was also apparent in the relationship between the president and the National Assembly. e National Assembly (as well as the government) frequently raised the question as to how it had happened that the president had been informed of particular matters and events that were (according to representatives of the National Assembly and the government) not within his purview. e question of information was only resolved in 2003 when Drnovšek became the president and the Law on Ensuring the Conditions for Implementing the Function of President established a basis for institutional co-ordination between the offices of the PM, the National Assembly and the president, and legally provided the possibility for the president to receive all the information necessary for carrying out presidential functions and responsibilities (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 212). Based on this, it is possible to say that the appropriate conditions (requiring information) for the president’s performance of his/her function (regardless of how ceremonial it is) have been assured.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

155

During his two terms, Kučan was in more or less constant conflict with some new political parties, mostly with the Slovenian Democratic Party16 and particularly its leader Janez Janša, probably his fiercest critic. e disputes between Kučan and Janša were mostly seen as personal conflicts17. Nevertheless, according to many commentators and analysts, they were also based on different interpretations of the position and role of the president18 (Krašovec and Lajh 2008). e hottest debate concerned the Law on Defence in 1993, namely who would be the commander in peace time with civil control over the army. Both of the actors engaged in this conflict were ultimately losers; the Minister of Defence was later removed from his position in parliament, while in 1994 and in 1995 the lowest levels of trust in the president were recorded. Kučan promulgated the law aer it was passed by the National Assembly even though he was not satisfied with it. Questions over the presidential promulgation of laws were raised on several occasions. In the mid-1990s, in Slovenia as well as in other Central and Eastern European countries, the question of lustration was hotly debated. During the 1997 presidential election campaign and presentation of candidates on TV, one question posed to all candidates was whether they would promulgate the law on lustration if passed by the National Assembly. Naturally enough, Kučan as someone who had held different positions in the former regime, said he would not promulgate it. In the end, however, this proved to be a hypothetical question since Slovenia did not pass a lustration law (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 213). e question of promulgating the law rose again at the beginning of 2006 when President Drnovšek publicly declared he would not promulgate the Law on Asylum, passed by the centre-right government, because the law would reduce rights already assured in the past. Drnovšek’s determined statement provoked many heated legal debates, but ultimately a belief prevailed that, according to the 16 17

18

Until 2003 its name was the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia. A personal conflict beween the two originates from the end of the 1980s. At this time, Janša was arrested by the secret police and he believes that, as the leader of the Slovenian League of Communists at the time, Kučan ordered his arrest. Tensions between Kučan and Janša had not been marked only with personality clashes, but also with policy differences. However, due to very limited (formal) role of the President of the Republic in policymaking processes, in this article we leave this issue aside.

156

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Slovenian Constitution, the president must promulgate a law within eight days of its enactment. Aer debate on whether the promulgation of laws is an obligation or a right of the president, Drnovšek decided to promulgate the law (Krašovec and Lajh 2008). During the period of intense conflict between President Kučan and the (former) Minister of Defence Janša in the early 1990s another interesting development occurred. As we noted above, the National Assembly can also require the president to explain his/her public statements. e party led by Janša, with the help of some other centre-right parties, was in a strong enough position to demand (under the Standing Orders) that the president explain one of his public statements in the National Assembly. e president indeed came before the National Assembly and explained his statement as demanded but then immediately le the Assembly. is came as a surprise to the opposition parties who had called for, and expected, an opportunity to pose questions to the president (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 213). On the other hand, the Standing Orders of the National Assembly contain provisions providing the president with an opportunity to present his/her opinion and make a statement without being requested to do so. It is thus up to the president whether he/she wishes to share his/her opinion with the MPs and, indirectly, with the public. Since the post of the president enjoys the greatest legitimacy due to direct election under a majority electoral system, the president can use this legitimacy to present his/her views through political institutions and thereby gain some additional (informal) power in the political system. During the 1992–2002 period, President Kučan decided four times to present his opinion in this way (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 214). In all cases his opinions were presented to the MPs in written form – he prepared a letter and sent it to the Speaker of the National Assembly who is obliged to send it to all MPs and working bodies. Under the Standing Orders the president has the option of presenting his opinions personally at a session of the National Assembly, but Kučan decided not to do this. Due to the great legitimacy of the president’s post, the president may (and may even be expected to) express his/her opinions on different issues and thus exert or broaden his/her informal influence via public statements. Kučan exercised this option several times, and in one such case, which was indeed unusual, he chose to publish an advertisement

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

157

in a Slovenian daily newspaper. is happened in 1997 when Slovenia was negotiating the Accession Agreement with the EU, and Italy disputed the prohibition on the purchase of land by non-Slovenian citizens then found in Slovenia’s Constitution. As a result, the EU required a change to the Slovenian Constitution. Aer the negotiations on the Agreement had been postponed several times, Slovenia accepted a compromise by which it was obliged to amend the constitution in this regard (Fink-Hafner and Lajh 2003: 76–7). In this respect, before the National Assembly voted on the constitutional change, Kučan expressed his opinion in a letter to the MPs on the need to sign the Accession Agreement. Given the strong negative public opinion on this issue, he also decided to present his argument directly to the broader public. So the newspaper advertisement was actually an open letter to MPs (Krašovec and Lajh 2008). Since Kučan was the most trusted politician in the eyes of Slovenian citizens, and given the high legitimacy of his post, this was not the only time he actively sought to shape public opinion (Krašovec and Lajh 2008: 214). Furthermore, he continually tried to influence various turning-point events of the young state, even when he was no longer president. For instance, he played an important role in the turnabout of public opinion regarding Slovenia’s accession to NATO (see Krašovec and Lajh 2004) and he also openly supported the so-called le-triplet (the informal pre-electoral coalition of three centre-le parties) at the 2008 parliamentary elections as well as the newly-created Positive Slovenia led by Ljubljana’s mayor in the 2011 pre-term parliamentary elections (Krašovec and Lajh, 2009; Haughton and Krašovec, 2013). Two years aer his mandate was concluded, Kučan established Forum 21 as an association for discussion among politicians, economists and academics regarding actual political, economic, developmental, social, cultural and ethical issues, which ultimately has not proved very active. On the other hand, in the middle of his term, President Drnovšek established the Movement for Rightness and Development as a civil society association. Unlike Kučan’s Forum, Drnovšek’s Movement, or, more precisely some of its members, even competed in local elections in 2006 in a few municipalities under the Movement’s banner19. e 19

Drnovšek insisted that, as a civil society organisation, the Movement could not directly participate in elections. However, he agreed that the Movement’s individual

158

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

establishment of the Movement at the beginning of 2006 was probably at least partially a result of President’s Drnovšek personal transformation due to his severe illness – cancer. It was then possible to observe his transformation from a technocratic and bureaucratic type of pragmatic politician to one with a mission (Črnič 2009: 18–19). In a very short space of time, he changed his position on many subjects, and he also changed his manner of acting. Where previously he had been reluctant to appear in public, he now began to regularly attend public events and made substantial contact with the electorate (Črnič 2009: 19). As Črnič discovered in his detailed analysis (2007; 2009), as the President of the Republic as well as the leader of the Movement, Drnovšek utilised a New Age discourse and his transformation can be regarded as an indicator of the shi of the New Age from the margins to the centre of contemporary Western societies (Črnič 2009: 17, 25). In light of this, it came as little surprise that in the interview with the Slovenian public television in 2006, in reply to the journalist’s question of whether he saw himself as a spiritual leader, Drnovšek answered affirmatively (Črnič 2009: 20). As we have already noted, Drnovšek had two special personal interests: the economy and foreign affairs. And it was precisely the dispute on the extent of the president’s remit over the latter that led in 2005 to an escalation of the open conflict between PM Janša and President Drnovšek; other conflicts started to emerge between them. Some of these conflicts were political, while other aspects opened up the question of the president’s constitutionally-defined powers (Krašovec and Lajh 2009). Following the initial heated debates between President Drnovšek and PM Janša, Drnovšek established his Movement as a civil society association that introduced new views on politics, as reflected members could compete with their lists in the municipalities and allowed them to use the Movement’s name, of course, if they decided to follow its aims. But Drnovšek also stressed that all pre-electoral activities and formalities had to be made by these individual candidates and through their lists; none was granted the right to speak on his behalf or to use his photo for pre-electoral activities (http://www.gibanje.org/). Individual members of the Movement did not record any significant electoral successes since in only two out of 210 municipalities were members elected to the local councils – one in each municipality (Dnevnik 2006). In Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city, one former TV presenter used the name of the Movement (the List for Rightness and Development) despite Drnovšek’s explit condemnation of this action; Drnovšek even warned voters about the abuse of the Movement’s name.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

159

in its key goals: to ‘make the world a better place’ (Krašovec and Lajh, 2009). Several independent actions on matters of foreign policy (some of them even contradicted the positions of the Foreign Ministry)20 conducted by the president, triggered disputes not only between the two politicians, but also among legal experts, particularly in terms of a discussion of where the authority lay in matters of foreign policy. Aer the first disputes over foreign policy, there followed disputes over domestic policies. Where Kučan used to write letters to MPs and citizens, President Drnovšek started to actively present his views on domestic and international issues via the Movement’s website as ‘citizen Janez D’. He not only presented his views on different issues via the webpage, but also some of his actions/interventions were evident. For example, just before Christmas 2006, he visited one village in southern Slovenia and intervened very emotionally in the issue of the Roma community and especially with regard to one Roma family which had literally been chased away by the local people; Drnovšek strongly supported the Roma family in protecting their rights. In general, during 2006 and 2007, the president strongly criticised the government and its actions. One of the most visible criticisms was Drnovšek’s statement that the government would be unsuccessful in achieving the subordination of the president, even though it had already subordinated almost all other subsystems of society. e broader circle of government critics regarded the independent and controlling bodies – such as the Ombudsman and the Anti-Corruption Commission – as being under direct or indirect ‘attack’ from the centre-right government. A major conflict between the government (and the PM Janša) and President Drnovšek, connected with Drnovšek’s abovementioned statements, that the government would be unsuccessful in achieving the subordination of the president, arose in 2006 when the Office of the President had spent almost its entire annual budget before the end of the year; this was mainly due to the president’s much more active role in foreign policy and the increase in the number of visits 20

Within a few months of 2006, we witnessed his proposal for solving the Kosovo problem; he sent a special envoy to Darfur on a peace mission (to intervene for the peace agreement among the rebels; he also publicly criticised the ‘well paid but inefficient bureaucrats of international institutions’); brief interventions in Šri Lankan and Palestinian conflicts; extensive correspondence with presidents and PMs of numerous countries and several high officials of international organisations (Črnič 2009: 19).

160

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

abroad he made compared to the year before. When the president demanded more financial resources for his office, the government at first refused to allocate any additional funds, and publicly explained that everybody has to administer his/her budgets carefully. In this situation Drnovšek announced he would travel to Spain by a car for his official visit, which he eventually decided to cancel. Another public conflict which indicated a battle for (in)formal powers and influence emerged when the president, in October 2007, according to his constitutional obligations/rights, twice prepared a list of five new justices for the Constitutional Court to be ratified by the National Assembly. Although the Commission for Mandates and Elections of the Assembly approved all five candidates, the National Assembly elected only two. Drnovšek announced he would not propose another list of candidates and would leave this task to his successor who would formally replace him at the end of December the same year. e newly elected president, Danilo Türk, sealed an agreement over new justices of the Constitutional Court with a centre-right majority in the National Assembly more easily and ‘his’ candidates, in March 2008, encountered no problems getting elected. Nonetheless, the conflict between the PM Janša (his government) and the Office of the President did not cease with the election of President Türk. For instance, already by June 2008, Türk and the government had clashed over the nominations of new ambassadors. e dispute over the nominations emerged when President Türk announced that he would not endorse the appointment of the new ambassadors proposed by the government prior to the September regular parliamentary elections. Despite the PM’s assertion that all candidates were career diplomats and that their appointments were not political, the president withheld the appointments until the beginning of November, saying he had not received enough data to determine whether the candidates had met the legally defined conditions for appointment (Lajh, 2009)21. e modus Vivendi between President Türk and the centre-right government led by PM Janša did not ‘need’ to last for long. At the 2008 21

is was not the first dispute over the appointments of ambassadors, since a similar instance had occurred between the short-lived centre-right government and President Kučan in 2000 when a few months prior to the regular parliamentary elections the President refused to accredit certain ambassadors.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

161

parliamentary elections, the Social Democrats, the party which had strongly supported Türk during his presidential campaign, won (Zares as the second biggest governmental party in the period 2008–2011 was among his important supporters as well). President Türk therefore proposed the leader of the Social Democrats, Borut Pahor for the premiership. It was Pahor who had persuaded Türk to run in the presidential elections. e ‘honeymoon’ period between the two highest office-holders in Slovenian politics thus began. However, it did not last long. e disputes between the two politicians remained out of the public eye mainly due to Pahor’s policy of not making public comments about the work of the president as well as courts and other independent and controlling bodies of the system. At the end of 2010, the president, probably for the first time, made some critical statements in public about the government’s activities and advised it to, in times of a great and deep economic and fiscal crisis in Slovenia, prepare a list of priorities and to concentrate a legislative programme around them. As Türk pointed out in an interview in Delo (2011), this was not even a criticism as such, but rather a gentle warning. At the beginning of 2011, aer the government had lost three referenda and its majority status (two parties had le the coalition by July 2011), Türk, in his diplomatic rhetoric22, suggested that the most appropriate action for PM Pahor would be a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. And Türk would support him in this action. He added that he would not avoid early elections if this would be the best solution for Slovenia. He also warned of the eventual need to reconstruct the government, including changes in the top position. However, if Pahor, during his term as PM, did not make any public comments about the president’s statements, this all changed during the presidential election campaign of 2012, when former PM Pahor and the incumbent President Türk both competed for the office of president, remaining the final candidates into the second round of elections. Several times during the campaign, Pahor criticised Türk and his behaviour during his term as president. Pahor also clearly stated that he expected some support from the president during the hardest time for his government, namely before the referenda in 2011, and for the 22

From 1992 to 2000, Türk was the first Slovenian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and from 2000 to 2005, he served as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs.

162

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

most important projects the government had prepared. It is nevertheless worth mentioning that President Türk strongly supported Pahor’s government during negotiations with Croatia when the two countries tried to find a solution to the ongoing border disputes; and when the solution reached by the PMs of the two countries was put to a referendum. Türk publicly supported the government in this case, and actively explained his position to the public and arguably campaigned for the solution Pahor had reached with his Croatian counterpart. If President Türk enjoyed a relatively peaceful relationship with the government led by PM Pahor, this was definitely not true when it came to the opposition parties, mainly the Slovenian Democratic Party. New Slovenia (which held no seats in parliament during 2008–2011) was also frequently critical of the president’s actions and attitudes. e Slovenian Democratic Party and its leader Janša engaged in several intense conflicts with the president. In February 2010, the Slovenian Democratic Party prepared a motion for impeachment, but the proposal did not gain enough support in the National Assembly and the process was quashed before it reached the Constitutional Court. One reason that the party issued a proposal of impeachment was the president’s decision to confer a decoration, the Silver Order for Services23 on Tomaž Ertl and with this act the president supposedly violated 34 articles of the constitution concerning human rights and dignity. e president’s decision indeed upset many people since Ertl was, among others, the former chief of the secret police during the socialist era. But, as the president explained, he conferred the decoration on Ertl for Operation North, implemented in 1989 in Ljubljana by which the police forces under Ertl’s command (at the time he was a minister of internal affairs) protected Slovenia against Milošević’s Serbian nationalism. e police had peacefully prevented the organisation of the ‘rally of truth’ instigated by Milošević’s supporters in Slovenia, which followed the same pattern as in the other republics of Yugoslavia with the aim of removing reform-oriented communist leaders and the newly created opposition forces. As Türk stressed several times, the decoration was assigned to Ertl for this particular action. A year later, 23

e Silver Order for Services is conferred for exceptional work and services rendered in the security, defence and protection of the Republic of Slovenia, and for international cooperation in these fields.

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

163

President Türk was accused by the Slovenian Democratic Party of having been Secretary of Commission for Minority and Immigrant Issues in the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Slovenia. us he had been directly informed of terrorist actions conducted by members of the secret police thirty years before in Austria. It was subsequently revealed that the documents on which the party based their accusations against the president were re-arranged and composed as one document from several different documents. e Slovenian Democratic Party later apologised to readers of its webpage for this mistake, but not to President Türk. rough these actions, the party tried to undermine the president’s public reputation, which is one of the important ‘weapons’ each directly elected president in the parliamentary system has. A dispute between the party and President Türk resulted in the non-response of the party when the president organised consultations for all parliamentary parties’ representatives on different occasions, for example when he consulted parties about some cadre solutions he had prepared in line with his constitutionally-defined obligations/rights. As we discussed in the analysis of the president’s formal powers, aer parliamentary elections, the President of the Republic proposes a candidate for PM. is is done aer consulting with representatives of the deputy groups, although he/she is not bound by their opinion. Prior to the pre-term parliamentary elections of 2011, when public opinion polls clearly indicated a victory for the Slovenian Democratic Party, President Türk publicly stated that the president is not bound to propose the winner of the elections for the PM’s office. is provoked many speculations as to whether Türk, in the case of the Slovenian Democratic Party’s victory, would refuse to propose its leader Janša for the position of PM. e election results made all such speculations irrelevant – at least for a while. For the position of PM, Türk proposed the leader of the winning party Positive Slovenia – Zoran Janković. But Janković failed to get enough support in the National Assembly and a second round of elections of the PM was needed. Since an alternative governmental coalition was informally already formed under the Slovenian Democratic Party leader Janša, the president’s moves were eagerly expected. President Türk unexpectedly and publicly requested the parliamentary parties to consider whether a ‘third man’, Mr. Marko Voljč, who had not competed in the elections at all, might be an appropriate candidate for PM. All parties determined that this was not

164

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

a good option. A second round in which the president can propose a new candidate or once again propose the same candidate was organised. In this second round, a group of MPs and deputy groups can also propose their own candidates. Yet the first vote is organised around the candidate proposed by the president. Despite the fact that Slovenian Democratic Party leader Janša had enough support to be elected as PM in the National Assembly, President Türk decided not to propose any candidate. e president stated that, given the on-going Patria corruption trial which indicted Janez Janša in court, he did not have the full legitimacy needed as a candidate for Slovenian government. It should be noted, however, that personal animosity was added to the decision making mix due to the history of the Slovenian Democratic Party presidential impeachment, and the accusations spread by the party that Türk had been directly informed about terrorist activities thirty years before (Krašovec and Haughton 2012: 12). When Janša became the PM, naturally enough some difficulties between the two office-holders could be expected. From February to December 2012, when a new president was elected, there were several public disputes between PM Janša (and his government) and President Türk. Facing many government decisions as well as the upcoming presidential elections in 2012, President Türk became more critical of governmental actions. For example, he contradicted the proposal for the introduction of the so-called fiscal rule in the constitution, he criticised governmental attempts to monopolise powers and he criticised several budget cuts, most openly, cuts for public education and science, as well as in social policy. But it seems the fiercest conflicts between the two political actors were over ideologically-motivated moves the government, or more precisely the Slovenian Democratic Party, made (frequently in line with New Slovenia, which had been returned to parliament in the 2011 elections) concerning Slovenia’s socialist past and the events that took place in Slovenia during the Second World War.

Conclusion Since the Slovenian constitution grants the President of the Republic limited powers and only briefly defines its powers and role, and given the country’s lack of a presidential tradition, it was up to the first presi-

6. THE CHAMELEONIC CHARACTER OF THE SLOVENIAN PRESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC

165

dent to shape the office. Nevertheless, Slovenia’s next two presidents continued this shaping and, in some respects, even upgraded the office. In so doing, conflicts with other political actors could be anticipated. As a rule, conflicts between the PM (and government) on one side, and the President of the Republic on the other, were not very clearly and openly publicised whilst the office-holders were largely in ideological harmony, although also these periods de facto cannot be simply described as ‘honeymoon’ periods. Nevertheless, it seems the centre-le Slovenian presidents were, for the most part, faced with the criticism and obstacles of the centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party and its leader Janša, regardless of whether the party was in the opposition or was the leading governmental party. Although the role of the President of Slovenia is formally weak, this does not prevent a particular individual in the office from exerting a strong political influence on the other branches of power and the public through his activities (Cerar, 1999: 255), and such attempts have been visible in the terms of all three presidents (Kučan, Drnovšek and Türk) during the period 1992–2012. In trying to exert such an influence, the presidents have needed to be highly trusted and respected politicians. Opinion polls have consistently shown that the office of the President of the Republic is the most trusted political institution and its office holders have been the most trusted politicians (Toš et al.1999; 2004; 2009). We can therefore say that all of the Slovenian presidents have enjoyed a legitimacy which enabled them (to try) to exert informal influence on Slovenian politics. Occasionally, of course, the various presidents’ activities have triggered debates amongst experts about the de facto role of the function of the President of Slovenia and the extent of president’s responsibilities. Opinions here are divided but it remains a fact that in Slovenia the president’s powers and influence depend very much on the charisma, political style and ambitions of the office holder.

167

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

7 THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA REIN TOOMLA Introduction is paper analyses the development and role of the institution of the president in the Estonian political system. e chapter will open with an overview of the position of the president in the pre-World War II republic with emphasis on those aspects of presidential power that hint at authoritarian government. e core of the chapter will concentrate on the contemporary political system in place since the adoption of the constitution in 1992. All possible power-relations between the president and other political institutions – the government, the parliament and the justice system – will be analysed. Additionally, the relationship between the president and general public will be addressed. e paper will end with a short overview of the possibile techniques used for measuring presidential power in Estonia. e research is primarily based on the legal documents that govern the presidential institution. e effect of these documents in the political process is of fundamental interest. Analysis is also based on popular surveys. e purpose of this article is twofold. First, it examines the presidential institution within a democratic framework. Second, it examines those aspects of the presidency that further expand the presidential institution. At the moment, the politically independent Republic of Estonia has in its history two periods of approximately the same length – the preWorld War II republic which functioned in 1918–1940 and the modern republic which has been functioning since 1991.

168

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Pre-World War II Estonia Estonia declared independence on February 24, 1918. Of the newly formed Eastern European states, Estonia was the only one to not form a monarchy, without even having discussed the possibility. Of course, such an approach resulted in a limited number of potential role models. In pre-World War I Europe there were only two republics – France and Switzerland. By the end of the war the number of republics rose, but those states were more or less in the same situation as Estonia, also having limited experience. Estonia opted for the Swiss approach, in part because the attitude towards the French governmental system was fairly negative. is was evident in 1920 during the development of the Estonian Constitution (Asutaw Kogu 1919: 613), as well as in discussions during the early 1930s when various political communities were preparing the new Constitution (Rei 1932). Even the republics in the Americas were not considered. Why then was Switzerland so popular? e simplest and most exhaustive reason for the popularity of the Swiss model brought forward during the preparation of the Estonian Constitution was its perceived proximity to the rule of law. Legislators at that time thought that the other forms of government they had considered might well have been democratic, but were not as strongly based upon the rule of law (Asutaw Kogu 1919: 544). Most likely however, there were other factors for the use of Switzerland as a model. For example, Switzerland is closer in size to Estonia than many of the other possible models and small states might feel better about using role models of similar size countries. Furthermore, Switzerland had developed over a long period of time an impressive form of participatory democracy in the form of referendums. At that time, putting people at the heart of the political system was very appealing for Estonian society, which had survived two revolutions and a War of Independence. Finally, the Swiss governmental system avoided the concentration of power into one person’s hands. e head of state was rotated among the members of the government. In this case, the last argument is an important one – according to the Constitution adopted in 1920, Estonia was a republic without a head of state. e main reason for such a step was that the le wing majority in the assembly which developed the Constitution believed that this would be the best way for a peoples’ government to be realized (Mägi

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

169

1967: 135). is is because the people elect the Parliament which is above all other governmental institutions. Abandoning the head of state institution was justified by the smallness of the state – there was no need for a politician to deal mostly with ceremonial tasks. In other words, the Head of Government could manage any ceremonial tasks along with leading the executive power. To avoid any misunderstandings in international communication, it was suggested that the title ‘Prime Minister’ not be used. e title for the combined position in Estonian was Riigivanem, in German more or less officially Staatsäldeste, in English unofficially ‘State elder’. is situation put Estonian politics into a peculiar position, where problems were oen blamed on the absence of the head of state – the most common argument was that public policies lacked a balancing power. Some parties criticized the system saying that it was a ‘parliamentary dictatorship’ (Mägi 1967: 260). In the second half of the 1920s a relatively intensive campaign was launched to add the position of President to the Constitution. Amendment of the Constitution was possible only through a referendum, so in each of the three referendums that were held during 1932–1933 a provision for establishing the Presidency was included. is is because it was rejected the first two times. However, in the third referendum held in October 1933, the amendments were approved (see Brady – Kaplan 1994: 177). is marked the end of the political system that relied on the 1920 Constitution. Later approaches have named this kind of governance ‘ultrademocractic’ (Taagepera 1993: 53–55; Kasekamp 2000: 13), but there are also more lenient assessments – like liberal democracy (Raun 2001: 114). e new system was never implemented, however, because in March 1934 the state elder at the time, Konstantin Päts, organized a coup gaining all emergency powers and limiting many constitutional rights and freedoms, while abolishing all the changes in the political system. In Estonia the so called ‘silent era’ had begun, which ended with the elections of 1938. e preparations for those elections started early. Since the amendments of the Constitution that were approved in the 1933 referendum were all nullified, the only solution was to begin developing a new Constitution. e people were asked for their consent, not about the existing Constitution, but about the development of a new one. e relevant question was quite complexly worded; scholars have since

170

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

seen this not as a referendum, but more as a poll to clarify public opinion, which was later realized (Maruste 1997: 33). In fact, the question that was put to referendum consisted of four parts, the first two were the most important – first, do people agree that the National Assembly should be summoned to develop a new Constitution and second, should the state be led by an elected head of state in cooperation with the government appointed by him/her and the Parliament. Two other points were concerned with the structure of the National Assembly (Riigi Teataja 1936: 3). In our examination, the question of the creation of a head of state who would also lead the government is most relevant – the head of state’s office will be created and the same person will also lead the government. In reality, the plenipotentiary power of the head of state was even wider. e result was the fact that the head of state – by then already called the president – became the center of the whole political system. e National Assembly developed the Constitution and the text was adopted in September 1937. It became effective on the 1st of January, 1938. In February and April 1938, the new parliament and the president were elected, respectively. e president’s influence on the legislature was first demonstrated by the formation of the Parliament. Whereas, the first chamber of the Parliament was formed through elections, one quarter of the second camber (10 out of 40) was appointed by the president. Six additional members of the second chamber were ex officio, in positions that were also appointed by the president. erefore the president was in direct control of 40 percent of the second chamber members. In addition to the obvious policy influence this gave the position, the president could also issue specific decrees – when the Parliament was not working, e.g. during summer holiday – which had the power of the law, though the Parliament had to confirm those later. From April, 1938, when all constitutional institutions were established, until the end of that year, the president issued 21 decrees – one more than the 20 laws passed by the Parliament during the same period. Later the rate of presidential decrees noticeably decreased– during 1939 the president issued 12 decrees and the Parliament passed 53 laws (Riigi Teataja 1938: 46–106; 1939: 1–117). e president had no official right to initiate legislation, but all proposals presented by the Government had to be approved by the presi-

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

171

dent. In foreign relations, the president had the right to sign documents, but everything definitely had to be ratified by the head of state. Relevant treaties did not have to be introduced to the Parliament for discussion or approval. is may be one reason that Estonia so easily agreed to the establishment of Soviet military bases in autumn 1939, which lead to occupation and incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940. Primacy over the Government was already fixed in the question that was on the referendum. e president appointed the Government, dissolved it when necessary, and in spite of the post of the Prime Minister, could chair Government sessions if he wished. One would think that that much power would need to be approved through direct elections, but presidential elections were indirect – the Parliament, with representatives from local governments, chose the president. Only if this assembly was unable to do so would the decision then be given directly to the people. In 1938 the Parliament did not fail. Such plenipotentiary power has been the subject of criticism by scholars. Probably the most generous interpretation is that the power of the Estonian president was very strong (Taagepera 1993: 53–56). is is followed by Raun’s mildly critical classification of the state as being one under authoritarian rule (Raun 2001: 123), and Suksi’s interpretation of complete authoritarianism (Suksi 1999: 14–15). en there are authors who, most severely, have used the terms moderate dictatorship (Nørgaard et al. 1999: 44) and quasi-dictatorship (Uibopuu 1973: 27) to describe this broad power.

Today’s Estonia On August 20, 1991 the parliament (at the time the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia) declared full independence. In the same session, a Constitutional Assembly was established with one purpose only – the development of the Constitution. By spring 1992, the whole text was finished and on June 28th it was put to a referendum. e people approved it, and, with slight modifications, the same Constitution is still in force today. Five dras were submitted to the assembly for consideration and these formed the basis of the Constitution (Põhiseadus ja Põhiseaduse Assamblee 1997: 1097–1190). We will concentrate only on those sections

172

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

relating to the institution of head of state. One of the dras saw the president with little power (more or less a classical parliamentary governance); another gave the president slightly more power (semi-presidential system); and two of the dras presented a republic with a strong president. One of these two, the unadulterated 1938 Constitution, was an authoritarian system. e last of the 5 dras was very careful to avoid the establishment of a monarchy. is dra was withdrawn by the proposers, however, without having the chance to be voted on. e decision had to be made between four dras. Elections supported the parliamentary governance model. is did not mean that the dra automatically became the Constitution – it was just the basis upon which the final text was composed, and which was later put to a referendum. e dra upon which the Constitution was developed is characteristic of the parliamentary governance system. Above all, this is expressed in the limited plenipotentiary power, and secondly, this limitation is amplified through indirect elections. Presidential plenipotentiary power e Constitution (Põhiseadus §§77–85) outlines 19 duties and competencies (until 2011, there were 20) in which the head of state is involved. ese are specified in the President of the Republic Rules of Procedure Act (Riigi Teataja 2001: 43). In this Act, tasks and competencies have been classified accordingly. Here I will concentrate on showing how the president influences Estonian society and politics. Influencing the legislative proces In Estonia, legislative power belongs primarily to the Parliament. It is therefore reasonable to look at how the president can influence Parliament (and vice versa). Alas, such opportunities are few. e president is the one who announces new elections, either regular or extraordinary. Regular elections are called almost automatically – the president must call them according to the schedule and circumstances set down in law. Also calling extraordinary elections does not leave the president the freedom of choice – with one exception. is is in the case of a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister loses, then he/she has the right to approach the president with a proposal to

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

173

call extraordinary elections. e president then has two options – to call new elections or to waive them. In reality, no president has ever faced such a dilemma; the only Prime Minister who had to leave office because of a vote of no confidence (Mart Laar in 1994), did not propose extraordinary elections to the president. When the Parliament (the Riigikogu) is elected, the first session is opened by the president. While this does not affect policies, it is a good practice. e president can, however, affect political discussion by proposing to convene an extraordinary session of the Riigikogu. Formally, this is convened by the Chairman of the Riigikogu, but he/she may not ignore such presidential proposals. Besides the president, an extraordinary session may be initiated by the Government and one fih of the members of the Riigikogu. e president has used this right, though not extensively – in the period between 1992 and 2012 a total of 79 extraordinary sessions were held, of which 6 were initiated by the president.1 Sometimes the Parliament influences the president. Below we take a closer look at the presidential election, while keeping in mind that the head of state is elected by the Parliament. In most cases, however, the Riigikogu has not managed to elect the president, and the elections have gone to the jurisdiction of a specially formed electoral assembly. Occasionally, the electoral process in the Parliament has led to discussions of possible presidential dependence. e connection between the president and the legislature comes forward in three levels: when the president initiates an amendment of the Constitution, when he/she proclaims laws adopted by the Riigikogu, and when he/she issues legislation in extraordinary circumstances. e president cannot initiate any laws, but only he/she has the opportunity to initiate amendments to the Constitution (§103 (5)). is has not happened oen, though, – only on two occasions has the president submitted a request to the Riigikogu to make changes to the Constitution. e first to do this was Lennart Meri, who on his last day of office, October 6, 2001, proposed an initiative to elect presidents directly. Proceedings of this initiative have been rejected mostly because of technical difficulties which have still not been resolved(August 2013). 1

Riigikogu XI koosseis 2011: 103 (http://riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&page=pk_otsing&u= 20070308131818).

174

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

e second initiative came from Toomas Hendrik Ilves who, on May 15th, 2007, submitted an amendment according to which the Government would appoint the Commander and the Commander-inChief of the Defense Forces, rather than the president. is change was settled in 2011 when the Riigikogu approved the amendment. Amendments to the Constitution have not been particularly popular during presidential electoral campaigns, either. In 2001, several candidates marked the need to elect the president directly, but marking was all that was done. However, the Riigikogu has made dozens of initiatives for amendments to the Constitution. Commissions have been set up which demonstrate that the Constitution needs updating. e presidents of the Republic have circumvented themselves from the problem, though for them, being sole initiators, it would be most simple to unleash such processes. e most important way that the president influences legislature is through his/her right and obligation to proclaim laws that the Riigikogu has passed. Mere proclamation does not affect politics or legislature. More important is the opposite – when the president does not proclaim the law. According to the Constitution (§107) the president does have this right, but it is not an absolute veto, rather it is more like a suspensive veto. Technically it goes as follows. e Riigikogu passes a law and it is sent for proclamation to the president who may refuse to proclaim it. e Constitution does not state clearly on what grounds the president may reject the law, it only states that it cannot be done without adequate justification. It is becoming common to justify a rejection by citing non-compliance with the Constitution. In total, presidents have rejected laws on 62 occasions, four of which were not in compliance with the law in general – there was no reference to the Constitution. ose four occasions could be taken as attempts to expand presidential powers, though such cases have been too rare to consider as a trend. Between autumn 1992 and the beginning of 2013 the Riigikogu passed more than 3000 laws. Two percent were rejected by the president. Such a ratio cannot be considered significant enough to suggest that the presidents have a desire to feel supremacy over the Parliament and the Government. Rejected laws then go back to the Riigikogu. ere unfolds a relatively complex procedure where the president also has the chance to

175

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

influence the legislature. e Riigikogu has two options in dealing with rejected laws – the first is to agree with remarks made by the president and make changes accordingly. In that case, the president shall proclaim the amended law. e Riigikogu may also ignore the president’s proposals and attempt to pass the law again without any amendments. In that case, the president will have two options – give in to the pressure of the Riigikogu, therefore vaguely admitting his/her mistake and proceed with proclaiming the law. e other option is to give the law to the Supreme Court to deal with. In that case, the president has to justify the rejection of the law with the non-compliance with the Constitution. With this in mind, it is reasonable for the president to rely on the Constitution from the very beginning, though it is not required for the initial rejection. e Supreme Court’s decision is final – it is mandatory both to the president and the Parliament. Rejections of the laws in practice are shown in the table below: Table 9: Rejections of the laws Presidents

The Riigikogu

President

Supreme Court

Meri (1992–2001)

Rüütel (2001–2006)

Ilves (2006…)

Total

Rejections

41

13

8

62

Changed the law

26

7

6

39

No changes

14

5

1

20

Did not process

1

1

1

3

Proclaimed

6

1

–

7

Sent to Supreme Court

8

4

1

13

The Court judged in favour of the president

7

2

1

10

The Court judged in favour of Riigikogu

1

2

–

3

Source: Office of the president of Estonia – www.vkp.ee

Some conclusions can be drawn from the data. As we can see from the ‘Rejections’ row in Table 9, Estonian presidents have become more restrained over time. is may be attributed to the personalities of the presidents but it may also mean that the Riigikogu has started to work more professionally – laws that the president, with the help of his/her

176

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

limited number of experts, could reject are not so easily passed. But perhaps the whole of Estonian society has become more balanced, including the presidents. Data reveals that the Riigikogu treats the president’s proposals with a certain respect – about 60 % of the changes that presidents have proposed were made by the Riigikogu. With Meri and Ilves the tendency is clearer, but also Rüütel’s rejections were met with support. e presidents have stood firmly for their positions – most of the laws that the Riigikogu did not change were sent to the Supreme Court and this institution has stoutly been on the presidents’ side. is occurs especially in regards to the laws that President Meri sent to the Supreme Court. Special attention can be paid to the three laws that the Riigikogu did not process aer the presidential rejection. is could be interpreted as the Parliament’s disrespect towards the president. ere is also a third instance in which the president can be involved in legislature. is is connected with a state of war or occupation. e Constitution does not define it as such – what it says is ‘if the Riigikogu is unable to convene’, but it is unlikely that such a situation could occur. In such a case, however, the president can issue laws with the force of law, but he/she is not able to do so alone– every law also needs the signature of the Chairman of the Riigikogu and the Prime Minister. So far, there has not been a situation like that in Estonia and the Constitution deals with it as an unusual but theoretically possible scenario. Although there are few significant ways for a president to influence the legislative power, it cannot be claimed that such possibilities are completely absent. It should be admitted, though, that the presidents have not used those subtle opportunities much either. Influencing the executive power As the executive power is vested in the Government, in this section we contemplate the ways that the head of state is able to influence the Government. is influence begins with designating the candidate for Prime Minister (§ 89 of the Constitution). When there is a change of government – the result of the elections or any other reason the has stepped down – the president has the right to designate the candidate for Prime Minister. e Constitution does not restrict the appointment of a candidate in any way, though publications on the Constitution

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

177

do not rule out so-called natural barriers. It is also assumed that the candidate for Prime Minister is an Estonian citizen. In the mid-1990s the Riigikogu tried to restrict the process through a law that stated that the designated candidate for Prime Minister must be the leader of the largest parliamentary party. e president rejected the law and it was sent to the Supreme Court, which supported the president. However, it makes sense to assume that a president will designate a candidate who could really become the Prime Minister. e decision is made in the Riigikogu by a vote, which means that the candidate needs to have the Riigikogu’s support – only aer that he/she can start forming the Government. erefore the president needs to consider the views of the parliamentary factions. It can be argued that so far presidents have taken their views into account – only once did the Riigikogu not support the designated candidate, while on nine other occasions the president’s candidate was confirmed. Formally it seems that the president does not particularly affect the process, but presidential influence is evident in the selection of a candidate. Estonian Parliament has been relatively fragmented and there has been always more than one way to combine a minimal government coalition. Every combination has its own candidate for Prime Minister in mind and while negotiating to identify the right candidate, the president has an opportunity to influence the parties in the Parliament. Usually, the exertion of such influence is not seen by the public, but there is no reason to doubt its existence. If the first designated candidate for Prime Minister fails, then the president has a right to designate a second candidate on the same terms. If the second candidate also fails, then the right to designate a candidate will go to the Riigikogu. No president has failed on their second attempt. Another way the president influences daily politics is by appointing and releasing members of the Government. However, in this case the president does not have the same choice as he does when designating the candidate for Prime Minister. e president can appoint to or release from office ministers only with a proposal made by the Prime Minister. He/she is not required to do this immediately aer receiving the proposal, however. e fact that the president has three days for consideration has occasionally raised questions whether the president has the right not to appoint a certain minister. And if he/she does not, then what? In practice those appointments have never become so acute

178

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

and therefore a constitutional crisis has not occurred. But there are cases where the president has made clear with his stalling tactic that the candidate is not the one he is in favor of. Such behavior can be found in President Meri’s era in the 1990s. Two other fields can be placed under the executive power where, according to the Constitution (§78 (1); (16)), the president is involved in political decision making. ose are foreign policies and defense policies. Based on one point in the Constitution it can be thought that the president has a wide range of options in directing foreign policies of the country. In the above-mentioned list of duties and competencies the first point is representing the country in international relations. erefore this duty is the most important one for the president. But it is not that important to the Republic of Estonia – foreign relations are organized and coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both the president and all other institutions dealing with foreign policies are obliged to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about their endeavors. If any relations have come to an agreement in writing then the president can sign it, but the Government has to approve the contract first. What can the head of state do? Everything connected with diplomacy is also outlined in the Constitution (§78 (5)) – the president receives the credentials of diplomatic agents accredited to Estonia and appoints to and recalls Estonian diplomatic agents from foreign countries. e last is done on the proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. e president appears to have the ceremonial duty of giving out diplomatic ranks, but again only with the proposal from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. While these activities are rather routine, and it is unlikely that the president affects anything, there is a field – which is not directly mentioned in the Constitution or in any other legislation – where the president definitely represents the country and it might turn out to be very influential. ese are appearances in the international community. And of these, the most important is the appearance in the UN General Assembly. Between 1993–2012 Estonian Presidents have stepped up 11 times. It is not much, just a bit little more than half of the times possible. Somewhat surprisingly, President Meri’s scarcely participated in the UN – he was in front of that audience only twice. On the other hand, the number of presidential speeches made abroad is quite remarkable. e relevant statistics are as follows: Lennart

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

179

Meri gave 160 speeches abroad (an average of 18 speeches per year), Arnold Rüütel made 92 speeches (an average of 18 speeches per year) while Toomas H. Ilves gave “only” 36 speeches, for an average of 6 speeches per year (Office of the president of Estonia – www.vkp.ee). Perhaps the decrease in recent years is caused by Estonia’s stronger position in the international arena. Until joining the European Union and NATO, all means were used to fulfill those goals and the president had a respectable place in the process. Defense policy is a field where the Constitution firmly fixes the president’s duties. Formally, all those duties are fairly broad because according to the Constitution the Supreme Commander of National Defense is the president. But neither in times of peace nor war, is the president in command. During peace-time the president’s role is to monitor and evaluate the preparedness of the national defense and deal with ceremonial duties – conferring military ranks on the proposal of the Commander of the Defense Forces. Without such a proposal the president has only the right to confer a higher rank to the Commander of the Defense Forces. During war-time conditions the president’s role grows somewhat, but this is mainly limited to starting certain processes rather than being in command. e president may make proposals to the Riigikogu to declare a state of war, and the president may also propose the declaration of mobilization and demobilization. e president can also propose to the Parliament the declaration of a state of emergency. Appointments e Constitution (§78 (11)-(14)) outlines several positions which need to be filled with certain individuals and where the president is involved – in addition to appointing the afore-mentioned ministers. A total of six positions are filled with the president’s involvement and those can be divided into two different types of appointments. e first is where the president makes proposals to the Riigikogu for appointments to the offices of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Estonia, the Auditor General and the Legal Chancellor. Since the last two are also part of the Government, yet only with the right to speak (they cannot participate in decision making through voting), it can be argued, that by appointing those

180

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

individuals the president is affecting the executive power. Nevertheless, that should be precluded by the fact that these individuals cannot directly take part in decision making. e president cannot make proposals about people based only on his/her own criteria. All candidates are subjected to specific limits fixed in the laws – citizenship, education, a demand for a certain expertise, and the requirement to undergo a security check. It requires a proper ground work and unfortunately excludes many candidates. Since all candidates are finally approved by the Riigikogu, the president cannot be absolutely sure that his/her candidate will be approved. It has happened on two occasions – one candidate was presented to the Board of the Bank of Estonia and another to become the Legal Chancellor and neither were supported in the Riigikogu. Another, opposite, method of appointing candidates exists. is is when a candidate is presented to the president and he/she confirms the individual to office. ese individuals are divided into two categories. On the proposal of the Board of the Bank of Estonia the president of the Bank of Estonia is appointed and on the proposal of the Supreme Court most of the judges are appointed. ough, that kind of appointing cannot be interpreted as appointing ministers. Most candidates for judges have been rejected – in the beginning of the 1990s President Meri rejected one sixth of all the candidates presented. As the president does not need to justify his/her decision, there is room for many speculative assumptions. Since 1995 the presidents have not exercised their right towards the candidates for judges. Until 2011 it was the president’s duty to appoint the Commander of the Defense Forces or the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Forces, but with the previously mentioned amendment this is now the Government’s duty. Other opportunities for the president As it follows, the head of state in Estonia does not have particularly extensive opportunities to influence politics. is is where the question arises – what can the president do while not having to fill his/her mandatory duty or seriously consider proposals from other institutions? ere are a few ways the president can influence not so much the politics, but the views and opinions of the society. is can be done through state decorations and speeches.

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

181

e right to bestow state decorations belongs to the president and in this case he/she does not need to consider the opinion of any other institution as to whom the award should go. Any person or institution can suggest nominees for decorations but the decision is made by the president alone. In the beginning of present day Estonia the Riigikogu tried to deprive the president of this right, but the Supreme Court made its decision in favor of the president. State decorations are bestowed once a year, just before the Independence Day, February 24th, and it is widely talked about in the society2. It can be assumed that for a president with such limited powers, public speeches are especially important because this is how the president can become the opinion leader of the society. Some speeches have become a custom – the New Year’s address, the speech on Independence Day, the speech on the opening of the Parliaments session, remembering the beginning of the school year, etc. But most of the speeches are not part of the custom. e president might consider waiving giving speeches, but that would obviously damage his/her reputation. e following data illustrates the number of speeches given by an Estonian president – both domestic and abroad. Figure 2: Presidential speeches – domestic and abroad

Sources: http://vp1992-2001.president.ee/est/k6ned/K6nedeArhiiv.asp; http://vp20012006.president.ee/et/ametitegevus/k6ned.php?arhiiv=true&aasta; http://president.ee/et/ ametitegevus/koned/index.html 2

During their time in office, the presidents of Estonia have bestowed state decorations as follows: Lennart Meri – 2043; Arnold Rüütel – 2817; Toomas Hendrik Ilves – 1375 (Source: Office of the president of Estonia – www.vkp.ee)

182

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Table 10: Abridgment of the speeches President

Domestic speeches

Speeches abroad

Total

Meri (1992–2001)

313

160

473

Rüütel (2001–2006)

298

92

390

Ilves (2006–2012)

248

36

284

Some comments must be added to clarify meaning of the data, however. e small number of speeches in 1992 is due to the fact that the President Meri assumed office in October. Occasionally an increase in the number of speeches is noticeable, at times quite a steep increase. ose took place in 2001, 2006 and 2011. ese are the years in which presidential elections were held. However, the data from 2001 does not fit into that category. President Meri had been in office for two terms and was not able to run for office again. It can be assumed that the speeches from 2006 and 2011 are closely related to winning the elections and were targeted to the general public. Below, I will present an overview of the mechanisms used to elect a president, but for now it should be stressed that the Estonian legislature does not give many opportunities for the candidates to campaign and the presidents who have tried to get reelected have made attempts to expand those opportunities. It should also be pointed out that in 1996, when the incumbent president was running for office for the second time, the number of speeches actually decreased. And last but not least, it is impressive how actively presidents have tried to guide the society; the following is the average number of domestic speeches given per year (Meri an average of 35 speeches per a year, Rüütel 60 and Ilves 41). However, because the presidents do not have substantial legislative and executive powers, the speeches, although eagerly awaited and analyzed, tend to have only symbolic and short-term influence. Divesting of office during the term of office When leaving aside death, a president is removed from office only in the case of conviction by a court. Current legislation does not make it possible to divest the president from office for any reason – not for loss of confidence, violation of the oath of the office, or on ethical grounds. When the Riigikogu was discussing direct presidential elec-

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

183

tions, they also included the possibility of divesting the president from office. However, the discussion faded and no changes concerning the presidential office were made. Fortunately, in Estonian political history, nothing that would have triggered presidential divestment from office has occurred. Of course, the president has the right to resign from office. e afore-mentioned possibilities do, however, raise the question of presidential succession. e Constitution does not provide a vice president. However, replacement of the president is possible – presidential duties would be transferred to the Chairman of the Riigikogu. So far, nothing like this has happened. Measuring attitudes towards and trust for the president is section is based on popular surveys conducted by the survey company EMOR (1993 and 1996) and the Institute of Government and Politics at the University of Tartu (2000–2011). e sample for all surveys was around 1000 citizens who were eligible to vote. Unfortunately these surveys are not identical regarding the questions. e polls Figure 3: Attitudes towards and trust for the president in comparison with the attitudes towards and trust for the Parliament and Government in 1993–2007

Source: Institute of Government and Politics, University of Tartu TNS EMOR

184

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

conducted by EMOR were more interested in the satisfaction with the president and his performance, while the polls since 2000 were concerned with trust in the president. Attitudes towards the head of the state are always better brought forward when in comparison with other state institutions. at is why I have placed data about Riigikogu and the government next to that of the president. Of course, the slight confusion with the questions must be taken in account and it will be elaborated on below. e surveys were conducted in the following years: 19933; 19964; 20005; 20026; 20067; 20078 and 20119. To differentiate between survey questions about the president, Parliament and Government in datasets from 1993, 1996 and from 2000 upwards, there are vertical lines drawn on Figure 2. 3

4

5

6

7 8

9

e survey was conducted in spring when the president had been in office for a few months and attitudes towards him had already emerged. e question about the president was phrased as ‘how has the head of the state performed his duties?’ while with parliament and government the wording was different. Both questions were asked on a 5-point scale with ‘has performed very well’ (president) and ‘the work has met the people’s expectations’ (parliament and government) being the highest points. e scale continues respectively with ‘rather well’ and ‘has mostly met the expectations’. ese are also given in figure 3. Additionally there were respective possibilities of ‘rather badly’ and ‘has mostly not met’ followed by ‘very badly’ and ‘have not met at all’ with ‘difficult to answer’ being a common possibility. e survey was conducted in summer, just before the presidential elections. e survey can be regarded as an evaluation of president Lennart Meri’s first term. Again there is a 5-point scale but the question and the answers are the same for all the institutions. e question was ‘How do you evaluate the work of the president/parliament/ government?’ and answers ‘very good’, ‘rather good’, ‘rather bad’, ‘very bad’ and ‘difficult to answer’. e figure also represents the first two answers. Survey was conducted during the autumn of 2000 and it can be regarded as an accumulated trust for President Lennart Meri whose tenure ended in 2001. Here and up to 2007 the corresponding question asked in these surveys was: ‘How much do you trust the president?’ with possible answers of ‘Trust completely’; ‘Rather do trust’; ‘Rather do not trust’; ‘Do not trust at all’; ‘Difficult to tell’. e figure below covers the first two possible answers combined. Survey was conducted in spring and gives an assessment of Arnold Rüütel’s first months in office. Survey was conducted in autumn and sums up the tenure of President Rüütel. Survey was conducted in spring and gives an assessment of Toomas Hendrik Ilves’ first months in office. Survey was conducted in spring and sums up the first tenure of President Ilves. In this case, respondents were asked to place themselves on an 11-point scale where ‘1’ marked complete no trust at all and ‘11’ complete trust.

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

185

Figure 4: Trust for the president in comparison with the trust for the Parliament and Government in 2011

Source: Institute of Government and Politics, University of Tartu

Some comments on these results must be added. e attitude towards the president has nearly always been high. ere are two exceptions. Firstly, at the time of the 1993 survey, the general public had not yet become familiar with the institution of the president. e second exception is the 2002 survey when the trust for President Rüütel fell to a considerable low. e most probable reason behind this is the deep disappointment many people felt about the fact that a politician who was active in the Soviet Estonian power mechanisms was elected as the head of the state. But within four years, President Rüütel managed to raise the trust level remarkably. e president has nearly always been more trusted than the Parliament or the Government. Probably because the head of the state does not have to make difficult and unpopular decisions which inevitably decrease the ratings of other institutions thus decreasing the trust. Presidential elections e Constitutional Assembly took a great deal of time to discuss both the direct and indirect systems of electing a president (Põhiseadus ja Põhiseaduse Assamblee 1997, 292–297, 498–509, 609–620). Preferences of indirect elections were seen in parliamentarism in general – the head of state cannot stand above the Parliament, even in cases of crisis. With direct elections the president might have had an opportunity

186

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

to gain more power than the Constitution and good practice would foresee. A directly elected President could have turned straight to the people who had just given him/her the authority to rule and thus bypass the Government which is usually formed indirectly – whether by the Parliament or the head of state. Also, traditions cannot be forgotten – in the 1920s, considered to be the glorious time of Estonian democracy, there was no Head of State institution, and in 1938 the president was elected indirectly. e main argument for direct elections was that the public – which at the time did support direct elections, would reject the Constitution in a referendum if the presidential elections were indirect. e Assembly never came to a clear and irrefutable conclusion in the dilemma of how the president should be elected. e principle of indirect elections was written into the Constitution (§79), but, together with the Constitution, the Law of Implementation was adopted (Põhiseaduse rakendamise seadus, Riigi Teataja 1992, 26), which phrased some of the components of the political system a bit differently than did the Constitution. One of those components was the mechanism of presidential elections. According to the Law of Implementation, the first elections were held using a mixed system, which also included direct elections. erefore, the presidential elections in 1992 were based on the Law of Implementation, and since 1996, the elections have been based on the Constitution. Why was it devised this way? When the Constitutional Assembly approved the dra Constitution and it was presented to the general public for discussions, it was discovered, through feedback analysis, that direct elections are much more popular among the people. is lead the Assembly to fear that ignoring the public could result in the failure to adopt the Constitution in a referendum (Põhiseadus ja Põhiseaduse Assamblee 1997: 693–696, 870–872). So, in order to calm public opinion, a different electoral system than was set down in the Constitution was devised for the first elections. Candidates and elected presidents have all been similarly restricted in all elections. ere are two limitations directly targeted toward candidates – he/she must be at least forty years of age and must be an Estonian citizen by birth. e latter restriction makes it impossible for citizens who have gained their citizenship through naturalization to become the head of state. Nowadays, about one fih of the citizens who have the right to vote have gained their

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

187

citizenship in that manner. At that time, in 1991–1992, such voters were almost non-existent and, thus, the latter restriction did not cause any debate in the Constitutional Assembly or in the society. In 2007, a third restriction was placed on the candidates – a regular member of the Defense Forces cannot run for office. is of course did not affect the Law of Implementation and the third restriction was implemented in the Constitutional presidential election in 2011. ere are two restrictions for elected presidents. First, they cannot be members of any political party. rough this restriction the Assembly tried to create a situation where the president is independent of any parties’ political beliefs. e second restriction concerns possible re-election – the president can hold office for two consecutive terms, running for office three times in a row is out of the question. e election system itself did differ radically from the one outlined in the Constitution, starting with nominating the candidates and finishing with revealing the results. e term in office was also different – the Law of Implementation fixed the term at 4 years; according to the Constitution the president is in office for 5 years. e table 11 illustrates the systems. e current Constitution, in regard to presidential elections, deserves the following comments. e electoral mechanism in 1992 can be considered much more democratic, especially keeping in mind the nomination of the candidates. At the time, it was relatively easy to nominate a great number of candidates who later had to prove their ability to become the head of state through the collection of signatures of support. e current system allows the Riigikogu to nominate 4 candidates, and everything further does not really depend on the candidate. ere are three days in between the nomination and the first voting and the candidates are not supposed to introduce their views to the Riigikogu. High quota – 2/3 – has led to a situation where the president has been elected in the Riigikogu only once. In the electoral body the election may fail due to spoiled ballots, which are considered as official votes aer being deposited into the ballot box. If there is a remarkable amount of spoiled ballots then it might be problematic to reach the majority of affirmative votes. Spoiling ballots can be seen as a form of political struggle. In 1996, in the electoral body, 13.4 % of all ballots were invalidated. is can be considered a clear sign that the members of the electoral body were trying to spoil the elections and start again

188

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Table 11: The mechanism of presidential elections

Nomination of candidates

Elections in 1992

Elections in 1996–2011

Nomination is set-up by 3 citizens

The right to nominate a candidate rests with one-fifth of the membership of the Riigikogu – 21 individuals.

The candidate needs to collect 10 000 signatures of support. First round of voting

Direct elections. A candidate in favor of whom 50 %+1 of the participants’ votes shall be considered elected. If the winner is not clear then a second round will be held in the Riigikogu with the two most successful candidates.

The elections are held in the Riigikogu. A total of three rounds of votes are possible. In each round a two-thirds majority of the membership of the Riigikogu votes is necessary to win – 68 votes. If the president is not elected, a second round will be held in the electoral body.

Second round of voting

Elections are held in the Riigikogu. The number of votes necessary to win – more than half of the valid votes.

The electoral body is comprised of members of the Riigikogu and representatives of the local government councils. The two candidates who receive the greatest number of votes in the Riigikogu are presented to the electoral body as candidates for President. Also, twenty-one members of the electoral body can nominate new candidates. No more than two rounds of voting will be held, in both cases the number of votes necessary to win – the majority of votes.

Extraordinary elections in case the president is not elected

Was not foreseen. In case of equal number of votes, the oldest candidate shall be elected.

The afore-mentioned procedure starts from the beginning.

The powers of the president are valid for

4 years

5 years

Elected presidents

Lennart Meri – 1992

Lennart Meri – 1996 Arnold Rüütel – 2001 Toomas Hendrik Ilves – 2006 Toomas Hendrik Ilves – 2011

Sources: Põhiseaduse rakendamise seadus, Riigi Teataja 1992: 26; Vabariigi Presidendi valimise seadus, Riigi Teataja 1992: 31; Põhiseadus, §§ 79–80; Vabariigi presidendi valimise seadus, Riigi Teataja 1996: 30.

189

7. THE PRESIDENCY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA

from scratch (see Toomla, 2002: 134). In 2001, the members spoiled 6.8 % of the ballots, and in 2006, in the first round in the electoral body, 2.6 % of the ballots were spoiled (see http://vvk.ee/arhiiv/).

Measuring the president’s powers e indicators suggested in the beginning of the 1990s that a measurement of presidential powers can be conveniently used as the basis for international comparison. It does not matter whether these measures are relatively simple (Shugart – Carey 1992: 150; Frye 1997: 546–548; Krouwel 2003) or whether more complex measuring techniques are used (Fortin 2012, 92–108), in all cases the president of Estonia is located among the states where presidential powers are rated as being rather weak. Using Shugart and Carey’s (1992: 155) approach, Estonia would score six out of the maximum of 24 (authors calculations). Frye’s method determines Estonia’s score as 4.5 while the highest score among Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union is 18.5 (Frye 1997: 547). e weakest score is achieved according to Krouwel, who gives one point to Estonia with the highest score among Eastern European nations being 6.5 (Krouwel 2003). ese examples would make it logical to classify modern Estonia among parliamentary regimes (see Samuels – Shugart 2010: 32). is particular approach only confirms these positions. Furthermore, the powers of the president have been slightly reduced but there has been political will for more reductions. From time to time questions have been asked in the society whether Estonia needs a president at all. However, there is an understanding within the society that the president holds the justified position in the political system of a unifying figure, and that radical changes are not necessary.

Conclusions Four major conclusions can be drawn from the analysis in this chapter. First, the essence and development of the presidential institution in a parliamentarian form of government shows that the Estonian political system is in accordance with widely understood democratic beliefs.

190

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

When we take this as a basis, categories usually applied to post-communist societies should not be applied to Estonia. e principle of the separation of powers is overwhelmingly accepted among different political powers and is supported by the general public in actual politics. From there we can draw the second conclusion – there are no doubts over the role of the president in both politics and society in general. ere is practically no pressure to change to a presidential political system (like that of the 1938 Constitution) or to abandon the institution of the head of state at all (as under the Constitution of 1920). is in turn gives way to the third conclusion – the legal framework that regulates the actions of the president has been relatively stable. During the last twenty years some aspects of the president’s functions have been specified (like the ones related to national defence) but the general framework and content has remained as set in the Constitution of 1992. When the three previous conclusions grew out of each other and stressed the positive aspects, then the fourth points out a case when the institution of the president can have a destabilising effect on the society in case of the concurrence of several conditions. Two loopholes in legislation can be shown. e first one is connected to the electoral system of the president. Mainly because of the spoiled ballots there is a possibility for the elections to fail in the Electoral Chamber and there are no guarantees that this failure will not be repeated in the following extraordinary elections. e second loophole is connected with the potential removal procedures. At the moment the president can be removed from office only due to health problems or criminal conviction, political or ethical reasons are not sufficient for removal. ese in turn show that in a generally stable and positive system, there are possibilities for further specification of both the framework and substance of the presidency.

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

191

8 SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS DAUNIS AUERS Introduction In June 2011, Latvia’s Parliament (Saeima) elected the fourth state president since the renewal of independence in 1991 and the seventh in its history: Andris Bērziņš. A wealthy retired banker who had been elected to Parliament in the 2010 election on the Green-Farmers Union ticket, he was an unexpected, last-minute candidate, nominated just a week or so before the vote. His personal affairs, as well as his political philosophy, were utterly unknown to the wider public. Aer defeating the popular incumbent Valdis Zatlers (who was riding a wave of populist admiration aer his decision to call a referendum on the recall of Parliament a few days earlier) in the second round of voting, Bērziņš proceeded on a walkabout in the Old Riga part of the capital city where he found himself booed and jeered by a small mob. He was later widely criticized and derided by Latvia’s print and electronic media. However, this was neither an unusual presidential candidacy nor an unusual or unexpected presidential election in Latvia. Rather, this was business as usual. Contemporary and inter-war Latvian presidents have been largely ignored in both the Latvian and English language scholarly literature on domestic and international Latvian politics. Academics have focused on the executive, the Parliament, and Latvia’s unstable and fragmented party system. Presidents have generally been seen as little more than historical footnotes, marginal political players at best, particularly when compared to neighbouring semi-presidential Lithuania where presidents play a far more direct and central role in day-to-day politics and have certain executive functions (see Talat-Kelpsa 2001). Certainly, in strict constitutional terms Latvia has a comparatively weak

192

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

presidency with executive and legislative power primarily vested in Parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers (see McGregor 1994). Despite these seeming limitations, all four post-Soviet Latvian presidents have used their political office to further and deepen Latvia’s democratic consolidation and to influence both domestic and foreign policy. As a result, the presidential office is actually far more powerful than its representation in the literature or image in the popular consciousness. Indeed, it has become a part of the political marketplace, there to be traded and bartered by the political parties as a normal part of the wider political game. is chapter begins with a historical introduction to the creation of the Latvian presidency in the early 1920s and a debate on the role of the president in the Latvian political system. It is followed by a discussion of the three inter-war presidents that brought the position to life, as well as the self-appointed Kārlis Ulmanis, Latvia’s popular authoritarian-era president. It then moves on to look at the four postSoviet era presidents that, in contrast to their inter-war colleagues, have expanded the scope and influence of the office. e third section focuses on the powers that Latvia’s presidents have cultivated since 1993, and considers the key cases that have expanded the influence that presidents exercise over the political system, and seeks to identify the reasons why this has happened. e conclusion considers the wider lessons offered by Latvia’s presidency and looks to the future.

The place of the president in the Latvian political system Aer establishing an independent state in the militarily and politically confused aermath of the First World War, the provisional Latvian government organized an election for a Latvian Constitutional Convention charged with creating the political framework for the new state. ere was broad agreement among the nationalist, centrist, socialist and ethnic minority groupings at the Constitutional Convention that Latvia should follow the constitutional pattern that was emerging across Central and Eastern Europe at that time, and established a parliamentary democracy. at said, the constitution actually created two presidential offices: the state president and the minister president (who is more popularly known as the prime minister). In domestic

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

193

discourse, references to the ‘president’ mean the Office of the State President. As elsewhere in the region, the state president’s office was intended to be a moderating force, and the office was given largely ceremonial and apparently limited legislative functions. e president was envisaged as a counterweight to Parliament, a moderate voice in case extremists were to take over the legislature (Šilde 1976: 355). e issue of the president’s role and the question of direct democracy provoked the widest and most heated constitutional debate at the convention. Indeed, A large faction of the social democrats in post First World War Latvia was opposed to the institution of the presidency in general, and absolutely opposed to a popularly elected president with wide-ranging executive powers, considering the post to be a mere extension of the monarchy (Ibid). As a compromise, the Constitutional Convention decided against a five-year popularly elected presidency, supporting a three-year, parliamentarily elected president who was limited to two terms (raised to four years in the 1990s, to match the increased parliamentary term of office). Although legislators eventually decided on a parliamentary model, it is interesting to note that the issue of a popularly elected presidency continued to be debated throughout the inter-war era, and is still relevant today. In 2001, the Social Democratic Party prepared a dra of a new constitution that, in contrast to its inter-war era predecessors, featured a directly elected president with strong executive and legislative powers (see Bojārset al 2001). However, this should be seen as an electoral tactic. At that time, the social democrats were floundering in the opinion polls and adopted the idea of a directly elected president, popular among the public, in a failed attempt to win votes. More recently, while still holding the presidential office, Valdis Zatlers argued for the direct election of the president in order to give the office more authority and take it out of the political party trading game. is ambition for a directly elected president is unlikely to be achieved in the near future, and presidents have settled for operating within the existing parameters of the office. However, in addition to their formal powers they used the office as a ‘bully pulpit’, rather like eodore Roosevelt used the US presidency, to browbeat politicians and influence the political agenda. e president has a number of important formal powers that can be divided into five different categories (McGregor 1994: 24): symbolic,

194

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

ceremonial, procedural, appointive and political. e formal powers offer greater opportunities to influence the political agenda than the informal. e symbolic powers correspond most closely to eodore Roosevelt’s concept of the ‘bully pulpit’. ese powers give a public platform for the president to air his opinions. e president has a high symbolic profile, and in particular, gives speeches on national holidays (national Independence Day, Christmas and the New Year’s, etc.). ese are essentially addresses to the whole nation, are widely viewed, and can shi the political agenda. A particularly significant opportunity comes with the Latvian song and dance festival, first organized in 1873, which takes place every five years or so. is is the key non-political celebration of ‘being Latvian’, and provides presidents with a crucial opportunity to address an expectant nation. e high visibility of the president at this event, as well as his/her many compelling ‘photo opportunities’ with the armed forces, with visiting dignitaries (including international stars of popular culture), and with athletes returning from competitions laden with medals, create opportunities to build and utilize the office’s political capital. Ceremonial powers refer to the president’s authority to reward individuals and groups of citizens with awards recognizing achievements in a particular field. Although an indirect power, it does present the head of state with an opportunity to send out signals indicating the state’s approval or disapproval of some particular tendency or custom, both domestically and internationally. e key award granted in Latvia is the three-star order, created in 1924. e website of the presidential office states that it is ‘awarded to people who have achieved particular accomplishments on behalf of the Fatherland’, and a total of almost 26,000 awards have been presented during the inter-war and contemporary periods combined (Latvian State President 2013). Procedural powers refer to the Latvian president’s control of the political calendar through the signing of laws, international treaties ratified by Parliament, attending to the oaths of judges, as well as the ability to dissolve Parliament or call for a referendum on a piece of legislation passed by Parliament (although in the Latvian case this is a zero-sum game, with the president leaving the office if the public sides with the Parliament). e fourth, appointive, set of powers, touches on the role of the president in filling public positions. Here the most crucial power is

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

195

that of nominating an individual as Prime Minister-elect and giving that individual the initiative in putting together a governing coalition which is then voted on by Parliament. e Latvian president also appoints and dismisses ambassadors, and promotes military officers (based on recommendations from the Minister of Defence). However, other senior government positions (judges, the Prosecutor General, the head of Latvia’s clandestine service, the Governor of the Central Bank, etc.) are appointed by parliamentary vote. Finally, political authority refers to the president’s executive and legislative powers. e Latvian president’s greatest powers in the latter sphere are the right to propose legislation and return laws to Parliament for further deliberation, a power that Latvia’s post-Soviet presidents have used particularly extensively in comparison to their interwar peers. In addition, the president is the head of the armed forces, chairs the National Security Council, and can call special sessions of Parliament or the Cabinet of Ministers. e chapter will return to these powers when considering the role of the Latvian president.

Seven democrats and a dictator Latvia has had a total of seven elected presidents in its independent history. All three democratically elected inter-war presidents were successful in standing above the political fray and acting as symbols of Latvian statehood, a critical function in a new state where other important national symbols were still in the process of being constructed1. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that all three were qualified lawyers and had spent much of their careers in the legal profession. However, the third, Alberts Kviesis, has been heavily criticized for proving to be too weak to stand up to the prime minister, Kārlis Ulmanis, who led a coup on 15 May 1934, and two years later appointed himself president by decree, simultaneously occupying the posts of both president and prime minister until the Soviet occupation in 1940. 1

For example, the Latvian Freedom Monument (known affectionately as Milda to locals) that dominates the centre of the capital city Riga was finished in 1935. e idea was first debated in 1922.

196

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Table 12: Latvia’s Presidents Name

Term of office

Party affiliation at time of election

Jānis Čakste

1922–1927

Democratic Centre

Gustavs Zemgals

1927–1930

Democratic Centre

Alberts Kviesis

1930–1936

Farmers Union

Kārlis Ulmanis

1936–1940

Farmers Union

Guntis Ulmanis

1993–1999

Farmers Union

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga

1999–2007

None

Valdis Zatlers

2007–2011

None

Andris Bērziņš

2011–

Green / Farmers Union

Source: Latvian Presidents Homepage (2013)

e first of these presidents was Jānis Čakste, who very much fits in with Jose Magone’s (2011: 170) claim that ‘the head of state is a prestigious elderly statesman or stateswoman who commands respect from all sectors of society’in contemporary European parliamentary systems’ (a claim that cannot be applied to Latvia’s post-1991 presidents). Together with the dictator-to-be Kārlis Ulmanis, Čakste was the dominant political figure in the nascent Latvian state. He was elected the president of the Constitutional Convention, which required him to also perform the duties of an acting head of state. As such, he was a natural candidate for the presidency in the first parliamentary election in 1922 (Andersons 1992a). Indeed, he was the only candidate on the ballot aer the opposition Social Democrats had realized that their candidate would not be elected. He received 92 votes, with six abstentions and no votes against, an indication of his remarkable across-the-board fatherof-the-nation popularity. Čakste was re-elected to the presidency in 1925, beating two rivals on the ballot aer a second round of voting, but died before the end of his second term. He was followed by Gustavs Zemgals, whose election over four rival candidates was stretched over three plenary sessions and nine unsuccessful rounds of voting. Similar to Čakste, Zemgals was a prominent public figure, one of the leading members of the provisional government, a former Mayor of Riga, parliamentary deputy and government minister (Andersons 1992b). However, Zemgals was a reluctant president and refused to stand for re-election at the end of his first term. He was succeeded by Alberts

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

197

Kviesis, a remarkably passive president. During his six years in office, Kviesisdid did not even utilise his formal powers, never submitting a legislative initiative to Parliament or returning a law to Parliament for a further consideration. As a result, it is no surprise that he failed to use the office to stand up and oppose the Ulmanis coup in May 1934. Indeed, in the confusing first hours aer the coup, the president was contacted by a number of parliamentary deputies asking for an explanation of what was happening. Kviesis replied that ‘he did not know anything, and that Prime Minister Ulmanis and Jānis Balodis [the Minister of War] had taken responsibility for the event’ (Ščerbinskis 2011: 195). Kviesis went on legitimize the Ulmanis regime by officially proclaiming Ulmanis’ laws. Kārlis Ulmanis dominated the inter-war era. He very much overshadows the three previous inter-war presidents in the popular public memory and continues to loom large over the Latvian political system. His was a popular coup, carried out ostensibly to introduce order to Latvia’s chaotic and fragmented political system, but probably motivated by growing public support for the fascist undercoss movement and a simultaneous loss of support for his Farmers Union that endangered its place in Parliament in the following legislative elections (Pabriks and Purs 2001). In 2003, his statue was unveiled in the centre of Riga in front of a crowd several thousand strong. It is located just opposite the current Foreign Ministry building which, in the Ulmanis era, served as both his place of residence and his workplace, the offices for the Cabinet of Ministers. ere has even been a recent musical of this stage of his life called ‘Vadonis’ (Leader or, more accurately in the spirit of 1930s Central and Eastern Europe, Führer). e Ulmanis dictatorship is remembered as a golden era of Latvian economic growth and national self-assertiveness. is interpretation is strongly influenced by the horrific Nazi and Soviet occupations that followed rather than any hard economic data. Aer a half century of occupation Latvia once again emerged as an independent state with the collapse of the Soviet Union in August 1991. e Latvian elite quickly focused on the legal continuity of the state, particularly because the intense russification of the Soviet period had le ethnic Latvians a bare majority (52 %) in the newly independent state. At the first sitting of the newly elected Latvian Parliament on July 21, 1993, the legislature readopted the 1922 Latvian Constitution

198

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

and then elected the president, emphasizing the symbolic importance of this position for the Latvian state. Indeed, Guntis Ulmanis, the first of the post-Soviet era presidents was actually the grand-nephew of the inter-war dictator, Kārlis Ulmanis, and thus, not least through his physical similarity to the old dictator (right down to his old-fashioned flattop haircut) seemed to bodily represent the continuity of the old state. Nevertheless, the post-Soviet era has produced a very different type of presidency than that seen in the inter-war era. Contemporary presidents have been far quicker to use the formal and informal powers at their disposal to influence the political process. Although there are great differences in style between the four post-1991 presidents, they have all been similar in substance. e rules of the game have also allowed the office to be politicized. e president is elected by an absolute majority of Latvia’s 100 member Parliament. However, it is a secret vote, with members entering a ballot room in single-file to cast their vote. is clearly reduces the importance of party discipline. Efforts by party leaders to maintain some semblance of control – by issuing coloured pens to fraction members in order to ensure that all members vote as agreed – have only been partially successful. Guntis Ulmanis was the key figure in the contemporary Latvian presidency and he set the parameters of the role that have been followed by his successors. Ulmanis was active in the international scene, particularly in the East where he successfully pushed for the withdrawal of Russian military personnel from Latvia in 1994. It is interesting to note that Ulmanis’ two rival candidates for the president’s office in 1993 were émigré Latvians (Gunars Meierovics of Latvia’s Way and Aivars Jerumanis of the Christian Democrats). Émigré Latvians appeared to bring democratic experience, knowledge of the market economy and language skills to the table, all of which were considered crucial for the presidency in the transition years. As a result, it is no surprise that Ulmanis was eventually followed by Canadian-Latvian academic Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who was extremely active on the western international scene, charming Europe’s leaders with her fluent English and French as well as her general sense of worldliness. In contrast to the gritty, almost austere presidency of Ulmanis, Vīķe-Freiberga was comparatively extravagant. Latvian tabloids feasted on tales of excess, including personal hairstylists accompanying the president on foreign visits, extravagant limousines, banquets and hotel suites. is was truly Latvia’s

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

199

regal presidency. Aer two full terms, Vīķe-Freiberga was succeeded by Valdis Zatlers, an awkward orthopedic surgeon politically similar to Vīķe-Freiberga, but with no political experience. While Vīķe-Freiberga was an aspirational figure who seemed to symbolise what Latvia could become, Zatlers, with his clumsy English, ill-fitting suits, and self-confessed past of accepting bribes (known in Latvia as ‘favours’) from patients, was a more accurate reflection of what Latvia actually was. His focus was domestic rather than international. Moreover, Zatlers was famously chosen as a compromise candidate by party leaders in a meeting at the Riga Zoo. As a weak figure with no political organization to support him, he was chosen because he was unlikely to oppose parliamentary power. However, towards the end of his first term, Zatlers, initially derided by the public, became increasingly outspoken about political corruption and emerged as a popular independent figure, ready to use the presidency to ‘bully’ both Parliament and the executive. is culminated in his May 2011 announcement that he was calling a referendum on the dissolution of Parliament in response to fears that Latvia’s democracy was at threat of being ‘privatized’ aer Parliament had voted to refuse a search of a parliamentary deputy’s home requested by Latvia’s Anti-Corruption Bureau. Just a few days later Parliament elected Andris Bērziņš, a Green-Farmers Union deputy, as president rather than grant Zatlers another four year term (Auers 2011). Since independence and the presidency were restored in 1993, a clear pattern has emerged in the Latvian presidency. First, the office has always been won by minor, even unknown and untested figures with limited, if any, political experience. is seems to be a result of the fractured Latvian party system, in which political parties cannot agree to support major figures from rival parties, and thus agree to support either neutral or minor candidates. is in turn leads to the second phase, where the media and public deride the way in which the election has taken place and then criticize the character of the president. Zatlers experienced the full brunt of a media attack at his first press conference aer his election. e assembled media pressed him on his past of accepting bribes, even asking if his election meant that bribery had now been legalized in Latvia (Peach 2007). en follows the redemptive third stage in which the president is re-assessed as having performed well in either the international (Vīķe-Freiberga) or domestic (Ulmanis and Zatlers) sphere and leaves the office with the thanks of a grateful

200

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

nation. e cycle then starts all over again as another largely unknown figure is elected to the presidency. ere is an addendum. Aer leaving office, all three former Latvian presidents have fallen from grace. Ulmanis was done in by his Machiavellian return to politics with the For a Good Latvia party coalition in 2010. Vīķe-Freiberga’s expensively renovated apartment, costly limousine and shady purchase from the state of presents given to her during her presidency, and Zalter’s almost identical scandals led to their legacy being tarnished. is has limited the authority of their ‘elder statesmen’ comments and indirectly furthered the influence of the incumbent president.

Presidents as political actors At several critical junctures of Latvian history, Post-Soviet presidents have used the powers given to them constitutionally, as well as their extra-constitutional informal powers. e symbolic functions of the presidency have been used by presidents to criticize the political class and mobilize public and media support. In her farewell address to Parliament in June 2007, Vīķe-Freiberga made an influential speech encouraging parties to clean up their financing and cut ties with the ‘oligarchs’ that were corrupting the political system: “At this very moment, the sword of Damocles is hovering above the heads of several people. It is hanging by a thread and we still do not know when it will fall. If we truly live in a law-based state, the sword will fall. is is why I, as president, am standing on this high podium in Saeima and addressing parties and their deputies. I am inviting all parties to carefully discuss and evaluate their work this past year and their financial sources.” (Kozule 2007). However, earlier in her first term Vīķe-Freiberga experienced a rather less successful attempt at influencing the general zeitgeist in Latvia. She had used the symbolic occasion of the presidential speech at the culmination of the 2001 Latvian Song and Dance festival to appeal to Latvians to be more positive and patriotic by getting the 50,000 strong audience to repeat mantras such as ‘we are beautiful’ or ‘we are strong’ as well as simply chanting ‘Latvia! Latvia!’ some twenty times. is incident also seems to reveal the limits of presidential influence in Latvia.

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

201

Political pronouncements are acceptable while attempts to influence the general public mood are generally considered unacceptable ere are no discernible patterns in the use of the ceremonial functions power domestically. In the international sphere, it is clear that awards have been generously and widely granted to visiting foreign dignitaries from Western Europe and allied NATO states, while there have been comparatively few such awards to Latvia’s eastern neighbours. It is also interesting to note that Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga was particularly active in granting these awards to Latvia’s western partners (and that her presidency experienced intense pro-western lobbying in advance of Latvia’s accession to the European Union and NATO). Procedural powers have also been extensively used by presidents to secure and further Latvian democracy. Two cases reveal the enormous influence that a president can wield by returning a law to Parliament and using the ‘bully pulpit’ to explain and motivate opposition to it. First, in 2007 Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga returned a ‘security law’ to Parliament that had been pushed through Cabinet and Parliament by the hubristic Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis, aer he and his government coalition had been returned to office in the 2006 parliamentary election. e president claimed that the law would seriously undermine Latvia’s security agencies and endanger its NATO relationships. When the Parliament returned the law to the president for a second time, Vīķe-Freiberga called a press conference and announced that she was using her procedural powers to trigger Article 72 of the constitution. Article 72 gives the president the power to initiate a petition that could lead to a referendum. is was essentially a president versus Parliament confrontation. Parliament blinked first, voting to cancel the legislation even before the signature drive, and later referendum, could take place. is episode seriously undermined Prime Minister Kalvitis, who was unable to recover his authority and eventually stepped down from office in December 2007. e other major president versus Parliament confrontation came in 2011 when President Zatlers made a late-night television address complaining about threats to Latvian democracy that culminated in him calling a referendum on the recall of Parliament, the first and only time that this article of the Constitution has been triggered by a president (see Auers 2011). e popularity of the president and the equally low-standing of Parliament meant that the result was never in doubt.

202

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

94.3 % of voters in a low 44.7 % turnout voted in favour of the recall of Parliament. e parliamentary parties were resigned to the loss and started planning their parliamentary campaigns many weeks before the referendum even took place. is case is particularly important in the example it sets: in a conflict between president and Parliament, there is likely to be only one winner – the president. e major appointive power of the president is the nomination of a Prime Minister-elect, a notable power in a fragmented political system where no single party has ever won more than 38 of the 100 seats in the legislature. President Ulmanis used this power skilfully in 1995 when the election was won by radical populist parties whose policies endangered Latvia’s economic reforms and western political trajectory, in a Parliament which had fractured into nine different parties. He nominated a non-affiliated businessman (Andris Šķēle) to lead the next two governments. Finally, the political power of being able to return laws to Parliament for another reading has been utilized on several occasions, particularly in the context of shaping contentious domestic laws designed to be acceptable to an international audience. Indeed, moderating ethnic relations between ethnic Latvians and the Russian-speaking minority has been one of the areas where presidents have been absolutely vital. ere are two crucial cases that amply illustrate this point. e ethnic cleavage between ethnic Latvians and the Russian speaking minority (encompassing Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and other eastern Slavs) is the main political cleavage in Latvia (Auers 2013). First, in June 1994, the president refused to sign a parliamentary bill that set naturalization quotas that would have limited naturalization to just 2,000 people a year, notwithstanding Latvia’s large number of resident non-citizens. Despite Guntis Ulmanis himself having spent five years in exile in Siberia with his family (from 1941–1946), the president put aside his personal feelings. Amid intense international pressure, he rejected the law as being discriminatory. A new bill without the quota was passed by Parliament in July and the president signed it into law the following month. Five years later, Ulmanis’ successor, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, returned a language law to Parliament following heavy criticism from a number of international organizations, particularly the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union. e law envisaged the regulation of

8. SEVEN DEMOCRATS AND A DICTATOR: FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS OF LATVIA’S PRESIDENTS

203

minority languages in private enterprises as well as in the public sphere (see Tsebelis and Rizova 2007, pp. 1172–1174, or Morris 2004 for more detailed accounts). ere was concern that the legislation could delay Latvia’s accession to the EU. Parliament passed a moderated law in September 1999. It is clear that Latvia’s presidents are not as weak or ineffective as early published comparisons of East Central European presidencies indicated (see McGregor 1994, who categorized the Latvian presidency as the fourth weakest in the 27 state post-communist region). In a stand-off with Parliament, the president typically wins. is raises a key question. Why have presidents emerged as such powerful figures in what remains an essentially parliamentary system? is can be largely explained by the nature of the Latvian party system which has proven to be rather fractious in both the interwar and post-1991 periods. As governments fall, parties fracture, and politicians bicker, the Latvian President remains standing above the fray. Indeed, the more distant presidents have been from the infighting, the greater their popularity. us the lack of a party political base, a condition for their initial nomination, has actually proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Conclusions e Latvian case indicates that activist presidents in strictly parliamentary democracies still have the opportunity to greatly influence the political process. However, this is assisted in Latvia’s case by an exceptionally weak and fragmented party system, and political parties that Latvia’s voters simply do not trust. e lack of executive powers means that Latvian presidents are distanced from unpopular decisions on welfare or taxes, but have the opportunity to criticize parties and government through the use of the bully pulpit. Moreover, formal powers to propose or block legislation give presidents the opportunity to back up their rhetoric with concrete actions. us there is a certain irony in the observation that it is the weaknesses of the party, electoral and parliamentary system that has created the opportunity for presidents in Latvia to emerge as strong political actors.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

205

9 LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER ALGIS KRUPAVIČIUS Lithuania is an example of the balanced form of semi-presidentialism with its advantages (mainly that it restricted a concentration of power in hands of one or few leaders) and disadvantages (as it led to several institutional conflicts, even including the impeachment of President Paksas in 2004). S. Huntington, as early as 1991, noticed that there are five patterns of regime change in the countries that democratized.1 Lithuania, according to Samuel Huntington’s logic, belonged to a group of democracies of the “second-try”, which once established democratic regimes that failed to survive. However, the short inter-war experience of democracy and statehood were highly important factors for constitutional and institutional design and implementation at the beginning of 1990s when independence and democratic rule were restored in Lithuania aer almost 50 years of Soviet rule. In contemporary Lithuania, the semi-presidential system is one element of the political inheritance from the 1920s. In this chapter we will examine the historical background of the presidential institution, as well as analyze the contemporary constitutional framework of the presidency. We will also investigate the formal and informal powers of the president with the aim of determining the role of head of state within the Lithuanian political system. Eventually, our main argument will be that the head of state in Lithuania is considered to hold substantial powers which are not always regulated in detail by law. Still, the president is not an omnipotent ruler, as he or she is a part of a dual executive within the semi-presidential system, and who shares power with the government and also with other bodies, such as the legislature. 1

See more in Huntington 1991: 43–44.

206

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

A historical tradition of heads of state On 16 February 1918, the Council of Lithuania declared Lithuania’s independence and on 2 November 1918 the Council of State passed the basic laws for the provisional constitution, which regulated the position of the head of state as well. ese laws delegated executive power to the Presidium of the Council of State, which was made up of a chair and two vice-chairs, together with the Cabinet of Ministers. e Presidium of the Council of State was described as the collective head of the emerging state and was entitled to pass laws and appoint the prime minister. From 1917, the Council of Lithuania (later the Council of the State) was chaired by Antanas Smetona, the leader of the National Progress Party (Tautos pažangos partija) and future leader of Lithuanian Nationalists Union (Lietuvių tautininkų sąjunga). In order to have legal force, all decisions of the presidium the Council of Lithuania needed to be countersigned by two other deputy members: Justinas Staugaitis from the Christian Democratic Party (Lietuvoskrikščionių demokratų partija) and Stasys Šilingas from the Concord Party (Santaros partija). Certainly, a collective president was rather symbolic and weak, as well as a very short-lived phenomenon, and soon the basic laws of provisional constitution were revised. e main change was that an individual presidency replaced the collective presidency. is time the President of the Republic had many more powers than the collective presidency before it. Now the president had the right to call meetings of the Council of the State and was entitled even to dissolve this institution. e president, together with Cabinet of Ministers, was allowed to declare new laws between the sessions of the Council of the State, to appoint the prime minister and ministers, and to represent the state in ceremonial and symbolic functions. In April 1919, the Council of the State elected Smetona as the first President of the Republic of Lithuania. Smetona established himself as a strong individual leader as he ruled the country together with the Cabinet of Ministers until the autumn of 1919 and did not call a session of the Council of the State. Aer the elections of the Constituent Seimas in April 1920 where the Christian Democratic Party was victorious, the provisional constitution was passed. e experience of the concentration of power in hands of the president in 1918–1919 encouraged the Constituent Sei-

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

207

mas to pass new regulations and give more legal force to the legislature. Moreover, Aleksandras Stulginskis, the Christian Democrat chairman of the Seimas, served only as acting president until the election of the president under a future permanent constitution. On August 1, 1922 the Constituent Seimas adopted such a constitution. e new fundamental law was inspired by the continental (French) tradition of parliamentarism, but the presidency was not as weak as might sometimes be seen from this perspective. e Seimas had the right to pass legislation, approve the state’s budget, supervise the executive, appoint the Cabinet of Ministers and elect the President of the Republic. Among the new provisions, the president was part of the executive or government and was elected for a three-year period by an absolute majority of votes. If no candidate was able to gain an absolute majority aer two rounds of voting, then the two candidates who received the greatest number of votes competed against each other in a final round. Even though the powers of the president were limited, especially as all his decrees needed to a have a signature of prime minister or a minister, he still had the right to refer bills back to the Seimas for a second reading, to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and ministers, even to call early elections to the Seimas. e best illustration of the importance of the presidency was that all three presidential elections in the Seimas from 1922–1926 were highly competitive. In December 1922, the first Seimas elected Aleksandras Stulginskis as the President of the Republic of Lithuania aer three rounds of voting. In June 1923 he was re-elected by the second Seimas. In June 1926, the majority of centre and centre-le parties chose Kazys Grinius as president. However, he was challenged by more than three candidates, including Smetona, the former president, Bortkevičienė from the Lithuanian Peasants’ Union (Lietuvos valstiečių sąjunga) and Petkevičaitė from Peasants’ Peoples Union (Valstiečių liaudininkų sajunga). e coup d’état initiated by the leadership of Lithuanian Nationalists Party (Lietuvių tautininkų sąjunga) with the support of military forced Grinius to resign on 17 December 1926. On 19 December, Antanas Smetona was elected President of the Republic of Lithuania for a second time by a minority of votes (only by 38 votes from a total of 85) from the Nationalists (Lietuvių tautininkų sąjunga), Christian Democrats (Lietuvos krikščionių demokratų partija) and Farmers (Lietuvos ūkininkų sąjunga) parties, as other members of parliament from

208

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

centre and centre-le parties did not take part in the voting. Shortly aerwards, in April 1927, the Seimas was dissolved and all instruments of power de facto were moved into hands of the president. In May 1928, in order to legitimize the new political landscape Smetona promulgated a new constitution by decree. is move was illegal as the 1922 Constitution established strict norms that any amendments or changes of the basic law could be made only by the Seimas. Authoritarian rule expanded the president’s powers significantly. First of all, the president was elected by a special electoral college, instead of the Seimas, and not for a three, but for a seven-year term. e president was able not only to nominate, but also to select and dismiss the prime minister as well as cabinet ministers. e president also had the right to legislate without the approval of parliament. Smetona failed to eliminate the Seimas from the 1928 Constitution, but the timing of parliamentary elections was le fully in the hands of the president. e period from 1927–1936 has been described as a period of rejection of parliamentary democracy and the establishment of presidential authoritarianism (Lukošaitis 1998: 3). Nevertheless, new elections to the Seimas were held in June 1936. Before the election, in order to avoid a resistance and competition from the remaining opposition parties, Smetona decided to ban all political parties except his own – the Nationalists Union. In 1938 the president declared a further constitution – the fih – based on the 1935 Polish Constitution. For the first time since 1919 this version of the basic law failed to mention that Lithuania was a democratic state, instead declaring it only an independent and sovereign country. e 1938 Constitution legitimized the establishment of presidential authoritarianism in Lithuania. For the first time the constitution had a separate chapter on the president in contrast to all previous constitutions, which described the president as a part of the executive or government. e 1938 constitution included the provision originally introduced in 1928 that the president was elected by a special electoral college for a seven-year term with an unlimited right to be re-elected. Smetona was elected by an electoral college twice, in 1931 and 1938. Actually, the new constitution concentrated all legislative and executive powers in the office of the president. In 1940, aer the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, the office of the president was abolished.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

209

During the interwar period, however, Lithuania moved from a rather weak institution of the president to an extremely strong and authoritarian head of state.

Contemporary constitutional framework and the Lithuanian president As Caroline Taube (2002: 44) noted “the constitution is an autobiographic document in any country, whether the past was dramatic or quiet, whether there were periods of glory or occupation. It reveals achievements and fears equally, as well as old fashioned interpretations or traditions kept to the present day”. e 1938 Constitution had a major influence on institutional choices aer the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990 because there was an aim to emphasize constitutional continuity with the interwar state. In this context, one of the first acts of the constituent parliament was the adoption of the Basic Provisional Law. is law was based on a mix of institutions and regulations taken from the 1938 Constitution and the last Soviet Constitution of Lithuania. As in many other countries in transition, parliament was given a central place in the new institutional structure. Moreover, the Supreme Council was given the power to shape the affairs of central and local government, including powers of appointment, emergency powers, participation in the direction of foreign policy, the granting of citizenship, the selection of Supreme Court judges; powers which in democratic countries usually belong to the head of state or other executive institutions. Still the parliament preserved the ex-Soviet relic – a Presidium – with a kind of collective presidency and with its chair as the head of state. Until the adoption of the new constitution, Lithuania was formally a parliamentary republic, but the central figure in political life was not the prime minister, but the chairman or speaker of the parliament who was the de facto head of state. In October 1992, the new constitution was passed by a nation-wide referendum. According to the 1992 Constitution, Lithuania was regarded as a semi-presidential republic due to the strict power balance between the president and parliament. Trying to escape a definitional trap of semi-presidentialism, we need to state that the Lithuanian case

210

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

falls best into the catgory of premier-presidential regime offered by M. Shugart and J. Carey (1992: 23–24). To summarize briefly, the main features of the premier-presidential system are as follows: 1) the president is elected by popular vote – either directly or indirectly – for a fixed term in office; 2) the president possesses considerable powers, and 3) the prime minister and cabinet are subject to parliamentary confidence (Sedelius 2006: 39). A few other characteristics are very important to the definition of the semi-presidential system as well, i.e. 1) the dual executive, when the president as the head of state coexists with the prime minister who cannot be dismissed by the president, 2) both representatives of the dual executive – the president and the prime minister – have democratic legitimacy, as the president is elected by popular vote and the prime minister is responsible to the democratically elected parliament. e 1992 Constitution states that the President of the Republic is the head of state. He or she is elected for a term of five years by a popular vote and the same person may be elected for only two consecutive terms. Looking at constitutional presidential powers, the role of the president is relatively small as his or her functions are to large extent ceremonial and not effective. e president officially promulgates laws passed by Seimas and has the right of veto. But Seimas in turn may override the presidential veto. To do this, an absolute majority of parliamentarians must vote in favour of a law that has been vetoed by the president. As in other semi-presidential countries, the Lithuanian president has the right to nominate the prime minister who, upon investiture by the parliament, forms the cabinet. But effectively only Seimas can censure or dismiss ministers and the cabinet. e president has the formal right to dissolve Seimas aer a vote of no confidence in the government in Seimas, but it may happen only if the government asks the president to call early elections. e president has another opportunity to call early parliamentary elections when Seimas fails to approve the government’s programme within 30 days, or if it rejects this programme twice within 60 days from the day the programme was first submitted to the parliament. As a semi-presidential system is based on checks and balances, the 1992 Constitution introduced a norm that aer the president dissolves Seimas, at least three-fihs of the newly elected parliament can call for early presidential elections. e president may be prematurely removed from office

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

211

only for a gross violation of the constitution or a breach of the oath of office, as well as when it transpires that a criminal offence has been committed. Seimas decides the issue of removal of the President of the Republic from office by impeachment proceedings, taking into account conclusions of the Constitutional Court and a three-fihs majority of the parliamentary vote. However, the appointive powers of the president are quite broad as she or he nominates the chairman and judges of the Supreme Court and the Appeals Court, lower-level judges, three (out of nine) judges and the chairman of the Constitutional Court, the chairman of the State Control Office, the chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, the Commander of the Army and the head of the Security Service and the Prosecutor General. However, these appointments have to be confirmed by the parliament. e Constitutional Court importantly decides the constitutionality of enacted laws and other legal acts or implements a posteriors control. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court has much mediating power in inter-institutional relations between president, cabinet and parliament. e most visible cases of when Constitutional Court decisions have had a critical impact on the inter-institutional relations were made in 1998 with a ruling on the president’s power to nominate the prime minister, and in 2004 when President Rolandas Paksas was removed from the office aer the Constitutional Court decision that he grossly violated the constitution. e power of the president to choose a prime minister was revised substantially aer the January 1998 ruling of the Constitutional Court on the compliance of the 10 December 1996 Seimas resolution “On the Programme of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania”. e background of this investigation of the Constitutional Court was exceptionally political. In December 1997, the leader in the presidential run aer the first round voting with almost 45 percent of votes was Artūras Paulauskas, a candidate supported by the ex-communist Lithuanian Democratic Labour (Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija) and Liberal (Lietuvos liberalų sąjunga) parties, against Valdas Adamkus, the centre-right candidate, who was able to win only 28 percent of vote in the first round. Paulauskas was politically unacceptable to the Rightwing majority in the Seimas, led by the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives) (TS/LK) (Tėvynės sajunga (Lietuvos konservatoriai).

212

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

e prospects that Paulauskas might win the election seemed very convincing. Moreover, aer the first popular elections of the president in 1993 the government of Bronislovas Lubys resigned in order to give the new president the opportunity to to appoint new cabinet. e precedent was set. e Conservative government, led by Gediminas Vagnorius decided to submit a petition to the Constitutional Court asking to investigate what powers the newly elected president has in choosing a prime minister. According to Article 84 of the Constitution the president has the right to accept the resignations of the Government upon the election of a new Seimas and submit to the parliament the candidature of a new prime minister for consideration or a new composition of the Government for approval. e Constitutional Court stated in its ruling that the activities of the government depend only upon the confidence of the Seimas majority. Moreover, the mechanism of the formation and accountability of the government in Lithuania functions in the same way as constitutional mechanisms of semi-presidential power in other European states. is means that the president’s role in the formation of the government depends upon his relationship with the parliamentary majority. Due to this, the role of the president might have three variations. First, when the president is a leader of the political majority and might politically influence the formation of the government. Second, when there is no obvious majority in the parliament, and the president strives for a compromise of various political forces. In the third case, the majority of the parliament does not support the president, and therefore his influence upon the formation of the government becomes moot. e Constitutional Court concluded in its ruling that in the Lithuanian constitutional system, the principle of the responsibility of the government to the Seimas has been established which determines a respective way of government formation. erefore, referring to the parliamentary democracy principles established in the constitution, it is to be assumed that the President of the Republic cannot freely choose candidates for prime minister or ministers, because the appointment of said officials depends either on Seimas’ confidence or distrust in them. e Constitutional Court also outlined the main reasons for the resignation of the government: first, when the Seimas directly expresses non-confidence; second, when it expresses non-confidence by disapproving of the programme of the newly formed government two

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

213

times in succession; third, when the government must repeatedly be re-invested with authority by the Seimas because more than half of the ministers have been changed. ere are two final instances in which the government loses its power to act: first, when a prime minister resigns or dies, and second, aer Seimas elections.2 According to the Constitutional Court, the governance model of Lithuania is a parliamentary republic with certain characteristics of a mixed (semi-presidential) regime. During the late 1990s, the Lithuanian political elite reached a consensus to interpret the Lithuanian Constitution of 1992 in a maximally parliamentary manner. Nevertheless, both of the last Lithuanian presidents, Valdas Adamkus and Rolandas Paksas, never turned into passive implementers of the parliament’s will, but remained independent actors in Lithuanian politics (Matsuzato – Gudžinskas 2006: 146). Still, the 1992 Constitution is ambiguous in its description of the relationships between the president and the government. e constitution states that ministers are responsible to the Seimas, as well as the President of the Republic, and that they are directly subordinate to the prime minister. Formally, the president can issue decrees, but in order to be valid most of them must be signed by the prime minister or another appropriate minister. In this case, the issue of accountability becomes important. If a certain decision, for instance granting a citizenship, is wrong, then it is not clear who takes responsibility – the minister or the president.

Formal powers of the president As K. Matsuzato noted, the semi-presidential systems in post-communist Europe might be differentiated from other states based on the criterion of how its constitution describes the possibility of cohabitation. He classified three types of constitutions, i.e. 1) the president is obliged to consult the parliamentary majority of the largest party on the nomination of a candidate for prime minister (as in Bulgaria, 2

e Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania ruling on the Compliance of the 10 December 1996 Seimas Resolution “On the Programme of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania” with the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. 10 January 1998, Vilnius. http://www.lrkt.lt/dokumentai/1998/n8a0110a.htm

214

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Romania); 2) there are no provisions on how to resolve disagreements between the president and the parliament over the candidate for prime minister (Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine); and 3) the constitution exclude the possibility of cohabitatiosn by authorizing the president to dissolve parliament if said parliament rejects a candidate for prime minister three times (Kazakhstan). Matsuzato (2005: 3) also observed that Polish and Lithuanian parliaments exploited this ambiguity for their own advantage by making the president appoint the candidate of the parliamentary majority to the post of prime minister. e parliamentary element is very strong in the Lithuanian premierpresidential regime. Almost all presidential powers are matched by countervailing powers vested in the Seimas. Presidential supremacy is assumed in the domain of foreign policy, but according to the 1992 Constitution, both the president and the parliament can take the initiative. A clear sign of the president’s subordination to the parliament is the obligation of the president to annually deliver the State of the Nation Address to the Seimas. Table 13: Constitutional powers of the president Legislative Powers

Score

1. Package Veto/Override

1

2. Partial Veto/ Override

0

3. Decree

1

4. Exclusive Introduction of Legislation (Reserved Policy Areas)

0

5. Budgetary Powers

0

6. Proposal of Referenda Non-Legislative Powers

0 Score

7. Cabinet Formation

1

8. Cabinet Dismissal

0

9. Censure

2

10. Dissolution of Assembly

1

Total legislative powers

2

Total non-legislative powers

4

Total powers

6

Source: Krupavičius 2008: 72; classification according to Shugart – Carey 1992: 150; see detailed description of Shugart – Carey schema in Elgie – Moestrup 2008: 11–12.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

215

A special reserved policy area for the president is foreign policy. However, she or he can implement foreign policy only together with the government. One way of evaluating presidential power is by examining who represents the country at the European Council Summits. Beginning in December 2002 when Lithuania was invited to join the European Union, twelve meetings were held with the heads of state of the 13 applicant countries and the EU government. Until the formal entry of Lithuania to the EU in May 2004, the president and the prime minister represented the country, together, three times. e prime minister represented Lithuania alone only once. In the remaining eight summits, in 2004 and 2006, the president represented the country only once, the head of state and the head of government together represented Lithuania twice. e prime minister led Lithuania’s delegation at the EU summit as many as five times. Conclusions from these statistics show that, despite the fact that sometimes the country representation at the European Council meetings was affected by situational factors,3 the president was even losing his influence in a foreign policy – an area especially reserved for him. Lithuanian – EU relations changed drastically aer the election of EU Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaitė (2004–2009), however, as she fully monopolized Lithuania’s representation at the European Council in 2009–2013. On the other hand, Grybauskaitė showed limited activity in other foreign policy areas and in Lithuanian relations with nonEU countries. e leadership of national EU policies in the domestic political arena still primarily belonged to the government and not to the president. is entire situation tended to create a kind of imbalance where the president had symbolic power and the government dealt with the day-to-do business of EU policies and remained the dominant executive in Lithuanian–EU relations. e measurement of presidential powers in a semi-presidential system is always a tricky job, as formal codified or de jure powers of the president in many cases do not reflect de facto powers. An additional difficulty here is that de facto powers of the president depend much on the political configuration of the legislature. Nonetheless, estimates of legislative and non-legislative powers in Lithuania and France as a classic 3

President Paksas, because of the impeachment proceedings was able to go to the EU summit in 2004, and only President Adamkus attended the summit meeting in June 2006, because the Prime Minister Brazauskas resigned just before it.

216

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

semi-presidential regime are the same (Pugačiauskas 2000: 93). Other comparative studies of semi-presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe confirm that the formal powers of the post-communist presidencies generally reflect de facto powers of the office (Sedelius 2006: 115). Consolidated Shugart and Carey scores for presidential powers in Central and Eastern European semi-presidential countries show that according to total non-legislative powers criteria, the Lithuanian president, with 4 points (see Table 1), was behind only Russia’s president (excluding Belarus, a non-democratic country, from all calculations) and had the same score as the president of Croatia. According to these scores, the Lithuanian president, in the area of non-legislative powers, had responsibility to name the prime minister with the confirmation of the Seimas, but later, the prime minister, aer some negotiations with the president, had the power to choose the ministers. Meanwhile, the president was unable to dismiss the Cabinet or ministers as this was solely the competence of the parliament. On the other hand, the president, aer the use of censure by the parliament, had the power to respond to this decision by dissolving assembly. However, the legislative powers of the Lithuanian president were not so strong and the presidents of Croatia, Moldova, Romania, Russia and Ukraine have been more effective in this area. Still, the total powers of the Lithuanian president were very impressive, as he or she was more powerful than the Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovakian, and Slovenian presidents and enjoyed the same total powers as contemporary presidents of Poland and Ukraine (Elgie – Moestrup 2008c: 252–253). Actually, in the area of legislative powers, the Lithuanian president had two instruments, i.e. a right of package veto (although the parliament was able to override this veto by absolute majority vote), and limited authority to enact decrees.

The informal position of the president and his power within the political system One of the major sources of informal presidential power is the president’s affiliation with political parties and consequently to parliamentary majority. Presidents who have been well-connected to major political parties and/or strong parliamentary majorities in most cases enjoyed higher political influence and cohabitation with other institutions.

217

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

Table 14: Presidents of the Republic of Lithuania and their party affiliations Party

President’s party share in the parliament (N of seats/ %)

Term

National Progress Party

–

April 1919–June 1920

Aleksandras Stulginskis

Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party

17 (15 %)* 14 (14 %)**

December 1922–June 1926

Kazys Grinius

Lithuanian Peasants People Union

16 (22 %)

June 1926–December 1926

Antanas Smetona

Lithuanian Nationalists Party

4 (3 %)

December 1926–June 1940

Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas

Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party

74 (52 %)

February 1993–February 1998

Valdas Adamkus

Non-party

14 (10 %)***

February 1998–February 2003

Rolandas Paksas

Liberal Democratic Party

13 (9 %)

February 2003–April 2004

Artūras Paulauskas (acting President)

New Union/ Social Liberals

22 (16 %)

April 2004–July 2004

Antanas Smetona

Valdas Adamkus

Non-party

18 (13 %) ****

July 2004–July 2009

Dalia Grybauskaitė

Non-party

46 (33 %)*****

July 2009–July 2014

* After the elections of the 1st Seimas in 1922; ** after the elections of the 2nd Seimas in 1923; *** Adamkus was nominated for the elections by Lithuanian Centre Union (LCS) (Lietuvos centro sąjunga); **** Adamkus was supported in the re-election by Liberal and Centre Union (Liberalų ir centro sąjunga), and here are party seats after the 2004 Seimas elections; ***** Grybauskaitė was informally supported by the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (Tėvynės sąjunga-Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai) in 2009–2012.

However, the 1992 Constitution requires that a newly elected president “must suspend his activities in political parties and political organisations until the beginning of a new campaign of the election of the President of the Republic” (Article 83). When speaking of the proximity of Lithuanian presidents to political parties aer the collapse of communism, only Brazauskas, elected in 1993, might be considered a true party politician. He emerged on the national political stage with Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform policies of perestroika and was one of the most popular and influential

218

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Lithuanian politicians from 1988 until his death in 2010. Brazauskas, for the greater part of his political career, was tightly linked to political parties. In October 1988 Brazauskas was elected First (and the last) Secretary of the Lithuanian Communist Party (Lietuvos komunistų partija), which was transformed into Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDDP) (Lietuvos demokratinė darbo partija) in 1990, and in 2001 merged with Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) (Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija). Brazauskas served in the highest ranking national offices for a long period – in 1990–1991 as First Deputy Prime Minister, in 1992 – Seimas Speaker and Acting President, 1993–1998 – President elected for the first time in direct national elections in the history of Lithuania, and in 2001–2006 – Prime Minister. In 1993–1998, as the President of Lithuania, Brazauskas followed a provision of the 1992 Constitution and kept quite a clear distance from the LDDP majority in the Seimas in 1993–1996, as well as the Cabinet of Adolfas Šleževičius. However, President Brazauskas was such an authoritative leader in his own party that he was able, from time to time, to interfere directly in important decisions in the areas not designated to the head of state, such as economics, etc. Moreover, in the beginning of 1996 Brazauskas asked Prime Minister Adolfas Šleževičius to resign and encouraged a vote of no confidence in the Seimas by the LDDP faction. is happened aer Šleževičius withdrew his personal assets from two banks shortly before they collapsed during Lithuanian banking crisis in 1995–1996. Certainly, Brazauskas’ ability to remove Prime Minister Šleževičius from office was primarily based on his close personal ties with the LDDP. Another “party president” in contemporary Lithuania was Rolandas Paksas, the leader of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) (Liberalų demokratų partija) in 2002- 2004 and former member of the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives) as well as Liberal Union of Lithuania (Lietuvos liberalų sąjunga). However, Paksas’ Liberal Democratic Party was far less influential in comparison with Brazauskas’ LDDP, and, in the end, Paksas was not able to significantly strengthen his informal presidential powers through the LDP, especially during his impeachment process in 2003- 2004.4 President Rolandas Paksas fell into a series of political troubles immediately aer his inauguration in February of 2003. e first public 4

See Krupavicius 2004: 1066–1069; Krupavicius 2005: 1098–1100.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

219

controversy over President Paksas arose because of his association with Lena Lolišvili, a self-proclaimed faith healer and psychic. Political opponents criticized Paksas for having had Lolišvili vet his political appointees for the presidential administration. Paksas denied these charges and asserted that his relationship with Lolišvili was a private matter. But at the very end of October 2003, Mečys Laurinkus, the outgoing head of State Security Department, warned that international organized crime groups were making their way into Lithuania as the country was integrating into European and Trans-Atlantic structures. Lithuania’s State Security Department submitted evidence to the Seimas Chair Artūras Paulauskas, allegedly linking President Rolandas Paksas and Remigijus Ačas, his national security adviser, to Russian criminal groups. On November 3, 2003 the Seimas created a nine-member ad hoc commission to further investigate allegations that international criminal groups attempted to influence members of the presidential administration. e Seimas ad hoc commission issued a 10-page report with six conclusions; the first being that the Russian public relations firm Almax (which helped to organize Paksas’ presidential campaign) was suspected of having links with Russia’s secret services and had influenced the President’s Office. Also cited was the influence of entrepreneur Jurij Borisov5 on the president, and the dubious reputations of members of the president’s staff. e parliamentary ad hoc commission also charged Paksas and his advisors with leaking confidential information to people who were under investigation. e ruling coalition of the Social Democrats and New Union (Social Liberals), along with the opposition of Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives), and the Liberal and Centre Union, who had a total of 110 MPs, agreed to draw up an impeachment document and begin the process for the president’s trial. However, the LSDP was initially much undecided about the presidential trial. Brazauskas, as leader of the LSDP and Prime Minister, generally tried to project a neutral posture regarding the presidential scandal. 5

Jurij Borisov, owner of the helicopter firm Avia Baltika, contributed about 1.2 million litas ($400,000) to the election campaign of President Paksas. A donation of 1.2 million litas from Avia Baltika to Paksas’ campaign was officially declared aer the election, but during the presidential scandal Borisov stated several times that he donated 1.2 million USD which was almost three times more than the officially announced sum.

220

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Lithuania’s Seimas approved the impeachment of President Paksas on February 19, 2004. Aer a few months of investigation, the Constitutional Court concluded that President Rolandas Paksas unlawfully granted Lithuanian citizenship to Jurij Borisov in exchange for financial support during the election campaign. ey also found that the president knowingly tipped off Borisov that law enforcement institutions were conducting operational investigations and tapping his telephone conversations. ey concluded that in 2003, Paksas, while seeking to implement private property interest of his “friends” and by making use of his status, exerted influence over decisions of heads and shareholders of the company “Žemaitijos keliai”.6 All these three charges qualified as gross violations of the Constitution. Paksas was removed from office aer Seimas narrowly voted to impeach him on April 6, 2004, based on the aforementioned three charges. However, the initial charges of links with Russian criminal groups were dismissed. According to the constitution, impeachment of the president requires the approval of at least three-fihs of 141 MPs, which totalled 85 votes. e final votes on the three counts were 86–17, 86–18, and 89–14 in favour of impeachment. Sixteen members of the Liberal Democratic Party and several other deputies did not participate in the vote. Although 115 deputies voted, still some of the ballots were spoiled. Aer the impeachment, Paksas still faced several separate trials for his involvement in obtaining Lithuanian citizenship for Borisov. Paksas also appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that there was no direct evidence that he leaked state secrets during the time when he served as the President of the Republic. Paksas was acquitted of all charges by the court. Generally speaking, the Paksas’ Liberal Democratic Party was very little help to him during the entire impeachment process, primarily because of the small size of the pro-presidential party. As previously mentioned, Brazauskas was the only “party” president who had the backing of one of the largest political parties, i.e. Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party. In 1992–1996 the LDDP held an abso6

Conclusion on the Compliance of Actions of President Rolandas Paksas of the Republic pf Lithuania Against Whom an Impeachment Case Has Been Instituted with the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. 31 March 2004, Vilnius. http: //www.lrkt.lt/dokumentai/2004/c040331.htm

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

221

lute majority in the Seimas with around 52 percent of the total seats. By comparison, in 2002–2004, Paksas’ Liberal Democratic Party held only 9 percent of parliamentary seats. Broad party backing of the president in the legislature considerably increases his political weight and significantly widens the space for his political manoeuvring. A “party” president is also able to establish a consensus-based relationship with the parliamentary majority when his party is in command of the Seimas, as this relationship helps to decrease intra-executive disputes. Size and political position of a pro-presidential party are important variables in whether or not presidential power increases. If a president’s party is a large political group within the party system and it has a parliamentary majority and takes part in, or even leads, the Cabinet, then the chances of the president having substantial informal powers in various areas of domestic policies are high. Two presidents of contemporary Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus and Dalia Grybauskaitė, were regarded as non-party presidents. Still, the idea of their non-partisanship was only partially true, as Adamkus was supported by Centre Union since the 1997 presidential elections, and Grybauskaitė was running for president in 2009 with the support of Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats and Liberal Movement (Lietuvos Respublikos Liberalų Sąjūdis). However, there is one substantial difference between so-called “party” and “nonparty” presidential relationships with their respective parties. “Party” presidents enjoy permanent support, that is, during both good and bad times, from their political organizations, while political parties might change their minds about supporting “non-party” presidents. e “non-party” presidents were almost doomed to live in conditions of cohabitation with the government and legislature. But still there were opportunities for strengthening the president’s political role, even in these circumstances. Because Lithuanian presidents are traditionally the most popular political leaders, leading parties in ruling coalitions’ sometimes, for the sake of political stability within coalitions and parliament, were in need of securing presidential support. Cohabitation between Dalia Grybauskaitė and Andrius Kubilius, prime minister of the centre-right coalition led by the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats in 2009–2012, was the best example of this. e prime minister and the government followed the president in most decisions and strengthened her informal powers in order to have her

222

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

support for their austerity policies during the 2009–2010 economic and financial crisis. When speaking of the relationship between presidents and political parties in general, it is worth noting one very substantial difference between the behaviour of the presidents who are well-linked to the parties (Brazauskas, Paksas) and “non-party” presidents (Adamkus, Grybauskaitė) towards the political parties and the party system. “Non-party” presidents quite oen tended to publicly to criticize even established national political parties as being immature, too closed, irresponsible and almost unaccountable political organizations. e anti-party rhetoric of “non-party” presidents was also supported with appeals to the general public and strong leadership, especially in case of Grybauskaitė. On the other hand, “party” presidents were much more tolerant as they tended to avoid any direct criticism of political parties and the party system. Still, the informal powers of the president seem to be reinforced primarily in the areas where he or she has either legislative, or non-legislative formal powers. Lithuanian presidents have one strong instrument of formal power: the right to veto. is veto can be easily reversed, however, by a parliamentary majority. Although the president also has the right to initiate legislation, few presidents have exercised this right, as this would have led to unsuccessful debates with the parliament. In 1993–1998 proposed as many as 72 laws or amendments to laws. Adamkus, in 1998–2003 and in 2004–2009, submitted 32 and around 100, respectively. Grybauskaitė has proposed around 90 laws or amendments since 2009, but she still has almost a year and a half until the end of her term in the mid-2014. Nonetheless, these figures might be misleading, as the workload of the Seimas has been different during different periods. e general trend has been that if the Seimas passed more laws during a four-year term, then presidents tended to propose more legislative acts. However, in general, a proportion of legal acts proposed by the president made up around 2–3 percent of all legislative acts. Furthermore, all presidents were more active in the legislative arena when they had pro-presidential majorities in the parliament. is was the case of Brazauskas in 1992–1996, when the LDDP was in power. e same was true with Adamkus in 2000–2001 and the coalition of “new politics”, and even with Grybauskaitė in 2009–2012, who had a close relationship with the ruling Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

223

Among the president’s most important non-legislative powers are those of nomination. Nominations allow the president to influence the formation and structure of parliamentary majorities and the executive. is is usually the domain of parliament, except in the case when there are no dominant parties. Moreover, according to the 1992 Constitution, approval of the head of state is necessary for the appointment of cabinet ministers and this rule substantially opens doors to increase the informal power of the president. Still, pro-presidential coalitions are highly fragile without the support of parliamentary majority. During Adamkus’ first term office (1998–2003), for example, the president was looking to have a parliamentary majority supportive of his policies. During the first two years, however, he was working with an oppositional majority of the Conservative and Christian Democratic parties in the Seimas. e 2000 Seimas elections were considered by Adamkus to be an opportunity to secure a pro-presidential majority in the parliament. In spring of 2000, he started campaign of “new politics”, which was never clearly articulated. From the very beginning, his “new politics” were supported by Centre Union and Liberals. Later Social Liberals (Naujoji sąjunga (socialliberalai)) and Moderate Christian Democrats (a splinter group of the Christian Democratic Party) (Nuosaikiųjų krikščionių demokratų sąjunga) joined the would-be coalition of “new politics”. However, these four political parties failed to form a real pre-election coalition. Some members of Moderate Christian Democrats were running at party lists of Liberals, Social Liberals and Centre Union, however. Still, the “new politics” parties competed with each other for proportional representation, as well as in singlemandate districts in the Seimas elections. Finally, the electoral scenario of “new politics” was crushed by the unexpected defeat of the Centre Union, which failed to pass the 5 percent threshold in a list PR, and in the end, only 3 MPs from the LCU were elected in single-mandate constituencies. Because Lithuania’s Constitution (Article 84) grants the president the power to nominate the prime minister, Adamkus had space for political manoeuvring in the parliament without an absolute majority of a single party or a coalition. Despite protests from the Social Democratic Coalition (SDK) (A. Brazausko socialdemokratinė koalicija), Adamkus asked Liberal Union and Social Liberals to keep their pre-election promises and try to build a parliamentary coalition with

224

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

few minor parties, except the TS/LK, but against the SDK. In late October 2000, the alliance of “new politics” elected Artūras Paulauskas as Speaker of the Seimas and endorsed Rolandas Paksas as Prime minister. Still, this coalition did not possess a stable majority in the Seimas and struggled to secure the required number of votes on almost every single issue. Moreover, both Paulauskas and Paksas were political novices and lacked the skills of political bargaining and administration. e same argument might be extended to Liberals and Social Liberals, as both politically inexperienced organizations were suddenly placed at the top of Lithuanian politics. Despite the fact that Adamkus managed to install a pro-presidential coalition aer the 2000 Seimas election, his honeymoon with the bloc of “new politics” was very short. Due to the highly negative social and economic influences of the 1998- 2000 Russian financial crisis on Lithuania, the Paksas Cabinet was forced to introduce various austerity measures, including cutting pensions to working pensioners, in order to balance the budget of the state-run Social Insurance Agency, which aer the rule of the TS/LK was about to collapse with a deficit of nearly 500 million litas. Mass media, as well as the social democratic opposition, was very critical of the policies of the LLS- NS/SL (Lietuvos liberalų sajunga- Naujoji sąjunga (socialliberalai)) coalition. Even Adamkus started to distance himself from the coalition instead of trying to lead it. e most evident example of this distancing was seen in the State of the Nation Address submitted by the President to Seimas on April 19, 2001, where Adamkus openly remarked that until now “there are not many signs of a new style in the work of the parliament, in relations between Seimas and the Cabinet, and altogether of new … politics. Parties of the coalition are not strong. So far they obviously lack an experience in governance, a direction and continuity in actions”. In June 2001, the LLS- NS/SL coalition quickly started to collapse aer the NU/SL asked to remove Paksas as Prime minister. Aer some hesitations over the preservation of the coalition of new politics, on July 5, 2001, President Adamkus signed a decree to appoint a new government led by Algirdas Brazauskas, the leader of LSDP. e LSDP (48 seats out of 141 in the Seimas) and NS/SL (26 seats) formed a new center-le coalition in the Seimas. e program of the Brazauskas government was approved by the parliament with 81 votes. is was a very clear sign that the new coalition had much broader and more

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

225

stable support in the Seimas than the previous one, and not only from main coalition members, but also from some minor parties in the parliament. Moreover, the LSDP had been the leading political party in public opinion polls since the 2000 elections and Brazauskas was the most popular politician in the country at that time. Adamkus’ attempt to interfere in parliamentary majority building in 2000–2001 was an excellent example of how a president might have a substantial influence on the construction of a parliamentary majority. He was able to do so not only because of his constitutional powers to nominate a prime minister with the consent of the Seimas majority, and his ability to negotiate nominations of ministers, but also because of his informal powers. Such influence is not sustainable, however, and the political game might be replayed by the parliament, especially if some strong and experienced parties, as it was with the LSDP in 2000, are le on the side of presidential manoeuvres. Moreover, the presidential interference in 2000–2001 meant a turn towards a higher level of political instability and uncertainty. However, aer the change of government in June 2001, and formation of the majority LSDP-NS/SL coalition, Lithuania’s political scene became much more stable. Another remarkable example of how destructively the president might interfere into parliamentary majority building took place aer the 2012 Seimas elections, when President Dalia Grybauskaitė attempted to eliminate the Labour Party (Darbo partija), a winner along the proportional formula in the parliamentary elections, from becoming part of to the new centre-le ruling coalition. Aer the run off on October 28, 2012, when it became clear that the Labour Party came third in the poll and together with Lithuanian Social Democratic Party and Party of Order and Justice (Partija Tvarka ir teisingumas), was about to form new ruling coalition, Grybauskaitė refused to meet Algirdas Butkevičius, leader of the LSDP, which won most of the seats in the parliament, and threatened to block the new coalition if it included the Labour Party. Moreover, the Labour Party was accused of buying votes and the president asked the Constitutional Court to investigate whether the Law on Elections to the Seimas was not breached in the multi-member constituency, where a half of country’s parliament is elected, and also in few single-mandate districts. It was an unprecedented case in Lithuanian politics, when the head of state was challenging results of parliamentary elections and refusing to

226

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

abide by a decision of the parliamentary majority, which, in the end, led to a deep and prolonged political crisis. Aer several weeks of political turmoil, the Constitutional Court decided that there had not been a gross violation of the election law in the multi-member constituency, but ruled to have new elections in three single-mandate districts. Still, the post-election crisis was not over. On November 19, 2012, Grybauskaitė sent an official letter to the Seimas with the nomination of Algirdas Butkevičius, leader of the LSDP, for prime minister, but she refused to come to the parliament or to announce her decision. Aer long discussions about candidates to ministerial positions, Grybauskaitė, blocked two senior politicians from the Labour Party, Loreta Graužinienė and Virginija Baltraitienė to the positions of minister of social affairs and education, respectively. On the other hand, Grybauskaitė was forced to face the reality of the new parliamentary majority. Still, the 2012 post-election crisis showed very clearly that the president has important informal powers and by using them he or she may act truly independently, without being directly accountable for his or her actions within the semi-presidential system. is free rider status encourages the president, instead of using the position of head of state to mitigate political conflicts, to show him/herself as an “effective” head of state by taking a highly populist approach and, in many cases, by escalating conflicts. When analysing the political communications of all four contemporary Lithuanian presidents, the only exception to the rule might be Brazauskas, who was a team player in many ways and who searched for a consensus with the parliament and government almost all time. Otherwise, the findings reveal an inclination towards an individualistic and free rider’s stance. Moreover, three presidents – Adamkus, Paksas, and especially Grybauskaitė – based most of their informal powers on three basic populist elements: an appeal to “ordinary people”, proposals to strengthen a direct relationship between the “people” and an “honest” president, and on anti-elitist and anti-establishment sentiments. In the 2010 State of the Nation Address, Grybauskaitė reached out to “people” by telling them that “I meet regularly with the people of Lithuania; […] we have to treat the individual as the highest value. […] e individual person must be the first consideration and the only measure of progress across all institutions and policies.” She also stressed that “insti-

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

227

tutions and political parties have become “small Lithuanian duchies” with their own sovereign objectives and interests”, and moreover, “the system has become overly bureaucratic. It has become arrogant.” Finally, she said that the country needs to have a “saviour”, i.e. “let us do it and things will become brighter”, and “I will make no comment. It would be both senseless and absurd. I will put forth several concrete proposals….” e saviour she was refering to was obviously the president In 2008, as European Commissioner, Dalia Grybauskaitė began building her political reputation by criticizing the expenditure-based economic policies of Gediminas Kirkilas’ government. roughout the year, she used such figurative expressions as “a feast during the plague”. Gradually, she became the front runner in the race for the presidential office, scheduled for May 2009. In August 2007, only 10 percent of voters saw Grybauskaitė as the country’s best possible candidate for president. By the end of 2008, however, approximately 36 percent was ready to vote for her.7 During her term in office, Grybauskaitė’s populist stance significantly increased. In 2002–2003, Rolandas Paksas was frequently compared to the French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and identified as a populist, demagogue, or radical. Immediately aer the election, Paksas sought to disarm his critics by fully supporting Lithuania’s invitations for EU and NATO membership and promising to lead the country on the same track as Adamkus had and to help utilize the new opportunities which were going to open up for Lithuania as a member of the European Union and North Atlantic Alliance. Adamkus’ was a less explicit case of populism, but even he showed several instances of free riderism and populism. In May 2004, Adamkus, without the authority to do so, decided to interfere into local government affairs by publicly asking Artūras Zuokas, Mayor of Vilnius and close former political ally, to resign for having become involved in numerous scandals.8 It was a pure and simple populist appeal to try to increase his personal popularity. Another highly important instrument of informal presidential power is the opportunity to use a censure. Moreover, a head of state 7

8

Paulauskas (953 776 votes) lost the election to V. Adamkus (968 031 vote) only by a margin of 0,74 per cent. See more in Krupavicius 2006: 1178–1179.

228

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

may take actions to dismiss cabinet ministers and, in some cases, he or she may likely succeed aer a vote of no confidence taken by the legislature. is instrument has been quite popular among contemporary Lithuanian presidents, with the exception of Paksas, who simply had no time to use this instrument, as he spent a very short period in office because of his impeachment in 2004. Aer the beginning of the Labour Party “black bookkeeping”9 scandal in May 2006, President Valdas Adamkus suddenly declared that he had lost confidence in Prudnikovas and Padaiga, two ministers from the Labour Party, and asked to reform the Cabinet. Publicly, Adamkus failed to clearly articulate his loss of confidence, but privately he stated that it was based on a desire to remove the Labourists from the government. All this ended up in the resignation of the Brazauskas government and the formation of Kirkilas Cabinet in July 2006. Adamkus’ informal influence on the removal of the Labour Party from the ruling coalition was very important. However, this case showed very clear limits of presidential influence in such a situation as well. President Adamkus proposed Balčytis, a close associate of Brazauskas and former Finance minister, as a candidate to lead the new government. But because of a split and manipulations within the LSDP faction, his candidature was not supported by the Seimas. Adamkus was forced to search for a new candidate and the next in line was Defence Minister Gediminas Kirkilas from the LSDP faction. is situation indicated that while the head of state has a certain amount of informal power that allows him to reshuffle the cabinet, the last word still belongs to the parliament and depends on agreements among parliamentary factions. us, the lack of coordination between the president and the major parliamentary factions may lead to political turmoil. Grybauskaitė even censured ministers of her political ally – the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats. At the beginning of 2010, she forced the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vygaudas Ušackas, to resign. He had previously been the Ambassador of Lithuania to the United Kingdom and was personally invited by Prime Minister Kubilius to take the ministerial position. Motives of Ušackas‘ resigna9

e Labour Party was accussed of fraudulent accounting and receiving illegal donations, which were used to finance the 2004 electoral campaign, see more in Krupavicius 2007: 1023–1024.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

229

tion remained unclear as the President declared only that she was not confident in the Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to Lithuania’s Constitution, the President has significant powers primarily in the area of foreign policy as he or she decides and conducts the basic issues of foreign policy, together with the government. Certainly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs must collaborate very closely with the president. e first tensions between Grybauskaitė and Ušackas appeared in public in mid-2009, when the president asked for an investigation of the alleged Central Intelligence Agency detention facility in Lithuania (see Krupavicius 2010: 1072–1073) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs publicly expressed his skeptical views about the possibility of the existence of such a facility. From late September 2009 to January 2010, two of the highest officials in the area of foreign policy according to Lithuania’s Constitution, i.e. the President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, were not communicating in person. Certainly, such a situation was more than an abnormal. Broad rumors from the backstage of politics were also reporting that Ušackas was seen by Grybauskaitė as a possible contender for the 2014 presidential elections, and this was also a reason to remove him from the office as soon as possible. Not accidentally, the President’s Office publicly asked for Ušackas’ resignation, stating that foreign policy is especially important for Lithuania’s interests and may not be manipulated by a minister for political self-promotion. A president within a semi-presidential system who reinforces his or her informal powers as head of state is able to take control of special or exclusive domains of political influence that are not clearly assigned to him or her by law. e best example here might be President Grybauskaitė who, in 2009–2013, became the principal and only representative of Lithuania in the European Council meetings. is was despite the fact that, since the accession of Lithuania to the EU in 2004, there had been different practices of this representation. Certainly, EU policies are highly important to the country, but Lithuania’s representation in the European Council meetings is not formally regulated, as it has been in Finland since 2010.10 Moreover, constitutionally, the prime minister is the most suitable person to represent the country in the 10

Still Lithuania had no such incidents like in Poland in October 2008 when Prime Minister Donald Tusk refused to give the Polish President Lech Kaczynski a governmental plane to fly to the European Council meeting.

230

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

European Council meetings. During the terms of Adamkus and Paksas, Lithuania was represented either by the prime minister or the president, or sometimes even both. Since her election in 2009, Grybauskaitė firmly took the reins of EU policies. She legitimized this move by citing her former status and experience as the European Commissioner. Prime Minister Kubilius, who needed the president’s support for his austerity policies, decided not to compete with Grybauskaitė and he le most of the EU policies to the head of state. is signified a presidentialization of the national EU policies. No clear rules, institutionalized divisions of labour, or clear policy coordination mechanisms have been developed. Another area in which Grybauskaitė, unlike most of the other presidents, took firmly in her hands was control of judicial11 and security institutions, primarily through the appointments of heads of power structures, including Special Investigation Service (an anti-corruption agency) and State Security Department. ese steps helped her to build the perception of an unusually strong president. A popular mandate, i.e. the direct election of the head of state, helps to increase informal powers of the president significantly. Actually, the prime minister in the Lithuanian political system has more legal powers, especially in domestic politics, but the ceremonial powers of the president are much more impressive. is becomes fully clear when comparing the personal day-to-day agendas of the two main Lithuanian political leaders. e presidential agenda is usually full of various symbolic and ceremonial activities, such as presentations of diplomatic credentials, ceremonial speeches in openings and closings of different public events, and so on. Moreover, the presidential agenda is far less intensive (during Grybauskaitė’s term in the office there were at least a few days of her work week without specific agenda items at least a few times per a month)12 compared to that of the prime minister. 11

12

e president submits candidates for the Supreme Court justices and a candidate for the Chair of the Supreme Court to the Seimas, appoints judges and the Chair of the Court of Appeal, judges and chairs of regional and local courts, submits to the Seimas the candidates for three justices of the Constitutional Court and a candidate for the Chair of the Constitutional Court. For instance, in September – November 2011 she had 13 working days with no specified agenda; in February – April 2012 she had as many as 27 “free” working days, and in April 2012 only for 8 days Grybauskaitė had a specified agenda with usually only one event per day.

9. LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT: A FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWER

231

e prime minister chairs Cabinet meetings where the most important executive decisions are made, meets foreign heads of state, and makes press briefings in person, and so on. e last, but not the least, qualitative difference between presidential and premiership agendas, is that the first is dominated by symbolic and ceremonial issues, and the second by executive and decision making issues. On the other hand, when comparing the popularity ratings of prime ministers and presidents during the last few decades, presidents are usually considerably more popular. ere are some exceptions, however, as in the case of Brazauskas. In 2001, aer his term in the presidential office, Brazauskas took the prime minister’s job and was able to compete with Adamkus for popularity in public opinion polls. is confirms that a directly elected president has a much better chance of remaining popular without the heavy burden of accountability that comes with being the prime minister.

Instead of conclusions What are the main causes of the informal powers of the president in the Lithuanian political system? First of all, formal and informal powers are interrelated. Only a president with substantial formal powers may have various options to strengthen his or her informal powers. Vital elements in both formal and informal powers of the president are the popular mandate and direct elections in the semi-presidential system. e results of the direct election place the president in a stronger or weaker position on the political stage and individualize and personalize the president. is fact, as well as the popular opinion that a strong leader can do more for the country than all the discussions in parliament, shapes the role of the president. In recent years, expectations of a strongman are decreasing slowly. e 2008 post-Seimas election survey showed, however, that as many 52,5 percent said “yes”, and 23,7 – “probably yes” or 76,2 percent supported the idea of increasing the competences (powers) of the president (Kavaliauskaitė – Ramonaitė – Žiliukaitė 2008). On the other hand, there is a known distrust in collective leadership. e prime minister is primarily seen as the head of government and consequently he is seen as being responsible for all successes and failures of the Cabinet

232

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

as a collective body, and sometimes even for the wrong doings of individual ministers. Public preferences and higher trust in individual, but not in collective, leadership are also significant factors for the broader informal powers of head of state. Does the personality of the president matter in order to have more influence, both formally and informally? e answer here depends on the arena of influence. Public trust in a president is in many ways built via efficient public relations, where even a dull and socially alien personality might look strong, intellectual and attractive. Even the single fact of becoming elected to the presidential position, or an effect of success and a “crown” of head of state, might give a long-lasting popularity, especially if there are no strong challengers’ on the political stage. Moreover, clear populist trends in the political behavior of presidents may lead, on the one hand, to highly unpredictable and even conflictual relations with other major power centres, such as parliament and government instead of cohabitation, but on the other, it may guarantee them high popularity ratings among the poorly politically educated electorate. e influence of a president within the political establishment and political elite requires slightly (or completely) different qualities, and certainly depends on personality and his or her party ties, communication skills, abilities to control events, and personal achievements. Influential presidents need to be communicative, open- and positivelyminded, as well as have impressive professional and/or political careers, as did, for instance, Brazauskas and Adamkus. Otherwise, a president might remain, to large extent, a free rider and outsider sitting within the ivory tower. e head of state in Lithuania is considered to hold substantial powers in practice, regardless of whether this is regulated in detail by law. Still, the Lithuanian president is not an omnipotent ruler as he or she is a part of a dual executive within the semi-presidential system, i.e. president and the Cabinet, who shares power with the government and also with other bodies, such as the legislature. Sometimes a president might even be weak, as was President Paksas during the first presidential impeachment in Europe (see Krupavicius 2005: 1098–1099).

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

233

10 THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION? BLAGOVESTA CHOLOVA Introduction e presidential institution in most Central and East-European countries has passed through different stages of development since 1989. e role of presidents has changed over time and developed different patterns and characteristics in different countries, even though the institutional framework is quite similar in most of the countries in the region. Until recently, most of the literature on presidential regimes and authority concentrated primarily on the institutional or formal characteristics of presidential power and most of the studies on this topic analyze the US model from both theoretical and empirical perspectives (Hammond – Miller 1987; Shapiro – Kumar – Jacobs 2000; Cameron – McCarty 2004; Shields– Huang 1995, 1997; Gilmour 2002). When it comes to the literature on Central and Eastern Europe, there are very few studies addressing the presidential veto as a key element (Tavits 2008; Krupavičius 2008) and most of them do not test it empirically (Tsebelis – Rizova 2007; Krouwel 2003). e main focus of scholars has been more concerned with the influence of presidents in the formation of government (Amorim Neto – Strøm 2006; Tavits 2008; Schleiter – Morgan-Jones 2009, 2010; Prostyk 2005). e aim of my chapter is to compare the use of the presidential veto over time (both during periods of cohabitation and not) and to see how the public perceives the role of the president, especially in times of political or economic crisis. is analysis will allow me to draw conclusions about the role of the presidential institution in general (in Bulgaria) and to underscore the factors influencing the behavior of presidents in different political contexts. Focusing on the last three

234

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

legislatures will allow me to shed some light on the general development of this institution during the last decade, when many changes occurred in the Bulgarian political system, mainly at the party level. is chapter will present the development of the presidential institution and its powers in Bulgaria aer 1990 and will focus on the last decade in order to analyze the way the president used his power in this country both during a period of cohabitation and when his own party was in office. I will focus in particular on the power of veto, which allows the president to control and block the legislative process and to revise bills proposed by the Parliament. is prerogative is one of the characteristics which make the Bulgarian political regime a semipresidential one, following the criteria of most of the institutional typologies (Bunce 1997; Elgie 1999b; Shugart 1993; Siaroff 2003). is framework will also allow me to test the argument of Tavits (2008), Schleiter and Morgan-Jones (2009; 2010) and Amorim Neto and Strøm (2006) that cohabitation increases presidential activity. I will also examine the public image of the presidential institution over time (in terms of rating and media presence) and will end this chapter with some general conclusions on the role and power of the presidential institution in Bulgaria.

History of the presidential institution in Bulgaria e presidential institution was first established in Bulgaria aer the fall of Communism within the framework of the new Constitution, adopted in 1991. Before this date, the role of Head of State was played by the King (during the Constitutional Monarchy period 1878–1947) and then by the provisional Presidency (1946–1947), by the Presidium of the National Assembly (1947–1971) and by the State Counsel (1971–1990), marking the three periods preceding the development of this institution aer 1989. During these three periods the role of Head of State gradually changed and became less important in terms of power and influence. During the Constitutional Monarchy, the King was entitled to appoint and dissolve the government, to change ministers, to convene and dissolve the Parliament and organize new elections. He was also Head of State (appointing ambassadors and signing official treaties) and

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

235

Head of the Army. His role in the politics of the country was very important and many kings tried to further increase their prerogatives (for example during the Regime of Prince Alexander Battenberg and the personal regime of King Boris III).1 In these periods, the governments were manipulated by the King who used his power to appoint ministers of his own choosing even if they didn’t belong to the largest parliamentary group, or to dissolve governments hostile to his ambitions. Aer the Communist coup, this function was delegated to the Provisional Presidency and then, aer 1947, to the Presidium of the National Assembly. e Presidium of the Assembly is a collective body with one president and two vice-presidents. Decisions were made by all the members, but the president was the one who signed documents and letters for the Ambassadors. is Presidium had the prerogative of participation in the organization of the National Assembly as well. ose occupying positions in the Presidium were high officials of the Communist party who did not have significant influence over the executive body (their influence was less important than that of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist party, which acted as a de facto government).2 e Presidium had the following prerogatives: to convene the National Assembly, to schedule elections, to promulgate and modify laws, to exercise the right of pardon, to grant titles and awards, to appoint and revoke diplomatic and consular representatives in foreign countries, to ratify international agreements, to declare war if the Assembly is not in session, to dismiss and appoint individual members of the Government (when the Assembly is not in session and aer approval of the Assembly), to repeal the decrees and orders of the Government if they do not conform to the Constitution or the laws of the country, and to appoint High Command officers and other army officials. We can see from this overview that many of the powers which were once delegated to the King were not exercised by the Presidium. Aer the new Constitution of 1971 was adopted, the functions of the Presidium were transferred to the State Counsel and to its president. e leader of the Communist party, Todor Zhivkov, occupied the position of President of the State Counsel between 1971 and 1989 1 2

See Chary 2011: 85–121; Constitution of the Bulgarian principality 1879. See Metodiev – Stoyanov 1987: 299–302; and Constitution of People’s Republic of Bulgaria, 1947, art. 35.

236

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

without interruption. is new institutional body had the same powers as the Presidium: to convene and dismiss the National assembly, to promulgate the laws adopted by the Parliament, to repeal illegal and irregular acts of the Council of Ministers, to appoint and dismiss the high command of the Armed Forces and the diplomatic representatives of Bulgaria in other countries, to grant medals and awards and to establish and change administrative territorial units. It also had some special prerogatives in times of war.3 Once more, similar powers to those of the King (before 1947) and the Presidium were delegated to this body. e difference between the second and the third periods is that, due to the personal influence of Zhivkov, power was concentrated in one person only and was no longer collective. Aer the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, a new constitution was created and adopted in 1991 and most of the powers of the State Counsel and its president were transferred to the President of the Republic. e separation of powers imposed certain limitations on the power of the President (for example concerning the appointment and dismissal of ministers) but most of these were quite similar to the limitations of the Counsel before 1989. e fact that the President became autonomous and no longer had to depend on a single party was, however, new. In 1993, this independence provoked tensions between the president and the government and changed the public opinion of the presidency.. Since 1991, the President has become a mediator between the different political parties and between the government and society – a role, played to a certain degree by the King before 1947 With the evolution of the new democratic regime, the presidents’ authority gained popularity and allowed him to influence the political debate in both direct and indirect ways. We can conclude aer this short historical overview of Presidential power in Bulgaria that there is no tradition of strong presidential leadership aer the fall of the Monarchy and the new Presidential institution developed independently in the new democratic context.

3

See Metodiev – Stoyanov 1987: 296–298; Constitution of People’s Republic of Bulgaria, 1971, art. 90.

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

237

Bulgarian presidential institution 1990–2012: institutional framework Aer the fall of the communist regime the new Bulgarian constitution (adopted in 1991) bestowed the presidential institution with a series of powers, mainly related to his function as head of the army and high representative of the country, but also in regard to control of the legislative process and the appointment of government. e president is directly elected by a two-stage election and has a five-year mandate. is type of election made scholars consider Bulgaria as a “semipresidential regime” (or premier-presidential following the classification of Shugart 2005) where the president can play a more important role because he is not directly dependent on the government and can execute a “control’ function within the framework of his powers. is institutional design is not uncommon for Central and Eastern Europe and can be seen in other countries such as Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, where the powers of new presidents have similar limits and characteristics. Until recently, only a few studies have concentrated on the use of veto power in Bulgaria and most of them were large-scale quantitative studies which examined the general use of veto by the presidents and the influence of institutional provisions (Tavits 2008; Tsebelis – Rizova 2007). On the other hand, the literature on the use of the presidential veto points to the fact that presidents are expected to be more active during periods of cohabitation than when their party is in office (Tavits 2008; Schleiter – Morgan-Jones 2009; 2010; Amorim Neto – Strøm 2006). e aim of my study is to take a closer look at these arguments and to verify them in the case of Bulgaria. Furthermore, very few studies concentrate on the effect of the media on public support for the president in these countries. In this study, I will combine both aspects in order to see if the institutional role has an impact on the general perception of the population (Brody 1991). e idea behind the semi-presidential regime is that the president is allowed to scrutinize legislation and to oppose bills that he believes need to be modified or considers to be contrary to the constitution. e president can also, during a political crisis, give a mandate to form a government to the strongest political party (in terms of number of seats). In cases of difficult negotiations, when a government fails to be formed, the president may give the mandate to a more minor party in

238

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

the National Assembly.4 e president also has the power to convene the National Assembly and to dissolve the Parliament and choose the date for the new legislative election, as well as to initiate legislation to amend the Constitution. is role reinforces his political influence and allows him to take a more active part in politics, beyond his official diplomatic and military prerogatives as the head of state. Other prerogatives concern the right to grant parole and to appoint the President of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court as well as the Prosecutor-general and four of the members of the Constitutional Court. Even though most scholars consider the direct election to be the most important feature in the definition of the political regime as such, this characteristic is mainly related to presidents’ independence from the legislative body (the government and the prime minister). Nevertheless, this independence can be actively exercised in controlling legislation by refusing to sign a bill and sending it back to parliament for modification (more widely known as the right to veto). Alternatively, a president can choose not to veto a bill, allowing a provision without further consequence. In my opinion, this is the main paradox within the presidential institution in a semi-presidential regime where political action can depend on context and may not be directly related to the legislative provision. In terms of constitutional provisions, the role of the president hasn’t changed during the two decades since the approval of the new Constitution. e power of the president, however, has been discussed on several occasions and proposals were raised for limiting his impact in politics, mainly during periods of ‘cohabitation’. e debate on the modification of the electoral system shortly before the elections of 2011, when the president opposed the limitation of the right to vote (mainly concerning the residence of citizens as a condition to the right to vote (3 January 2011)5) was one example of this. Another example is found in the 2011 attempt to limit the power of a president to appoint heads of embassies and diplomatic missions (this was related to the scandal over the records of the former regime’s secret services, proving that many of them were collaborators during the Communist regime, 4 5

Bulgarian Constitution, Chapter four, Art. 92–104: http://parliament.bg/en/const See the motives on the official website of the Presidential institution: http:// www.president.bg/archive-2002-2012/zakonod.php?id=4153&st=0

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

239

14 July 20116). Two more, the law of the reduction of the effective number of army staff (1 February 20107) and the law on the Reform of the judiciary power (15 June 20128), further challenged the president’s power. All these cases were directly or indirectly related to different prerogatives of the president as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and his power to appoint and dismiss the heads of diplomatic missions and permanent representatives of the state, as well as the limitation of the suffrage on presidential elections which can have an impact on the institution as such. In most of these cases, the president tried to defend his current prerogatives and to prevent the government from accepting any kind of reform that could limit them. Apart from these examples, none of the Constitutional provisions concerning presidential power were modified aer 1991. We may conclude that the formal role of the president wasn’t modified during this period but there was a tendency of repetitive conflicts between the president and the executive during the periods of cohabitation. ese conflicts strengthened the role of president as regulator and guardian of the Constitution in terms of public image, especially when the government faced increasing public dissatisfaction. We cannot speculate on the intentions of the president to keep his power but we can certainly observe the pattern of opposition in questions directly related to the role the president plays in politics. On the other hand, most of the bills which concern the limitation of presidential powers have been introduced during periods of cohabitation (12 out of 16). is phenomenon will be examined in the next section where the focus is on one of the most important prerogatives of the president – his right to promulgate 6

7

8

See the motives on the official website of the Presidential institution: http://www. president.bg/archive-2002-2012/zakonod.php?id=4354&st=0. For the debate in the press, see: “Първанов: Дипломатите с досиета не са проблем” (Parvanov: the diplomats with files are not a problem), Vesti, Dec 17, 2010, http:/www.vesti.bg/ index.phtml?tid=40&oid=3483931, “Първанов за скандала с дипломатите: Ново издание на направеното от Стоян Ганев” (Parvanov on the scandal with the diplomats: is is a new edition of what Ganev has made”, Dnevnik, Dec 17, 2010, http: //www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2010/12/16/1012466_purvanov_za_skandala_s_diplomatite_novo_izdanie_na/ See the motives on the official website of the Presidential institution: http://www. president.bg/archive-2002-2012/zakonod.php?id=3724&st=10 See the motives on the official website of the Presidential institution: http://www. president.bg/archive-2002-2012/zakonod.php?id=4798&st=0

240

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

bills and to use his “suspension veto” in order to force the government to re-examine particular bills or to provoke public debate. The presidential veto and its use during the 2002–2012 presidential mandates Framework of this study e right to suspend the promulgation of bills voted on by the parliament is a Constitutional provision which allows the president the ability to re-examine legislation and to take into account not only the juridical aspects and consequences of this legislation, but also the interest of all citizens and especially those who will be affected by the law.9 e basic role of the president is twofold: first, he is the guardian of the constitutional coherence of the legislation (being an independent external figure who is not directly related to any political party or platform) and second, he keeps the balance between the government and the opposition, taking into account the interest of all the different social groups. is role reflects the willingness of the legislators to create an independent institution (the direct election is part of this general principle) and to limit the powers of a majority government beyond the control of the Constitutional court. e difference between the Constitutional court and the presidential veto is that the president must examine every single legislative act, while the Court can only examine specific controversial cases that have been referred to it.10 is is why, beyond the role of the president as a “moral guardian”, the right to veto is, in my opinion, one of the strongest institutional instruments allowing the President to influence and control legislation. In most cases, the amended version of the law is ratified in Parliament (with a majority of more than a half of the deputies) and the president is obliged to promulgate it. e suspension veto, therefore, is a way to stimulate and participate in the debate and express a point of view on legislation and to influence the legislative process. For this reason, 9 10

Bulgarian Constitution, Chapter four, Art. 111 e Constitutional Court acts on the initiative of at least one-fih of the deputies, the President, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court of Cassation, the Supreme Administrative Court and the General Prosecutor as well as the municipal councils in some cases. See: Bulgarian Constitution, Chapter eight, art. 150

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

241

I chose to examine the use of this specific provision during the last two legislatures. Additionally, there are two ways that a president can send a bill back to the Parliament for a new discussion, depending on the type of amendments needed. In some cases, the motives of the decision concern the main framework of the law and its anti-constitutional content, in other cases there are only minor amendments concerning certain regulations. Both are considered in this article. In this section I will focus on the use of the suspension veto by the Bulgarian president during the two mandates of 2002–2007 and 2007–2012 in order to see if there is a pattern in the use of this prerogative in the legislative process and if there are certain factors which may explain the variation of its use over time. I will focus primarily on those two mandates because they allow me to study the behaviors of the same president in a period of cohabitation and during the government of his own political party and therefore control for the impact of this specific factor without taking into account his personality. Georgi Parvanov is the only president aer the adoption of the new post-communist Constitution that stayed in office for two consecutive mandates. In order to compare, I will use the data available for the current president (Rossen Plevneliev) as well. Political context e 2001 presidential elections took place aer the ‘earthquake” of the legislative elections the same year, when the heir to the Bulgarian throne in exile, King Simeon Saxe Cobourg Gotha, returned to Bulgaria and founded the political movement National Movement Simeon the Second (Национално Движение Симеон Втори – NDSV) three months before the legislative elections, securing a landslide victory with 42 % of the vote. A coalition government was formed with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Движение за права и свободи – DPS, the party representing the Turkish minority in Bulgaria). is “sudden” success of a newcomer party destabilized the position of the two main political forces – the right-wing Union of Democratic Forces (Съюз на демократичните сили – SDS) and the le-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party (Българска социалистическа партия – BSP) – who had dominated the political scene since the beginning of the 90’s, creating a bi-polar party system in the country (the third biggest party being

242

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

DPS, see table 1). In the new situation, the presidential election saw the opposition of Georgi Parvanov, the socialist candidate, against the candidate of the “united” right-wing forces, P. Stoyanov, who was fighting for a second mandate. e newly formed NDSV didn’t have another suitable candidate and the main issue of the election was the “evaluation” of the previous mandate of Stoyanov. His opponent, G. Parvanov, campaigned for a change in the style and practices of the presidential institution and won the second round, obtaining 75.9 % of the vote. His mandate as president was marked by the opposition between him and the ruling center-right NDSV-DPS coalition. e socialist party BSP won the parliamentary elections of 2005 and formed a large triple collation with the NDSV and DPS as minor partners. Two years later, President Parvanov decided to run for a second mandate, this time as an “independent” candidate supported by the Socialist party. e candidate, obtaining the second best result during the first round was Volen Siderov, the chairman of a newly created extreme right party “Ataka”. During the second round, the right-wing parties didn’t support Siderov and Parvanov managed to win a second mandate as president. During his second mandate, he tried to change his image as a “socialist” president by playing a neutral role, but his political activity was less marked by an opposition to the government policies than could be thus expected. Nevertheless, several conflicts placed him in opposition with the Stanishev government (the triple coalition) and the media even speculated that he might split the Socialist party aer he actively backed a newly created movement, announced to be a non-party project. During this period, another important political actor emerged on the scene: the mayor of Sofia (and ex-secretary general of the Ministry of Interior) Boyko Borissov created a new party, Citizens for a European Development of Bulgaria (Граждани за европейско развитие на България – GERB), and became one of the most popular politicians. Borissov’s opposition to the triple coalition (which included the three most powerful political parties) increased presidential criticism as well, by accusing the president of being an accomplice of the government. e president tried to defend his position and to show himself as independent, but he continued to be perceived as the “leist” president. In the 2009 legislative elections GERB won a landslide victory (almost 40 %) and formed a government with the support of some in-

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

243

dependent MPs and the radical right party Ataka. President Parvanov entered a new period of cohabitation, in which the opposition between him and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov was exacerbated. Aer three years of cohabitation, the presidential election of 2012 was won by GERB candidate and ex-minister of the regional development and public works, Rossen Plevneliev, who had a good reputation for the successful management of regional infrastructure projects. is new election put an end to the cohabitation and initiated a new mandate in which the president and the Prime Minister shared the same political views. Aer the political crisis at the beginning of 2013, the GERB government resigned and President Plevneliev handed the mandate to the other main political forces. ey in turn all refused to form a new provisional government and the president had to appoint a care-taker government of experts to run the country until the elections in May. is was the third time in the history of the presidential institution since 1989 when the president had to appoint a provisional government and to appoint ministers. As in some of the previous cases, the president chose some of his advisors to be appointed as ministers and this further increased his influence on the government. Aer this brief review of the political context in which the two presidential mandates took place I will examine the dynamics of the presidential suspension veto during this period and verify if there is a link between cohabitation and the increasing role of the president as regulator of the legislation. If so, I will then verify if there is a clear link between the political orientation of the president and the way he exercises his control function over the executive body. The use of presidential veto I decided to first examine the quantitative aspect of the presidential veto and see if it varies between the two periods of cohabitation and the socialist government. e second part of this section will focus on the contents of the bills which were subject to this type of veto and see if they are related directly to the presidential institution or not. e intensity of the application of the presidential veto is summarized in the figure 5. Here I took into account the number of vetoes per legislature.

244

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Figure 5: Number of vetoes per legislature

As we can see from this table, the number of suspension vetoes increases by 50 % during a period of cohabitation and respectively decreases when the government is formed by the political party which supported the president. In this case, personal conflict cannot be considered as a viable explanation, because I take into account two different periods of cohabitation with different political leaders as prime ministers. ese results show us that there is a clear link between the dynamics of the use of the right to veto and the political context in which the president is exercising his powers. e comparison between the mandates of G. Parvanov and the use of the right to veto by the new president R. Plevneliev also demonstrates that a similar pattern may be found in this case, but we have no other comparative data for presidents both in cohabitation and in government for periods longer than a year to use to verify a similar dynamic for all other presidents (Z. Zhelev11 spent only two consecutive years in cohabitation and one year with a right-wing government). A second aspect of this study is an examination of the content of the amendments and the type of bills being amended, with a focus on those that are amended by the president, to see if there is a link between presidential power and his use of the right to veto. If the president uses his prerogatives primarily to respond to the attempts of 11

Z. Zhelev is the first elected president in Post-communist Bulgaria, belonging to the right-wing party SDS.

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

245

the executive body to limit his power (especially during cohabitation when the ruling party may be more reluctant to consider his control), then we can conclude that the use of his power mainly concerns a type of self-defense logic and is driven by the attacks of the parliamentary majority. In some cases, it is difficult to measure the direct impact of a bill on the presidential institution and that is why I will divide the amended text into three categories: the first directly concerns the presidential institution as it refers to his main areas of control and action (the army, the appointment of care-taker government, the diplomatic missions, the right to parole, etc.); the second concerns bills which are not directly related to the president but where he is executing his veto in order to defend an ideological stand (Parvanov is a member of the Socialist party and opposes bills and reforms which can be considered as right-wing in their general principles and impact); the last group concerns all the other bills which are amended only on the grounds of juridical incompatibility. In the figure below we can see the distribution of the amended bills in the three categories. Figure 6: Types of amended bills (only the three legislatures under President Parvanov have been taken into account, with a total of 29 laws)

As we can see in figure 6, the largest portion of amended bills is not directly related to the presidential institution and mainly concerns neutral issues or ideologically oriented measures. is analysis proves that the president acts not only when his powers are directly threatened, but also when ideologically motivated, as in cases of juridical conflict between the Constitution (or other bills) and the proposed bill. e proportion doesn’t vary according to the type of legislature (cohabitation or not), but all the bills related to presidential power and its limitations were proposed by the executive body during periods of

246

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

cohabitation. is confirms our previous hypothesis that the increase in the number of bills vetoed during a period of cohabitation is also related to the attitude of the executive which oen attempts to modify presidential powers and to limit them. Aer this empirical examination of the use of the suspension veto by President Parvanov during his terms in office, I will turn to the image of the presidential institution and the informal role the president played during this period.

The media image and the perception of the president’s role Here I will examine the presence of the president in the media and the evolution of public trust in the presidential institution and the personal rating of the president in order to see if there is a clear pattern in the way society perceived his role during the two mandates. I will base my conclusions on both media content analysis and opinion polls for these periods. is section will allow me to verify the correlation between the president’s activity (in terms of veto or other interventions) and the perception of his role by the electorate and by the media. The moral example: the president in the media Beyond his role as guardian of the constitution and of the nation’s pluralist interest, the president can also exercise a moral influence on public political and social debates, mainly by addressing the nation through the media and taking part in the discussions on the most important issues in which there is conflict or controversy. A framing analysis12 of a series of articles presenting the president’s view on social and political reform in different types of media (the biggest daily newspapers: Telegraf, 24 chasa, Trud, Dnevnik, Monitor and Stand12

Framing analysis is a content analysis technique used in the studies of media and press articles related to a specific topic. e frame is the way the media presents a certain event or personality and the way they select certain aspects (positive or negative) and link them to the subject. In this case, the general attitude towards the president has been analysed through a content analysis of adjectives, synonyms and metaphors as well as the presentation of the event and the role of the president and its evaluation in every article.

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

247

ard) during the last three years of the legislature 2009–2012 shows a tendency toward a positive representation in the media (figure 12). In 2009, both slightly negative and fairly neutral framings of the president and his role can be seen. is shows that most newspapers were not particularly critical of him or his performance. is non-critical trend continues in 2010, when the overall image is positive and (figure 13) the president begins to be perceived as the ‘moral corrective’ of the ruling socialist party (notably during the scandals of corruption and mismanagement) when he overtly criticized the government. e trend further continues in 2011, when most of the largest newspapers describe the president as a defender of the constitution who can put an end to corrupt governmental practices (figure 14). ese results match with the positive attitude of public opinion in general, which places the presidential institution above most of the other political institutions in Bulgaria (table 1). is will be addressed in the next section. e other important conclusion, in terms of media coverage, concerns the difference between the biggest and most influential newspapers and the smaller ones. If we focus on figures 13 and 14 we can see that most of the biggest newspapers (Trud, 24 chasa, Standart) have moved from a negative frame to a neutral frame and then, finally, to a positive one. e only papers criticizing the presidential institution are Sega and Monitor which are much smaller in terms of audience. is can also be explained by the political affinity of those newspapers. Even as one positions itself on the le of the political spectrum, it can be better described as an ‘opposition’ newspaper critical of both the government and the president. e second paper, being more nationalist (rightwing) in its political position, is able to criticize the lack of real presidentially backed reforms, and therefore emphasize the “weaker” role of the president. All the other newspapers, both le- and right-wing, support the president and are much more critical of and negative about the government (the triple coalition). Two questions arise from this overview: on one hand, the president is much more active when he’s in cohabitation and cannot intervene directly in the legislative process. On the other hand, the image of the president improves during a period in which he is more active (in terms of the use of his veto). is can be explained by the fact that during cohabitation there is a direct confrontation between the president and the ruling party, while during the other period confrontation is more

248

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

subtle and based on a general moral critique more than it stems from concrete bills or vetoes. is role is perceived by the media and the public in general as a “guardian of the constitution and the rights of all Bulgarians” and can easily be opposed to the government’s ‘one-sided’ politics (even when we speak of a center-le triple coalition). is perception is particularly important when the legitimacy of the main parties is very low and there are few institutions that enjoy stronger public trust. In this context, the president is viewed as a mediator and moral corrective to the self-interested behavior of other politicians. e third important conclusion we can draw from this data is that the presence of Parvanov in the media increases over time (figures 13 and 14, vertical axis). is trend is not related to the electoral campaign, because it slightly decreases in 2011 (the year closest to the end of the term). erefore the amount of information and the general interest of the media increase when the president addresses concrete issues or uses his prerogatives as head of state to modify bills or provoke public discussion. Public debate is part of his role because once he vetoes a bill he is obliged to officially publish his motives and recommendations, which then obliges the ruling majority to reply and defend its position. is dynamic not only allows the president to gain visibility, but also allows the public to be aware of the specific issues, and their consequences and criticisms and therefore to be “included” in the political debate. is logic reinforces the transparency of the presidential institution and increases public support through extensive media coverage. In order to analyze the consequences of this process I will now turn to the dynamics of public support for Parvanov and for the presidential institution over the period in consideration. Public support and trust in the institution If we focus on the level of support for the presidential institution (table 15) we can see that its legitimacy is much greater than that of the government and other important institutions such as the police and the judiciary. is confirms that the positive effect on the “control” function of the president, combined with the lack of real decisionmaking power (which allows him to avoid responsibility) accounts for this positive image and high levels of support. e second important question is to what extent this positive image is due to the media pres-

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

249

entation and to the functioning of the institution as such, and what the impact of his personality is. If we look at figures 7 and 8 we can see that the general assessment of his work remains positive during the two legislatures with a decrease in 2010, and then an increase at the beginning of 2011. is sudden decrease is a circumstantial factor and is probably related to a scandal involving a tape recording of a conversation between the President and the Minister of Economy S. Diankov which was published in the media. is affair provoked a scandal and led to allegations of anti-constitutional behavior by the president (illegally recording the conversation with the Minister) and to an aborted attempt to impeach. Overall, we can see that the impact of this scandal was short and the President again increased his popularity in 2011. ese results in terms of rating are all the more impressive if we compare them to the scores obtained by the governments for the same period (figures 9, 10, and 11). Every government benefits from high public support which decreases aer the first year in office and reaches very low levels by the end of the legislature. On the other hand, both the personal rating of the president and the support for the presidential institution are stable and highly positive over the two legislatures. e final question I would like to address concerns the link between the media presentation and the personal image of the president. In order to do this, I compare the six-month assessment of the general rating on table 5 for 2010, and the assessment of the frames presented in the media in figure 12. We can see that during one of the most critical moments, October-December 2010, both the media and the public shared a negative evaluation of his work (notably during the scandal with the tape recording and the process of impeachment). is can lead us to the conclusion that there is a certain media effect on the general image of Parvanov, especially when he is directly attacked by the government. On the other hand, if we take a look at the long-term assessment in figures 7 and 8, we can see that public support stayed consistently high in 2009 and 2010 when the media was presenting him in a negative light. We can conclude that the media has a short-term effect on public opinion but the general tendency is related to the image of both the institution and the person. It is very difficult to verify the exact impact of the personality of each president, but the overall tendency and the analysis in terms of media presentation show us that he can use his position not only to

250

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

acquire greater popularity and visibility, but also to voice some criticism towards the government and to open public debate. Furthermore, his institutional powers allow him to propose concrete policies and to initiate bills and directives, which can in turn be examined by the government. I didn’t focus on this aspect of presidential power because it is seldom put in practice in Bulgaria. Nevertheless, we can conclude that the president’s role is of great importance not only in terms of democratic debate but also as a mediator between society and the government and as a kind of “moral corrective”. e fact that the media constructs a positive image of his work and personality reinforces this tendency (apart from the “critical moments”, but they remain circumstantial) and gives him an important advantage in terms of popularity. is combination of institutional power and public reputation makes the president one of the important political figures in the country and opens the road to further concessions from the executive body. Either way, the president is always careful in his criticism directed toward his “own” party, as we saw in the first section.

Conclusion In this chapter, I examined one important aspect of presidential power in Bulgaria: the right of suspension veto over the projects of law introduced by the government. I focused on this specific issue because, apart from the direct election, this is one of the institutional provisions which make Bulgaria a semi-presidential regime and allows the president to influence the legislative process. I focused on the last two legislatures which allowed me to assess the use of this veto power in two different situations: during a period of cohabitation and when the socialist party (to which the president belongs) is in office. e second reason for choosing these two legislatures was that the president ran two consecutive mandates and therefore the personal characteristics don’t change during the two periods. e results showed that Parvanov used his veto power more oen during the period of cohabitation and was more active in terms of criticism and media debates. On the other hand, the power of veto was not used exclusively for political purposes or in order to increase or conserve his own power, but also on some issues which were not ideologically based. is shows that the presi-

251

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

dent uses this prerogative in order to control the legislative process in general and plays his role as mediator between the majority and other segments of the population. e second part of my study focused on the presence of the president in the media and the general attitude towards him in the major newspapers, as well as the dynamics of his image over time. I focused on the last mandate and evaluated both general impact (in terms of number of articles on this topic) and perception. It turned out that the image presented in the media becomes more positive over time and media presence increases in general. is tendency corresponds to a stable trend of approval for the presidential institution and its policies. e personal rating of Parvanov also stays stable and positive over time, which is even more impressive if we compare it to the high levels of disappointment in the government aer the first year of each legislature. We can conclude that in Bulgaria the presidential institution plays an important but indirect role in politics and its main function related to the right of suspension veto is to provoke public debate and to raise the awareness of some issues, considered as important not only in terms of respect for the Constitution but also in terms of long-term consequences. is role of “so power” gives the president the ability to combine a constant role in the public debate with a moral responsibility, which can explain why he manages to keep his positive rating over long periods of time. ese conclusions show the importance of the presidential institution in terms of counter-weight to the executive power but also in terms of arbitration between the presidential institution and the government. It confirms some of the conclusions in other studies on veto power in Central and Eastern Europe and allows a closer look at both agency and media coverage. Table 15: Confidence in institutions in 2005 President

71 %

Cabinet

30 %

Army

55 %

Prosecution

18 %

Police

51 %

Courts of Law

18 %

Local Government

40 %

Parliament

15 %

Banking System

37 %

Survey conducted by Gallup, July 2005

252

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Figure 7: Assessment of the work of G. Parvanov 2001–2008

Source: Alpha research

Figure 8: Assessment of the work of G. Parvanov 2008–2011

Source: Alpha research

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

Figure 9: Assessment of the government NDSV-DPS (2001–2005)

Source: Alpha research

Figures 10: Assessment of the government BSP-NDSV-DPS (2005–2008)

Source: Alpha research

253

254

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Figures 11: Assessment of the government BSP-NDSV-DPS (2009–2011)

Source: Alpha research

Figure 12: Media attitude-President Parvanov-March-November 2010

Source: Foundation Media Democracy

10. THE ROLE OF THE PRESIDENT IN BULGARIAN POLITICS: THE VETO AS A TOOL FOR LEGITIMATION?

Figures 13 and 14: Media attitudes in the newspapers

255

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

257

11 FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMIPRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA SERGIU GHERGHINA Introduction ere is a general consensus in the literature that political institutions in Central and Eastern Europe underwent dramatic changes in a short period of time. is transformation had effects on the stability and nature of relationships among executive and legislative bodies. In the beginning of the 90s, the institutional design in most post-communist countries placed an emphasis on the role of the legislature in the decision making process. Over time, the executives identified governing shortcuts, ways to bypass the legislature, and constantly pushed for more power. Accordingly, it is not surprising that several conflicts emerged between legislative and executive institutions. e desire to occupy a prominent role also led to conflicts between the institutions or individuals belonging to the executive power. Many post-communist presidents were endowed with symbolic functions and duties and the governments were considered the key executive institutions (Elgie and Moestrup 2008). e desire of presidents to accrue more power resulted in an overstepping of their formal powers. Clashes between presidents and prime ministers were documented in the first years of the 90s: Havel and Klaus in the Czech Republic, Antall and Göncz in Hungary, Wałęsa and Pawlak in Poland, Roman and Iliescu in Romania, or Kováč and Mečiar in Slovakia (Baylis 1996). Aer 2000, institutional conflicts diminished, but their outcomes became more visible: in Lithuania, President Rolandas Paksas was dismissed in 2004 aer an impeachment procedure, while the Romanian president Traian Băsescu survived two impeachment referenda in 2007 and 2012.

258

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Other types of issues have also kept the institution of the presidency at the core of (media) debates. For example, the 2012 resignation of the Hungarian president Pál Schmitt was caused by the revocation of his doctorate following proof of plagiarism. In another case related to plagiarism, in the summer of 2012, the Romanian president drew media attention to the Romanian prime-minister’s PhD thesis. is alarm was sounded in the middle of an institutional conflict which led to the impeachment of the president. In Romania, the engagement of the president in the political process has generated several similar political conflicts over time. ese conflicts have gained particular relevance for the political system over the last decade. is chapter aims to identify the causes of this increasing presidential involvement and has a two-fold argument. First, the attempts to overstep the limits set on presidential power by the constitutions were regular and started quite early in the 90s. is began when President Iliescu used a violent miners’ demonstration to push for the removal of Prime Minister Roman. Second, this type of behavior only becomes a problem in periods of cohabitation, when the president’s personality may also incite clashes with an opposing legislature and government. In essence, semi-presidential systems – the ones chosen by some countries examined in this book – are prone to conflicts either between executive and legislative branches of government or within the executive (Shugart and Carey 1992; Valenzuela 2004; Skach 2006). e same source of popular legitimacy for the president and parliament allows both institutions to claim more power and destabilize the envisaged equilibrium. At the same time, problems occur within the dual executive (Blondel 1984) in which a popularly elected head of state has considerable executive authority to be shared with a prime minister. e first section includes a brief discussion of the historical tradition of the heads of state in the period before the establishment of the communist regime. Next, I turn to the type of political system and the formal position of the president in post-communist Romania. e third section describes the presidential attempts to extend their political powers and summarizes the circumstances of these developments. e final section analyzes the political opportunity structures and personality determinants for overstepping the powers given to the Romanian president by the constitution.

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

259

Between Constitutional Monarchy and Authoritarian Leaders e unification of the principalities Moldova and Wallachia in 1859 marks the beginning of Romania as a state. is name was used for the first time in 1862 in a legislative plenary session and, in 1866, was included in the first constitution of the country. Between 1859 and 1864 the executive power was divided between a ruler – elected by the parliament – and his government. Following the first major conflict between Al. I. Cuza (the ruler) and the legislature, the former dissolved Parliament and started a personal regime in 1864; this lasted less than two years as the political parties, together with a part of the army, forced Cuza to resign, reinstalled the legislature, and in 1866 brought in a German prince from the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty (Carol I) to replace him. Carol was ruler until 1881 when the constitution was modified to transform the country into a kingdom and its ruler became king. e 1881 Constitution specifies heredity as the means to appoint a king and thus elections were no longer organized for that position. e main idea was to have a symbolic king and a government who held most of the executive power. While this line was generally followed by the Romanian kings until 1938, there were instances in which they took executive decisions. For example, during World War I, Romania remained neutral until 1916 due to a domestic gridlock. King Carol wanted to join the Central Powers while the political parties and population favored the Triple Entente. His position was strong and a decision regarding Romanian involvement in the war could be reached only aer his death in 1914. One important element indicating a strong involvement of the king in the everyday political life was the call for early elections. e king had the right to dissolve the legislature and call for early elections. Consequently, during the inter-war period only two governments fulfilled their constitutional four year term. Moreover, when the king dissolved parliament, he had to appoint a new government in charge of the election. In almost all cases, the political parties organizing the elections gained large majorities by having both psychological and mechanical advantages over the opposition (election fraud was also a factor). Consequently, the decisions of the king to appoint the government prior to elections shaped the political developments. Until 1938, elections took place within the context of an

260

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

electoral democracy, with the respect for a fundamental act. In general, the constitutional monarchy ruled the game for most of the inter-war period in Romania. e personal authoritarian regime initiated by the King Carol II in 1938 brought to an end the constitutional monarchy and the traditional separation of powers. A new constitution banned all previous political parties and allowed only for the existence of a single-party: that of the king, founded in 1938 (e National Renaissance Front). At the same time, it subordinated the executive, legislative and judicial power to the king. e latter took all major decisions, appointed half of the upper Chamber members in Parliament, and could appoint and dismiss without parliamentary involvement. Accordingly, executive instability was very high and the country had six Cabinets before 1940. is authoritarian regime with a strong leader continued aer 1940 when the king suspended the constitution, dissolved the Parliament, and transferred the power to a General (Ion Antonescu). e latter decision marked a return to the pre-1938 order: the prime minister was the “first violin” and the king enjoyed only a symbolic role. However, the new setting was a continuation of the authoritarian practices of Carol II and thus the prime minister never convened a legislature and governed alone by executive decree. Although he kept the right to appoint and dismiss the prime minister, the new king (Michael I) did not get involved in politics until August 1944 when he dismissed and arrested Antonescu. e clash between the two occurred aer taking different sides in the World War II – Antonescu was pro-German and Michael favored the Allies. e communist regime, installed in the spring of 1945, conveyed a clear message that king only holds symbolic position; his forced abdication took place at the end of 1947, marking the beginning of the republic governed by communists. Overall, two types of regimes and leaders characterized the period between the emergence of the Romanian state and the beginning of communism. On the one hand, there was a constitutional monarchy – guided by an increasingly democratic fundamental act – in which the king usually played a symbolic role; exceptions to this rule were in times of war. is setting entailed a clear separation of powers in which the executive responsibility belonged to Cabinets led by strong prime ministers. On the other hand, there were strong leaders

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

261

(either elected, appointed, or kings) who initiated personal authoritarian regimes. Such a design did not allow for a separation of powers and all state institutions were subordinated to the country leader. However, none of these authoritarian leaders had a long life in power, being either dismissed or forced to abdicate. Such a practice was not continued during the following five decades when the communist regime placed a heavy emphasis on the president. His powers were continuously augmented and the 1965 constitution was framed around the presidential institution. By the end of 1989, the communist president of Romania had become a particular presence in Eastern Europe, being characterized as the creator of a sultanistic regime (Linz and Stepan 1996).

The Formal Powers of the Romanian President Previous research categorizes post-Communist Romania as a semipresidential regime (Mainwaring 1993; Elgie 1999a; Protsyh 2006; Elgie and Moestrup 2008). Together with the legislature, the head of state enjoys popular legitimacy stemming from direct election. e country has a dual executive in which the prime minister shares the power with, and is nominated by, the president, depending on a parliamentary vote of confidence. A few nuances brought to the semipresidential regime (Shugart and Carey 1992; Elgie 1998; Roper 2002; Siaroff 2003) generated new typologies in which Romania falls under different types. is section does not argue in favor of one classification or another. Instead, it investigates the extent of the president’s formal powers. To this end, I have conducted a qualitative content analysis of the 1991 and 2003 constitutions. Whereas the two documents have fairly similar provisions regarding the president’s powers, the major difference – leading to cohabitation issues – lies in the duration of the term in office, extended from four years to five in 2003. Earlier studies illustrate how the semi-presidential system heavily relies on the checks and balances within and between executive and legislative bodies. Accordingly, most presidential powers can be reviewed in relation with the other two actors – the government and the legislature. Following the Romanian constitution, the president’s relationship with the government is based on a power sharing principle.

262

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

e president has the right to nominate a candidate for the position of prime minister aer prior consultation with the parliamentary parties. e vote of confidence received from the legislature confirms the president’s choice. Apart from this right, the president has limited power with respect to Cabinet’s composition. He can interfere when the government or some of its members are changed; the president then dismisses and appoints new Cabinet members following the prime minister’s nominations. e 2003 constitution imposed a supplementary boundary to this right. Accordingly, if the government structure changes, the approval of the legislature is required for any appointment or dismissal (Art. 83, par. 3). As part of the executive power sharing, the president can join (and leads) the government meetings that discuss relevant external affairs, defense or public order issues; he can also join these meetings whenever the prime minister invites him. e collaboration within the executive takes particular forms. For example, as the country’s main representative the president signs all international agreements, but only aer they have been negotiated by the government. Similarly, he appoints and dismisses Romanian diplomats following the government’s proposals. Finally, national defense issues are a shared concern of the president and government. e Supreme Council of National Defense has the task of organizing and coordinating the activities related to national defense. It is led by the president whereas the prime minister acts as vice-president in this regard. Some presidential powers require an interaction with the parliament. Sometimes this implies consultation, as in the case of the right to call for a national referendum. In other instances, the president needs parliamentary approval for his decisions, as happens with the decision to mobilize the armed forces or with the international treaties signed by the president. Finally, a few situations only require the president to inform the parliament, this is usually the case with highly important domestic issues. ere are two control mechanisms between these two state institutions. e president can dissolve the legislature, but only if no government is formed 60 days aer the first (prime ministerial) nomination and aer two nominations have been already rejected (Art. 89). To counterbalance this presidential power, the legislature can impeach and suspend the president for unconstitutional conduct.

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

263

is procedure involves four steps: 1) the initiative of at least one third of the Members of Parliament (MPs) to suspend the president; 2) the Constitutional Court provides a consultative opinion; 3) the absolute majority of the MPs cast a vote in favor of the impeachment for “severe violation of the constitutional provisions” (Art. 95) and 4) the president is dismissed if the majority of the Romanian citizens approve this decision in a popular referendum. Until a decision is reached, the Senate Speaker is the caretaker and enjoys virtually all presidential prerogatives. Apart from these bounded powers, the president also enjoys some exclusive rights. is is the case with issues of national security (he is the Commander-in-Chief) in times of crisis or exceptional situations (where he needs an a posteriori parliamentary approval). However, under these special circumstances the president no longer enjoys the right to dissolve the legislature. More important for the recent developments in Romanian politics, the president is expected to be neutral (he cannot be partisan) and thus act as a mediator between the state authorities and between the state and society (Art. 80, par. 2). e formal powers of the Romanian president have remained unchanged over time. Whereas he enjoys quite a few powers, very few are exclusive. e vast majority are bound to consultation or approval from the government or parliament. In other instances, the president can only follow the proposals coming from these two state institutions, thus being in a more reactive than proactive position. However, this does not mean that the president lacks the opportunity to take initiatives. e referendum is one example, and this power was recently used by president Traian Băsescu. His 2009 electoral campaign (i.e. running for re-election) emphasized the necessity of a unicameral parliament with 300 MPs. Accordingly, he called for two referenda – one for the type of legislature and one for its size – on Election Day. For this, he was accused of using this particular power as an electoral strategy. During the two post-communist decades every president crossed the formal boundaries and tried to enhance his powers through informal means. e following section summarizes these attempts and their consequences for the political system.

264

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Attempts to Gain Informal Powers e six presidential elections in post-Communist Romania produced three office holders: Ion Iliescu in 1990, 1992, and 2000 (although the Constitution allows for only two terms in office1), Emil Constantinescu in 1996, and Traian Băsescu in 2004 and 2009. ere was only one instance in which the incumbent running for re-election lost against a challenger (1996). e necessity to augment the political influence of the president occurred even before the adoption of the first post-Communist constitution in November 1991. Prior to this constitution, the legislature, elected in May 1990, adopted a series of constitutional laws that were later included in a single document. As their provisions were similar to those mentioned in the previous section, the president had a role in the nomination of a prime minister but not in his dismissal or resignation. e legislature was supposed to elect and dismiss the government through votes of confidence. Iliescu, with an established career during the Communist regime, was extremely successful in the 1990 presidential elections, winning with more than 80 % of the votes. His party, the National Salvation Front (Frontul Salvării Naţionale– FSN), won approximately two thirds of the votes in the legislative elections and an FSN government was easily formed (lead by Petre Roman). e coup in the USSR ignited the conflict between the Romanian president and prime minister in the summer of 1991. Whereas both had concerns about the impact of those events on the future of democracy in the region in general, and in Romania in particular, their approaches were different in at least two respects. First, there was a discrepancy in the foreign policy priorities with the president favoring the USSR. Second, the prime minister favored in-depth reforms to speed the democratization process; the president opposed most of those reforms, preferring a conservative approach. Consequently, the two also took different public stances towards the coup. e government issued a press release in which the events in the USSR were harshly criticized. Aer the president publicly expressed his criticism towards the government’s stance, the prime minister called on the opposition parties 1

Starting 1996. Iliescu has argued that between 1990 and 1992 he acted like a caretaker president until the constitution was adopted. Accordingly, this should not be considered as a full term in office.

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

265

to form a new government. e president thought that Roman and his government were no longer good for the country. Without prior democratic experience, Iliescu did not solve this institutional conflict through the use of his formal powers or by following a legislative route. Instead, he used shortcuts that involved the use of his supplementary power. Taking advantage of the discontented miners and the economic consequences of Roman’s reforms, Iliescu called the miners to the capital to put pressure on the government. Following an outbreak of street violence, Roman resigned at the end of September 1991. A caretaker government was installed until the 1992 elections without any further political involvement of the president. In fact, this was the only time when Iliescu extended his political influence. Less than a decade later, there was a different president but a similar situation. In 1999, President Constantinescu tried to dismiss Prime Minister Radu Vasile due to his poor performance in office (see below). Behind the rush to solve this problem were a few disputes within the government coalition (the leading party supported the president), and there was less than a year until the new legislative elections. As there were no constitutional means at his disposal, Constantinescu took a different tack. In a personal conversation he asked the prime minister to resign. In the absence of any reaction from Vasile, the president asked all the ministers to resign. Although the president officially has no power to do so, the government members obeyed his request. In addition, the president issued a presidential decree (no. 426/1999) in which he dismissed the prime minister. e major problem was that the constitution does not mention the possibility for such a decree and thus the president did not have any power to dismiss the prime minister2. Aware of this problem, Vasile did not resign and for a couple of days was in charge of a government without ministers. As a result of public and private pressures, the prime minister resigned three days aer the initial request from the president. Both Iliescu and Constantinescu experienced an intra-executive conflict in which they had the support of the legislature. In the most recent decade, president Băsescu was in the middle of two institutional conflicts with an opposing parliament and government. e 2

e 2003 Constitution tried to prevent future similar attempts and explicitly mentioned that the president cannot dismiss the prime minister (Art. 107).

266

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

first (2007) emerged aer a split in the government coalition with the president’s Liberal Democratic Party (Partidul Democrat Liberal – PDL) ending in opposition. A series of tensions related to public appointees’ nominations, investigations of businessmen, and electoral strategy3 resulted in an increasingly problematic relationship between the coalition partners and between the president and prime minister. Following these problems, the Prime Minister Tăriceanu dismissed all the ministers belonging to the president’s party. is resulted in the installment of a minority government with the silent agreement of the major opposition party. e president crossed the boundaries of nonpartisanship and mediation between the state institutions, oen taking the side of his political party. For example, following the 2004 elections, the president used his power to nominate the prime minister to form a coalition government. Until then it was customary to nominate the representative of the party who won the elections. Băsescu preferred to nominate the representative of the electoral alliance in which his party was involved as prime minister4. At the same time, Băsescu’s statements put pressure on the state institutions (government and parliament). As a consequence of this behavior, the parliamentary majority impeached Băsescu for unconstitutional conduct. e vote in Parliament was driven by a few accusations about the president: political partisanship, abuse of power and active involvement instead of a mediation role, infringement upon the powers of the state institutions (legislature and cabinet), and the manipulation and instigation of public opinion against the state institutions. In the absence of substantial evidence for these allegations, the anti-president camp was not successful in the popular referendum; this ended up in a negative vote and the president regained full prerogatives. In 2012, a new impeachment process was meant to punish President Băsescu for his repeated attempts to extend his powers. is process was again initiated by a hostile parliament and government. Aer almost four years in office, the government coalition, led by the president’s party, lost a vote of confidence in parliament. e new government coalition 3

4

Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tăriceanu refused to resign in order to call for early elections that could have provided the absolute majority for the current government coalition (i.e. very high popularity). e same behavior could be observed four years later when he pushed for an oversized coalition by nominating the representative of his party.

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

267

(mostly the same political parties as in 2007) called the parliament to impeach the president. ere were many similarities with the 2007 impeachment, both in terms of charges and weakness of evidence. e particular allegations added in 2012 were the violation of judicial independence principles, initiation of an unconstitutional project to revise the Constitution, and the placing of direct pressures on the judges of the Constitutional Court. Whereas it is true that over time Băsescu got involved in the political system more than the Constitution formally allows, it was difficult to find striking evidence or to quantify the potential infringement with other state authorities. e abandonment of his mediator role and his involvement in government issues – when his party was the major coalition partner – were the most visible means of achieving informal power. e president survived the 2012 popular referendum (only due to the threshold provision) and returned to office. is longitudinal analysis of the informal position of the president allows for three relevant conclusions. First, the attempts to gain more powers follow divergent paths that are explored in detail in the following section. On the one hand, in the 90s, the presidents made use of informal powers to solve intra-executive conflicts with the prime minister. Neither Iliescu nor Constantinescu systematically attempted to get involved in political life. ey interfered when their authority was threatened or political crises emerged. On the other hand, the most recent two cases illustrate Băsescu’s tendency to play on the edge. He did systematically employ the full extent of his formal powers and tried to influence other political institutions and actors. Second, the quest for more informal powers has become more subtle over the years. If the first two presidents le visible traces of their involvement, Băsescu used more sophisticated means to increase his presence in the political system. Finally, all presidents remained in office aer using their informal powers. In the case of Băsescu, this was harder to achieve, as he confronted hostile governments and parliaments.

The Successful Expansion of Informal Power e previous section revealed the reasons behind the presidents’ pursuit of more powers than those specified in the constitution. Each president managed to successfully expand his powers and got away

268

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

with it. How was this possible? ere is no valid general answer for all four cases emphasized above. Instead, there are particular explanations pointing at the political context, economic situation, leaders’ personalities, or citizens’ attitudes toward the president or government. In the augmentation of his presidential powers, Iliescu relied on the institutional structure, the negative consequences of governmental reforms, and his high popularity. e disagreement with the prime minister occurred when citizens perceived him as the first democratic ruler of the country, oen perceived as the antithesis of the communist regime. e legitimacy derived from his direct election gave Iliescu leverage in his dispute with the prime minister both within the party and within the legislature. Iliescu was aware that in case of a rupture, the parliament – dominated by his party – would continue to support him instead of Roman. e clash between the president and the prime minister had medium term consequences, and in the following spring their party split into two political parties that were relevant for the Romanian politics during the entire post-Communist period. To complement his parliamentary support, Iliescu built on public discontent with the economic reforms initiated by the government. In this context, the miners’ arrival in Bucharest could initially have been perceived as a radical protest against those measures. A few years passed before the leader of the miners publicly acknowledged that their violence and pressure on the government were driven by the president’s call. Iliescu’s success in the 1992 presidential elections indicate the slow effects of this quest for more powers on his popular support. From the perspective of public opinion, Constantinescu was in a completely different situation in 1999. Aer three years of poor performance in office, his popularity was very low and he decided not to run for re-election the following year. Meanwhile, the government coalition made great efforts to remain united and only the resignation of another prime minister in 1998 maintained their parliamentary majority. When asking for the prime minister’s resignation, Constantinescu had the support of the political parties. His decision to overstep the constitutional limits was rooted in the emergency of a situation in which there were both international (related to the European Union) and national (negative consequences of economic reforms) pressures. Until then, the president’s actions in office were moderate, but in the absence of experience with intra-executive conflicts, Constantinescu

11. FORMAL AND INFORMAL POWERS IN A SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL REGIME: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

269

had to act fast. He was not willing to copy Iliescu’s violent approach, especially as Romania had recently embarked on the road to EU accession. His “lame duck” profile conveyed the message that everything he did was for the country and not for personal benefit. Accordingly, his future political career was limited. Finally, the president’s decision to become involved in the prime minister’s dismissal was favored by the low popularity of the latter. In difficult economic times for Romania, Vasile had been oen considered a compromise solution to keep the coalition partners together. His government’s inability to reduce inflation, to find solutions for collective dismissals in the public sector, or to control the street protests was complemented by the pressure of foreign debt inherited from the previous government. All these problems cast a shadow over the achievements related to the beginning of accession negotiations to the EU and NATO. Along these lines, Vasile’s delay in resigning when asked put in a secondary plan the president’s unconstitutional behavior. In both terms in office, Băsescu walked on thin ice. An experienced politician on all levels – as minister, mayor of the capital, and party president – he was constantly tempted to get involved in the political scene more than his formal powers allowed. As already mentioned, he shaped two coalition governments in which his party was involved. With respect to the latter, he made extensive efforts to keep it in government, although sometimes he had to refuse the nomination of candidates belonging to the parliamentary majority (e.g. February 2012). Unlike his predecessors, Băsescu’s relationship with the parliament was quite tense; this was partially due to the challenge of cohabitation, but also to the fact that none of the authorities made efforts to improve it. e legislature impeached Băsescu twice and the president sometimes defied the legislature’s power. For example, in 2009 Băsescu decided to call for a referendum; he went to parliament with the following discourse: “ I have the intention to call for a referendum and, according to the Constitution I have to consult the parliament. Consider that I have consulted you”. During his first term in office the main source of informal power was the president’s high popularity. Combined with low levels of confidence in parliament and political parties this provided an appropriate environment to push the boundaries. Băsescu’s second term in office brought him a dramatic decrease in popularity (sometimes reaching levels as low as 15 %). As he could no

270

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

longer run for president – there is a constitutional limit of two terms – his strategic behavior also decreased. e only explanation available for his continuous quest for more power is his personality and vast experience in politics. Unable to remain neutral to the political changes in the legislature, he put pressure on various representatives of state institutions (prime ministers, ministers, parliament speakers, judges, etc.) and initiated media conflicts by publicly accusing them of incompetence or disagreeing with their actions. Băsescu embedded his informal powers in a broader project called “state modernization” (Vesalon 2012). e revision of the constitution – as part of this project – includes more powers for the president in the areas of referendum, government structure, and national security; at the same time, it limits the power of parliament in the impeachment procedure (Constitution Project 2011).

Concluding remarks e drivers for informal powers differed from case to case. ere is a particular combination of factors for each situation and none of them appears to be either necessary or sufficient for a complete causal mechanism. e favorable political context and poor economic situation favored the actions of the first two presidents. At the same time, a weak relationship between the president and the legislature was not a barrier, as Băsescu’s situation illustrates. High popularity was an important asset for Iliescu, and also for Băsescu during his first term in office. But a lack of popularity did not impede Constantinescu from striving for more power, nor did it impede Băsescu during his second term. Political experience can explain Băsescu’s and, to some extent, Iliescu’s need for more power, but it fails to do so with Constantinescu. e presidents had very different personalities. As illustrated in the previous descriptions, they diverged in terms of cognition, experience, involvement, and need for control5.

5

For a more detailed discussion about political leaders’ personalities, see Cottam et al. (2010).

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

271

12 THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: SOME TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS VÍT HLOUŠEK e previous country chapters dealt with the following questions: What used to be, or are, the reasons for the successful expansion of the personal influence exerted by heads of state? Is it the political personality of the office holder rather than ‘structural’ reasons determined by the political system? Or is it the popular attitudes held towards politics and politicians? We saw that the answers to these questions can be different. Now we can try to draw some general findings. e introduction to this book has already signalled that most of the countries that acceded to the EU in the so-called Eastern Enlargement of 2004/2007 can be classified as parliamentary democracies, in terms of the functioning of their political systems. Some of them espouse parliamentarism explicitly; for example, the first article of Bulgaria’s constitution declares unequivocally that “Bulgaria shall be a republic with a parliamentary form of government”.1 Elsewhere, in Lithuania and Poland, hints have appeared suggesting that certain features of semi-presidentialism might be embraced; however, Poland’s constitutional development has clearly been one directed towards parliamentary democracy and Lithuania’s system is perhaps best described as a compromise between parliamentarism and semi-presidentialism, realised as a premier-presidential regime. In the 1990s, Slovenia witnessed a complicated discussion between the advocates of parliamentary and semi-presidential democracy. Although this debate has 1

Note, however, the polemic approach of Blagovesta Cholova, the author of the chapter on Bulgaria in this volume, who describes the Bulgarian regime as semi-presidential, although she obviously does not stick very closely to the criteria set in the introduction and tends rather to apply Elgie’s approach.

272

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

not been conclusively decided, it has resulted in a compromise, in the form of a parliamentary democracy in which a ceremonial president is elected directly. e only exception to the formal prevalence of parliamentarism among these countries is Romania, which is governed by a system of semi-presidentialism. e placement of Central and Eastern European countries on scales measuring presidential power confirms this. Of the countries studied here, Timothy Fry considered Romania’s president the strongest; followed, at a considerable distance, by the presidents of Lithuania and Poland and, at greater remove, the presidents of the remaining countries (Fry 1997: 527 and 530). Despite, or perhaps because of this, the issue of the political influence exerted by presidents in these mostly parliamentary regimes is an interesting one. As can be seen in the preceding chapters, examples of assertive presidential behaviour are certainly not rare in Central and Eastern Europe. e aim of this chapter is to summarise and evaluate the findings described above. e first section will examine presidents’ mandates and their relationship to government and parliament, from a comparative perspective. e next section will briefly evaluate the influence of historical traditions, and this will be followed by a summary of the attempts made by presidents to expand the scope of their political influence, using the examples previously described in detail in this book. Finally, we shall attempt to recapitulate on the endeavours of other constitutional bodies or political parties who sought to ‘restrain’ heads of state that were either allegedly, or in reality, too strong, by means of referenda on their removal from office or attempts to launch impeachment procedures.

Is direct election of the president a criterion of political power? To answer this question we will first examine how presidents are elected and how they relate to other bodies within the executive and legislature. e table that follows provides a synoptic overview of the election method (direct or indirect) and the president’s relationship with government and parliament as defined in the constitution. ere is no intention here to address issues of presidential powers, nor the issue of whether the execution of these powers requires countersigna-

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

273

ture or not; this is because we believe that in terms of the power plays potentially unfolding between the president, the government and the parliament, it is more important to examine their relationships and the instruments which might affect these relations.2 We can observe that direct election of the president by the people is the prevalent method of appointment in all these countries. In Bulgaria, e Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, the president is voted in by an absolute majority system, with the two strongest candidates from the first round contesting in the second. In Lithuania, the election process is somewhat more complicated. In the first round the candidate must win an absolute majority if the turnout is higher than 50 %, or a simple majority if the turnout is less than 50 %; in the latter case, s/he must still win one third of the votes of eligible voters. If no candidate wins such a majority, a second round is held in which the two strongest candidates from the first round participate (article 81). Only in Estonia, Hungary and Latvia is the president elected indirectly by parliament.3 By examining presidential powers and the president’s relationship to government and parliament, we also observe that one cannot establish a positive correlation between the higher legitimacy of a president elected directly and the scope of his or her powers, or the strength of his/her position as set out by the constitution. In the constitutions of the states observed, the president is generally defined as head of state; s/he symbolises the state in domestic politics, or embodies its sovereignty and independence. More ambitious definitions of the president’s role in the political and social life of a country are rare, but do appear; Romania is an example. e fact that in addition to the representative functions, Romania’s president “shall guard the observance of the Constitution and the proper functioning of the public authorities. To this effect, he shall act as a mediator between the Powers in the State, as well as between the State and society” (Romania’s constitution, article 80) corresponds with the country’s semi-presidential model. A similar definition of a president standing above interest 2

3

Obviously by doing this we are not questioning, for instance, the political or symbolic importance of the disputes over certain powers to appoint, which are analysed in the individual case studies in this volume. Estonia’s constitution also describes in article 79 a special electoral college that would be convened, comprised of MPs and representatives of local councils, if the parliament were unable to elect a president aer three rounds.

Designates the prime minister and formally asks the National Assembly for its approval. Does not appoint individual ministers.

Appoints and dismisses the prime minister and other members of the government and accepts their resignation. Has the right to participate in government meetings.

Designates the prime minister. If confidence is not granted to either the first or the second designee, the power to nominate the prime minister passes to the parliament. On the suggestion of the prime minister, he appoints and dismisses government members.

Direct

Bulgaria

The Czech Direct Republic

Estonia

Indirect

Method President’s relationship to of the government election

State

2010–2012 some minor changes reducing presidential powers (appointment of the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and his power to appoint and dismiss the heads of diplomatic missions and permanent representatives of the state).

Major changes since the end of the communist regime

2011 president lost power to appoint the Commander Can initiate an emergency session of the parliament. Can suggest the parliament declare a state of emergency of the Defense Forces and the Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Forces in favor of the Parliament. or war. If parliament is unable to act, he can, in urgent emergency situations, issue decrees that have the power of law. If the parliament is unable to agree on a prime minister and to grant him confidence, the president automatically dissolves the parliament and a new election is held according to a procedure strictly laid out in the constitution. Has suspensive veto over legislation.

Has the right to participate in sessions of both chambers 2012 introduction of direct elections. Previously, the of the parliament and to speak to deputies and senators. President was elected by the joint session of both Formally convenes the session of the Chamber of Deputies chambers of the Parliament. and formally dissolves this chamber. Has suspensive veto, but not of constitutional laws.

Has the right to speak in the National Assembly. If it is impossible to form a government he dissolves the parliament, but this happens in accordance with procedure strictly laid out in the constitution. Has suspensive veto on legislation.

President’s relationship to the parliament

Table 16: Method of electing the president and his/her relationship to the government and parliament

274 PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Indirect

Indirect

Hungary

Latvia

Designates the prime minister, who decides on the make-up of the cabinet and any changes to it. The president has the right to convene extraordinary government meetings and to chair these.

Designates the prime minister and appoints ministers (as proposed by the prime minister).

Can call a referendum on early dissolution of the parliament; if an absolute majority of voters opposes early election, the president loses his mandate. The president can be removed from office by the parliament if, with at least two thirds of MPs participating in the vote, an absolute majority of them is in favour of such a motion. An absolute majority of all MPs must propose this motion. The president has the right to propose laws, and a suspensive veto over them. If Latvia is attacked, the president ‘has the right to take whatever steps are necessary for the military defence of the State’ (article 44 of Latvia’s constitution).

Under conditions strictly defined by the constitution, the president can dissolve parliament, however he has to consult with the prime minister, the speaker and leaders of parliamentary factions. Can propose laws including changes to the constitution or a new constitution (as can the government, an MP or a parliamentary committee). Has suspensive veto over legislation. Can initiate a referendum, but the parliament decides whether it will be called or not. Can participate in parliamentary sessions.

2011 new constitution adopted (“Fundamental Law”), minor changes to the presidential election procedure and refinement of the power to dissolve parliament. Both changes have no political significance and remain merely procedural.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

275

Appoints and dismisses the prime minister and ministers (on the prime minister’s proposal). Can convene a government meeting and discuss political issues there, but this ‘Cabinet Council’ does not have the remit of government. The president is to cooperate with the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs in creating foreign policy. He can also initiate a vote in Sejm regarding calling a government member to account in front of the Tribunal of State.

Poland

Direct

Appoints and removes the prime minister and, on his proposals, the ministers. Participates in the creation and steering of foreign policy.

Method President’s relationship to of the government election

Lithuania Direct

State

Under conditions precisely described by the constitution, the president can shorten the term of the Sejm and the Senate. Has the right to propose new laws. Subject to approval of the Senate, he can call a referendum. He can speak in the Sejm, the Senate, and at joint sessions of both chambers. Has suspensive veto over legislation.

Must regularly present his address on the situation in the country and on its domestic and foreign policies. Under conditions exactly defined in the constitution, the president can dissolve parliament, but not in the last six months of his term and not before six months have elapsed since an early election. If an early parliamentary election is called, the parliament can subsequently call, using a 3/5 majority, an early presidential election. The president has the right to propose laws, and has a suspensive veto over them. In an urgent situation, the president can declare a state of emergency, but subsequently must convene an emergency parliamentary session, which confirms or rejects this.

President’s relationship to the parliament

1997 newly adopted constitution limited presidential powers in a substantive way, inclination to a parliamentary democracy.

1992 “Small Constitution” set the rules of relations between presidential and legislative powers, elements of semi-presidentialism.

1990 introduction of the direct elections of president.

1989 introduction of the president office.

1998 the Constitutional Court limited the president in the sphere of the prime minister’s candidate’s designation stressing that Lithuania is a parliamentary democracy thus the president has no unlimited choice of whom to appoint.

Major changes since the end of the communist regime

276 PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Direct

Direct

Romania

Slovakia

Appoints the prime minister and, on his suggestion, ministers. Formally dismisses ministers and the prime minister, but not on the grounds of his own deliberation or will. Can ask the government or specific ministers to supply information required for the discharge of his office.

Designates the prime minister and formally appoints and dismisses ministers (on the prime minister’s proposal). Can confer with the government on crucial political issues. Can participate in government meetings if the agenda concerns foreign policy, defence of the country, and ‘ensurance of public order’, or if the prime minister invites him. In such cases the president chairs the meeting.

Under conditions exactly specified by the constitution, the president can dissolve parliament, but not in the last six months of his term, or in a state of emergency or war. The National Council can call a referendum on removing president from office; this requires the absolute majority of those eligible to vote. If the referendum fails to remove the president, the National Council is dissolved. The president has suspensive veto over legislation.

Under conditions exactly specified in the constitution, and having consulted the speakers of both chambers of the parliament as well as leaders of parliamentary factions, the president can dissolve both chambers, but not more often than once in a year and not in the last half year of his term. Reports on the political state of the country at the joint session of both chambers of the parliament. Has suspensive veto of legislation. Can declare a state of emergency, but this must be subsequently approved by the parliament. Having consulted with the Constitutional Court, both chambers of the parliament sitting in a joint session can call a referendum on removing apresident from office.

2001 marginal increases of presidential nomination powers.

1999 introduction of direct elections. President was previously elected by the Parliament; limitation of presidential nomination powers.

2003 new Constitution extended the term in office to 5 years, no substantial changes of competencies, marginal change of relation between the president and the government.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

277

Direct

Slovenia The president can convene an extraordinary session of the National Assembly. He must give his opinion on a political issue if asked to do so by the National Assembly. During a state of emergency, the president can issue, on the suggestion of the government, decrees that have the power of law. By observing a procedure strictly described in the constitution, the president can dissolve the National Assembly.

President’s relationship to the parliament

Sources: states’ constitutions as currently amended, country chapters in this volume.

Having consulted leaders of the parliamentary factions, the president designates the prime minister. Formally, he also appoints the ministers (who are approved by the National Assembly, however). If the National Assembly does not pass the first candidate, groups of MPs can enter the nomination process.

Method President’s relationship to of the government election

State

Major changes since the end of the communist regime

278 PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

279

groups and parties, is evoked by the constitution in Lithuania (article 83); aer being elected and for the duration of his office, he must relinquish his party membership. Presidents are also traditionally defined as formal representatives of their countries abroad; however, in most cases one must emphasise here the mainly formal and symbolic nature of their position. Only in Lithuania, Poland and Romania is the president given not only the right, but also the obligation to cooperate with the government in creating and implementing foreign policy. e list of areas in which the Romanian president is to liaise with the government includes not only foreign policy, but also security and defence policies, as well as issues connected with the “ensurance of public order” (article 87 of Romania’s constitution). In relation to the government, presidents generally have the formal right to designate the prime minister and appoint and dismiss ministers. However, they mostly appoint the latter on the basis of explicit proposals by the prime minister, and in Bulgaria the president only appoints the prime minister but not the individual members of the cabinet. In some countries (e Czech Republic, Romania), the president can participate in government meetings, and in others (Latvia, Poland) he even has the right to convene extraordinary government meetings.4 Only the Polish president can initiate a vote on delivering a government member for prosecution, but this requires the approval of parliament’s lower chamber. In Romania, the president has a stronger position vis-à-vis the government, in accordance with the logic of semi-presidentialism. Although the government is accountable to parliament and the president cannot dismiss the prime minister, he can initiate, without resorting to parliamentary approval, the prosecution of the government for acts committed during their term (the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate also have this right). When a prosecution begins, the president can suspend the government. In summary: in the overwhelming majority of cases the constitution does not grant the president substantial instruments for actively engaging with the government, and potential disputes between these bodies tend not concern questions of jurisdiction, being instances of 4

In Poland a cabinet convened in such a fashion does not have governmental powers and serves more for the purpose of political discussion than for adopting decisions.

280

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

political rivalry, occasionally accompanied, as we shall see below, by obstructions made possible by unclear or ambivalent wording in some constitutions. Examples include the Czech, Slovak and Slovenian constitutions, in which a range of powers and procedures concerning the roles of the president, the prime minister and ministers are defined too broadly; permitting various readings relating to what the president must or must not do.5 In the countries studied, the positions the heads of state assume towards parliament are more varied than their positions towards government. Presidents generally have the right to speak in sessions of parliament or its chambers; in some cases they even have the duty to regularly report on the state of the country, for example in Romania. In Slovenia, the parliament can directly ask the president for his political opinion. In many countries (Bulgaria, e Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) the president can dissolve the parliament. However, he cannot do so arbitrarily. Even in the semi-presidential Romanian system, the constitution defines very precisely the conditions under which the president might take this step, and an analysis of these conditions shows that the president functions more as a passive executor of constitutional procedure rather than an active initiator of political change. Latvia offers something of an exception to the passive presidential role, as in this country the president can attempt to dis5

For example, in spring 2013 an intensive discussion was underway in e Czech Republic over whether the president was obliged to appoint ambassadors proposed by the minister of foreign affairs. e debate had certain piquancy to it in that the minister of foreign affairs at the time was Karel Schwarzenberg, Zeman’s main competitor in the January 2013 presidential election (for more about the election, see Kaniok, Hloušek 2013). A similar dispute took place in Hungary in 1991–1992 leading to an interpretation by the Constitutional Court, which reduced the powers of the president, or rather subsumed them to the will of other institutions. However, here one must consider the fact that the period when the office was held by the first democratically elected president Gönz was one in which a democratic transition was underway, and one that was marked by the gradual clarification and stabilisation of the political and constitutional bodies and the relations between them. Although Gönz attempted to wrestle for power with the government in his first term, he substantially restricted himself in his second. During Kučan’s first term disputes over jurisdiction also appeared in Slovenia, but they were resolved under his successor Drnovšek by the adoption of a new law which delineated presidential powers more clearly.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

281

solve parliament of his own free will by initiating a referendum; however, he risks automatically losing his mandate if the referendum does not confirm his choice.6 is resembles, to a degree, the situation in Lithuania in which the president can dissolve the parliament providing he observes an exact and strictly defined set of conditions, but following early parliamentary election the new parliament can also call an early presidential election. In Slovakia opposite logic is at work, balancing the president and the parliament in terms of allowing the dissolution of parliament by the president and the parliament’s removal of the president from office. e National Council can call a referendum that may lead to his removal from office. If the president is not removed by popular vote, however, the National Council is automatically dissolved and a new parliamentary election held. Similarly, in a joint session, the two chambers of the Romanian parliament can call a referendum, but do not risk their own dissolution in the process. Most presidents also enjoy the right to suspensive veto of legislation adopted by the parliament, and this is oen connected with an option on their part to initiate a procedure examining the constitutionionality of the law in question. e Slovenian president is the only one who does not have suspensive veto over acts of parliament and the Czech president can exercise his veto only over ordinary, not constitutional, laws. e Polish president can initiate new laws and even call a nationwide referendum; however, the latter requires approval by the Senate. Similarly, in Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania the head of state can propose new laws. e Estonian and Slovenian presidents can issue decrees with the power of law in a state of emergency. Over the period studied some countries amended the method of electing the head of state from indirect to direct. In no case was this connected with a significant increase in the powers of the president. Either there was no change to his powers (e Czech Republic) or the changes were merely cosmetic (Slovakia). In Estonia and Latvia the attempts to change the method of election were unsuccessful and the method of indirect election by the parliament was preserved.

6

e Latvian president can also be removed by the parliament; however this requires a very broad political agreement across parliamentary party groups.

282

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

The influence of historical tradition During the establishment or re-creation of a democratic regime and the construction of its institutions, historical tradition has played a role in a number of countries; regardless of how modest this tradition was in terms of the depth and permanency of democratic governance. Whereas, in Western Europe the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were marked by comparably more gradual emergence and stabilisation of liberal democracy patterns within the political system, in Central and Eastern Europe contemporary political history saw a period of significant turbulence. e pervasion of liberalism and democracy was slow and small successes along the way were accompanied by numerous fundamental reversals towards authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes, whose duration lasted for much of the period from the end of World War I to the fall of the ‘really existing’ socialist regimes. e table that follows synoptically illustrates this fact. To simplify matters slightly, we can assert that during the interwar period democratic political systems played more than an episodic role in some of the countries studied here (Czechoslovakia, the Baltic countries and in part the Balkan states). In this period, our focus excludes all of the interwar monarchies (Bulgaria, formally Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia), leaving only Czechoslovak, Estonian and Latvian tradition. ese traditions do not however constitute any kind of a unified model, the impact of which could be generally observed in the postcommunist era. It was perhaps in the Czech Republic that the interwar tradition proved most influential aer 1989. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk established a model in which the president was endowed with a moral and in some sense a nonpartisan authority. However, in the practice of his governance, TGM (the abbreviation of his name that remains universally understood in the country) had a tendency to test, and overstep, the limits set by the constitution, as well as promote his political goals by virtue of the strength of his personality, above or beyond the frame of party politics. Václav Havel, whom the moralising and personal conception of politics suited very well indeed, emulated him in this.7 Even 7

A specific proof of the strength of TGM’s tradition was the fact that even aer the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia acceded to power in February 1948, and in May

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

283

Table 17: Transformations of political regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, 1918–1945 Country

Democracy

Non-democratic regime

Bulgaria

1918–1919 1926–1934 1944–1945

1920–1923 (radical agrarianism) 1923–1926 (authoritarian regime) 1934–1944 (authoritarian regime, various leaders)

Czechoslovakia

1918–1938

1938–1939 (authoritarian regime) 1939–1945 (Fascism in Slovakia)

1939–1945 (German)

Estonia

1918–1934

1934–1940 (authoritarian regime)

1940–1945 (Soviet and German)

Hungary

1918–1919

1919 (communist) 1919–1920 (military) 1920–1944 (authoritarian regime) 1944 (fascist)

1944–1945 (Soviet)

Latvia

1918–1934

1934–1940 (authoritarian regime)

1940–1945 (Soviet and German)

Lithuania

1918–1926

1926–1940 (authoritarian regime)

1940–1945 (Soviet and German)

Poland

1918–1926

1926–1939 (authoritarian regime)

1939–1945 (Soviet and German)

Romania

1918–1937 1944–1945

1938–1944 (military authoritarian regime, various leaders)

Yugoslavia

1918–1929

1929–1941 (authoritarian regime) 1941–1945 (fascism in Croatia)

Occupation

1941–1945 (German and Italian)

Source: Cabada, Hloušek, Jurek 2014: 24.

aer Havel’s mandate expired in 2003, the notion of a nonpartisan president, with a distinctive and strong political personality, remains deeply ingrained in the Czech public consciousness. In Slovakia, Masaryk’s tradition was far less effective because he embodied a centralist policy, accommodating few Slovak demands. Neither could Slovaks draw on the tradition of the war-time Slovak state and its collaborationist of the same year when a new constitution was adopted, the presidential office was preserved and the model of a communist collective head of state, favoured at the time, was not chosen. is model was perhaps developed in the most sophisticated way in Slovenia – see the chapter by Alenka Krašovec and Damjan Lajh in this volume.

284

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

president, and so the position of the Slovak president had to be established post-1992 from scratch.8 Interwar Estonia was inspired by Switzerland when writing its constitution, and this meant, among other things, that according to the 1920 constitution there was no specific head of state in Estonia’s political system. e constitution was amended in the 1930s and the office of president was specified, but in reality, the office was only established in 1938, when a new constitution inaugurated the presidential political system, located on the borderline between democracy and authoritarianism.9 When Estonia regained independence, the new constitution renewed the presidential office with significantly restricted powers. In Latvia the interwar period established a tradition of weak presidents (not considering the period of the authoritarian regime). is constitutional tradition was renewed in the early 1990s when the Soviet occupation ended, although some Latvian presidents (Guntis Ulmanis and Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga) have generally sought to play a more important role than their interwar predecessors, despite the fact that they were typically elected as compromise candidates.

Summary of the presidents’ attempts to overstep or push the limits In this section, we are going to present an overview of how heads of state try to “push the limits” and the tools they have at their disposal. We tried to order these tactics according to relative importance and frequency of use starting with the “classical” instrument of suspensive veto and finishing with more informal tools connected with the previous political careers of presidential office holders. One instrument routinely used by presidents is the suspensive veto. is is not a tool that would automatically be used to block the adoption of legislation en masse. Although political opponents of both Václav Havel and Václav Klaus oen criticised this mechanism of exerting influence, Havel’s veto was only successful four times out of 24 and 8

9

For pragmatic reasons president Schuster sought to perform the role of a non-partisan breaker of barriers between political parties, but later shied towards rigorous criticism of Dzurinda’s government. Interestingly, even this strong president was elected indirectly by parliament.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

285

Klaus’s eleven times out of 52; revealing that it was used very selectively and was seldom successful, being overridden by the Czech Chamber of Deputies in most cases. It is oen true that a president uses the right of veto unevenly, and that the use is directly related to the government being from the same or an opposing political camp to the president.10 e right to propose new laws is used by presidents much more sparingly. In Hungary, for example, it was only used three times, by Arpád Gönz. In Estonia the president could even initiate constitutional change; yet this was attempted only once in 2001 by Meri, who unsuccessfully sought to introduce a direct presidential election.11 Only certain Polish presidents (Wałęsa and notably Kaczyński) can therefore be described as active proposers of laws. In this area, the practice of Central and Eastern European EU member countries corresponds to the parliamentary regime and the conception of the government as a crucial component of the executive. Even in semi-presidential Romania, when an attempt was made by president Basescu (in 2009–2011) to shi the political system towards full presidentialism it failed, eliciting an extraordinarily sharp response from government and parliament alike. Václav Havel also regularly sought to circumvent parliament and government (or, in the era of the Czechoslovak Federation, national and federal governments) and directly address the citizens, albeit with relatively small genuine success and questionable political results. In the years 1991 and 1992 this was almost constant. Havel also attempted to draw the Constitutional Court into a political game.12 Generally the 10

11

12

Examples include: Schuster against Dzurinda’s government and Gašparovič against Radičová’s in Slovakia; the socialist president Parvanov against Borrisov (GERB) in Bulgaria; and leist presidents Drnovšek and Türk against Janez Janša’s government in Slovenia. Polish political scientists even use the term ‘cohabitation’ to describe the synchronicities of president and prime minister from different political camps, without necessarily suggesting that Poland would be shiing towards semi-presidentialism. In 2007 Ilves also initiated a constitutional amendment, but the result was that the power of the president to appoint the commander-in-chief of the army was curtailed. Interestingly, Václav Klaus chose not to do this because he was not a supporter of the Constitutional Court as an institution and his opinions diverged from those held by many judges. e only noteworthy exception to this was his delaying tactic in 2008–2009, when Klaus was supposed to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. Part of his tactic was the request that the Court should examine whether the Treaty was in accordance with the constitution. Symptomatically, the petition was submitted by certain ODS senators supported by Václav Klaus but not by the president directly.

286

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

following is true: the Czech president is as strong as the political parties allow him to be. If parties are at loggerheads, the actual power of the president increases.13 is is also true of Latvia, where the fragmentation of the party system occasionally provides the head of state with the opportunity to play an active role as conciliator and seeker of political compromise. Estonian presidents have also traditionally been rhetorically active towards citizens, without, however, seeking to increase their political power.14 In Latvia under Ulmanis and Freiberga, a specific foreign policy role was enacted by the president in representing the country abroad; although this can be attributed to the infancy of the independent Latvian state and the presidents’ personal experiences with foreign missions, rather than to their attempts to accrue excessive power. In contrast, Lech Wałęsa’s interference in Poland’s foreign and security policies in the early 1990s had the immediate aim of increasing or enforcing a greater power for the president at the expense of the government. Such political disputes between the president and government, which oen include disagreements over questions of jurisdiction, have appeared systematically in the Romanian semi-presidential system since the early 1990s, albeit only during periods of cohabitation. Both constitutions of democratic Romania (1991 and 2003) are constructed in such a manner as to force the president and the government/prime minister to share executive power, which is exceedingly difficult during cohabitation, due to the very high polarisation of the Romanian party system.15 In the period when the Polish constitutional system had not yet fully consolidated itself into a parliamentary democracy, Lech Wałęsa was a man of great initiative and actively involved in debates 13

14

15

With Václav Havel this became apparent at the turn of 1997 and 1998 when ODS split up, with Václav Klaus in 2005, when the ČSSD suffered from internal disputes. On the contrary, in the 2009–2010 crisis of government and governance political parties did not make such a mistake and kept the installation and operation of the caretaker cabinet at the time firmly in their hands. At the very least this helps the presidents to maintain the prestige of their office which tends to be the state authority most trusted by the citizens in the long-term. is is generally true of countries where presidents successfully project their non-partisan image. Indeed, in Estonia the president must not be a member of any political party. e president’s party loyalties are fundamental, despite the constitutional stipulation prohibiting the president from party membership and demanding ‘neutrality’.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

287

seeking to define the role of the president, and in political struggles within the Solidarity movement known as the ‘war at the top’. Some heads of state sought to directly influence, or at least complicate, the process of forming governments by pushing their own ideas about who the future prime minister should be or by being intentionally passive, as was the Slovak president Schuster following the 2002 election. Aer the 2011 election in Slovenia, President Türk refused to nominate Janša, the leader of the strongest Slovenian party, due to a personal and political fight between them in February 2010. Janša had attempted to initiate impeachment proceedings against Türk but failed to secure the necessary support in parliament. Janša was eventually not only nominated, but also confirmed as prime minister. Nevertheless the personal dispute between the two continued to the very end of Türk’s term. It must be stressed here, however, that this dispute was as much political as personal, and there was no significant overspill into questions of jurisdiction between the government and the head of state qua bodies of state. A similar dispute appeared in Lithuania in 2012, but this derived from a more complicated background. Aer election, the president Dalia Grybauskaitė refused to designate the leader of the victorious social democrats Butkevičius prime minister, as the latter sought a coalition with the Labour Party, two members of which were facing accusations of having bought votes for the party in the 2012 parliamentary election. e president eventually yielded and Butkevičius was appointed prime minister in December 2012, aer which his government won a vote of confidence. Another tactic involves not appointing candidates to various offices nominated by parliament or government (for instance the attorney general in Slovakia in 1993 and again in 2011–2013). Presidents who have been involved in the highest level of party politics before taking office, or are considering the continuation of their political careers aer the expiry of their term, may seek to play a specific role. Two of Slovenia’s country’s four presidents (Drnovšek and Pahor), for example, transferred directly from the prime minister’s to the president’s office, and the first president, Kučan, was for many years a top communist politician with considerable experience in both the secretariat of the League of Communists of Slovenia and in executive politics. In Slovenia we can also observe presidents’ attempts to create new platforms of political influence. Aer his mandate ended,

288

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Milan Kučan founded the movement Forum 21, and Janez Drnovšek inspired the Movement for Rightness and Development whilst still in office. In 1993, Lech Wałęsa founded BBWR, in an unambiguous attempt to create his ‘own’ party while in office. None of these acts were of any political importance, however. is proves that in the prevailing Central European concept of presidents as non-partisan authorities, it is difficult to return to the waters of party politics. Not all politically active behaviour on the part of heads of state can be explained by their attempts to strengthen the role and power of the presidential office. In Slovakia under president Kováč and prime minister Mečiar, a specific phenomenon could be observed: the president defended parliamentarism and parliament, fearing excessive strengthening of the executive power. Similarly, the activities of the Hungarian president Sólyom were not motivated by an aim to increase presidential powers. Sólyom sought to set the agenda in the fields of environmental policy and to assert the rights of Hungarians living abroad, without entering into conflicts of jurisdiction with the government. us, he tried to play a more active role in an informal discussion.

When the parliament strikes back Responses on the part of governments or parliaments, directed towards putting the presidents in their place, naturally accompany the attempts of the heads of state in Central and Eastern Europe to accrue more power. is oen occurs in the context of heightened political rhetoric, but here we are interested in attempts to remove presidents from office or to prosecute them.16 In March 2013, the Czech parliament’s Senate accused president Václav Klaus of high treason. Reasons for this, cited by the senators were that for a long time Klaus failed to appoint judges, and had not signed the European Social Charter’s additional protocol on the system of collective complaints. However, in January 2013 a large-scale amnesty was 16

We will not deal here with cases such as that of the German president Christian Wulff who resigned in February 2012 when it was uncovered that a family trip to Oktoberfest in Bavaria was funded by a businessman as part of his lobbying efforts, or that of Pál Schmitt who resigned from the post of Hungarian president in April 2012 because he plagiarised parts of his doctoral dissertation.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

289

granted by Klaus, as a result of which the prosecution of many corruption cases dating to the 1990s was abandoned, and this was emphasised in the petition. is step was taken by a group of (mostly) le-wing senators and was also controversial from the outset, not only politically but also constitutionally. e problematic nature of the accusation was soon confirmed, with the Constitutional Court ceasing proceedings. e political effects of these strident steps against Klaus were apparent at the symbolic level, as his rating plunged to a record low, especially when the amnesty proved to be an issue for the overwhelming majority of voters regardless of their party loyalties. e impeachment that led to the removal of the Lithuanian president Rolandas Paksas from office in 2004 had both a political and economic background. e main reason was a link to a corruption case in which an important businessman of Russian descent had ‘bought’ the issue of a special presidential decree granting him Lithuanian citizenship. Aer hearing the impeachment case the Constitutional Court abolished the decree and banned Paksas from standing in the parliamentary election. Paksas was removed from office in April 2004 and his party had to rename itself in order to stand for election (Balcere 2012: 47–49). Nonetheless it was the Romanian president Traian Băsescu who found himself in the most difficult of situations; having to withstand two attempts to impeach him, in 2007 and 2012. In both cases, referenda confirmed Băsescu’s position and stated that he was able to remain in office. Romania also witnessed disputes between government and parliament on one side and the president on the other during periods of cohabitation when presidents Iliescu and Constantinescu held office. In this case there is one important difference, which explains the acuteness of the conflict during Traian Băsescu’s rule. Iliescu and Constantinescu became involved in an argument with the government at a time of political crisis (1991 and 1999), whereas Băsescu sought to accrue institutional and personal power systematically and over the long-term. Even where the constitution does not provide adequate instruments, it is still possible to fight an inconvenient president on the symbolic level of politics, as was the case in Slovakia in 1995. e National Council symbolically passed a vote of no confidence in president Kováč, although this had no real consequence aside from heightening the political struggle between Kováč and Mečiar’s governments.

290

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

Conclusion It is becoming apparent that attempts by presidents to strengthen their political authority appear relatively frequently, but also inconsistently, in the political systems of the ten EU member countries in Central and Eastern Europe.17 What matters is not so much the constitutional setting as the specific political configuration and the personal qualities, abilities and ambitions of the individual holders of presidential offices. e most common reason for the heightened or extraordinary activity of presidents arises in the political disputes between president and government, wherein each side is from an opposite political camp. With the exception of Poland, this essentially means competition between the le and the right; in Poland, various versions of right-wing politics vie with each other. Presidents habitually seek to liaise with a political party or current, and in such cases what matters is whether s/he is ‘cohabitating’18 or supporting a politically proximate government.19 It is interesting that these personal political sympathies and antipathies affect not only the decisions of those presidents who have directly emerged from party politics without much attempt to conceal the fact, but also of those who, oen even during electoral campaigns, sought to verbally define themselves as non-partisan candidates. It is also true though, that a strong party connection, whether formal or factual, does not always strengthen the head of state. A number of cases analysed in this book tend to show precisely the opposite: during ‘cohabitation’, a too partisan president becomes embroiled in sometimes futile disputes, which can undermine his/her authority. Yet when a politically allied government is in office, the head of state is very oen in thrall to a strong prime minister. It seems therefore that for a president who seeks to be politically active and to exercise real power, the appropriate tactic for optimally framing the execution of their office is not just a verbal, 17 18

19

We exclude Croatia from the list because Croatia entered the EU in 2013. We use the term ‘cohabitation’ in inverted commas here so that its metaphorical usage is apparent. In no way should it suggest a semi-presidential regime. A radical change in behaviour could be observed, for example, with the Slovak president Gašparovič, who had been close to Fico’s Smer. He oen used suspensive veto against Radičová’s government but was entirely passive when Fico was the prime minister.

12. THE POLITICAL ROLE OF PRESIDENTS IN THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

291

but a factual non-partisanship, which will allow them greater political manoeuvrability. Finally and crucially, attempts to strengthen the role of president are also dependent upon his/her personality and charisma. Some presidents were elected not despite, but because of their political weaknesses, as compromise candidates acceptable to the majority of parties. is mostly occurs where the president is elected indirectly, however. In countries where election is direct, elections are routinely contested by strong political personalities, oen with considerable previous political experience and strong ambition. Such presidents habitually take advantage of situations where traditional party politics finds itself in crisis, for various reasons, to strengthen, at least temporarily, their political role. If in doing so they manage to preserve the impression of non-partisan, statesman-like behaviour, they are then largely popular with the public. In summary, Central and Eastern European presidents’ attempts to exercise greater influence in the politics of their countries will continue in the future and will depend on the two circumstances described above. Some may even try to carefully open up the issue of the constitutional definition of the head of state. eir attempts to do so hitherto, as analysed through the examples of the countries studied in this book, have ended in failure. We therefore venture to assert that parliamentarism is likely to remain the prevailing form of political system in those EU member countries, which have formerly experienced a communist regime.

293

SUMMARY

SUMMARY e book aims at an examination of the discrepancies between the formal and actual positions of presidents in Central and Eastern European countries, especially those which are classified as parliamentary democracies and those which have semi-presidential features. Constitutionally, presidents are normally endowed with symbolic functions and duties that are shared with the government (such as appointment of important officials), regardless of whether they are elected directly or indirectly. Governments are thus typically perceived of as being the dominant executive institutions. e influence of presidents in select political systems is not only contingent upon the letter of the constitution, but also historically rooted in constitutional traditions, as well as the personal charisma and power wielded by specific presidents. In the individual case studies, the authors seek to explain these occasional or regular attempts to overstep the limits set on presidential power by the constitution, and the concluding chapter will provide their comparative evaluation. e book consists of nine case studies analysing selected Central and Eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania) and a concluding comparative chapter. It is becoming apparent that attempts by presidents to strengthen their political authority appear relatively frequently, but also inconsistently, in the political systems of the ten EU member countries in Central and Eastern Europe. What matters is not so much the constitutional setting as the specific political configuration and the personal qualities, abilities and ambitions of the individual holders of presidential offices. e most common reason for the heightened or extraordinary activity of presidents arises in the political disputes between presidents and governments, wherein each side is from an opposite political camp. With the exception of Poland, this essentially means competition between the le and the right; in Poland, various versions of right-wing politics vie with each other. Presidents habitually seek to liaise with a political party or current, and in such cases what matters is whether s/he is ‘cohabitating’ or supporting a politically proximate government. It is interesting that these personal political sympathies and antipathies affect not only the decisions of those presidents who have directly emerged from party politics without much

294

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

attempt to conceal the fact; but also of those who, oen even during electoral campaigns, sought verbally to define themselves as non-partisan candidates. It is also true though, that a strong party connection, whether formal or factual, does not always strengthen the head of state. A number of cases analysed in this book tend to show precisely the opposite: during ‘cohabitation’, a too partisan president becomes embroiled in sometimes futile disputes, which can undermine his/her authority. Yet when a politically allied government is in office, the head of state is very oen in thrall to a strong prime minister. It seems therefore that for a president who seeks to be politically active and to exercise real power, the appropriate tactic for optimally framing the execution of their office is not just a verbal, but a factual non-partisanship, which will allow them greater political manoeuvrability. Finally and crucially, attempts to strengthen the role of president are also dependent upon his/her personality and charisma. Some presidents were elected not despite, but because of their political weaknesses, as compromise candidates acceptable to the majority of parties. But this mostly occurs when the president is elected indirectly. In countries where election is direct, elections are routinely contested by strong political personalities, oen with considerable previous political experience and strong ambition. Such presidents habitually take advantage of situations where traditional party politics finds itself in crisis to strengthen, at least temporarily, their political role. If in doing so they manage to preserve the impression of non-partisan, statesman-like behaviour, they are then largely popular with the public. In summary, Central and Eastern European presidents’ attempts to exercise greater influence in the politics of their countries will continue in the future and will depend on the two circumstances described above. Some may even try to carefully open up the issue of the constitutional definition of the head of state. eir attempts to do so hitherto, as analysed through the examples of the countries studied in this book, have ended in failure. We therefore venture to assert that parliamentarism is likely to remain the prevailing form of political system in those EU member countries, which have formerly experienced a communist regime.

295

REFERENCES

REFERENCES

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • •

1920.a. Põhiseadus/ Constitution of 1920 1937/38 Põhiseadus/ Constitution of 1937/1938 1992.a. Põhiseadus/ Constitution of 1992 Aasland, Aadne – Berit Grødeland, Åse – Pleines, Heiko (2012): Trust and Informal Practice among Elites in East Central Europe, South East Europe and the West Balkans. Europe-Asia Studies 64(1): 115–143. Ajnenkiel, Andrzej (1991): Polskie Konstytucje. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. Alberski, Robert (2010): Ewolucja relacji między władzą wykonawczą a ustawodawczą w Polsce. In: Antoszewski, Andrzej – Kolodia, Antonina – Kowalczyk, Krzysztof (eds.): Transformacja w Polsce i na Ukrainie, Wrocław: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT. Alberski, Robert (2005): Władza wykonawcza. In: Lisicka, Halina (ed.): System polityczny Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Wrocław: Biuro Doradztwa Ekologicznego. Amorim Neto, Octavio – Strøm, Kaare (2006): Breaking the Parliamentary Chain of Delegation: Presidents and Non-partisan Cabinet Members in European Democracies. British Journal of Political Science 36 (4): 619–643. Andersons, Edgars (1992a): Četri prezidenti: Jānis Čakste. Latvijas vēsture 1992/3: 21–25. Andersons, Edgars (1992b): Četri prezidenti: Gustavs Zemgals. Latvijas vēsture 1992/ 4: 16–19. Antoszewski, Andrzej (1997): Forma rządu. In: Antoszewski, Andrzej – Herbut, Ryszard (eds.): Demokracje Europy Środkowo – Wschodniej w perspektywie porównawczej. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo UWr. Antoszewski, Andrzej (1998): Instytucje władzy ustawodawczej i wykonawczej. In: Antoszewski, Andrzej – Herbut, Ryszard (eds.): Polityka w Polsce w latach 90. Wybrane problemy. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo UWr. Asutaw Kogu I Istungjärk, protokollid 1-22, Kirjastuse o-ü Täht, Tallinna, s.a./ Protocols of the First session of the Constituent Assembly Auers, Daunis (2013): Latvia. In: Berglund, Sten et al: e Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe. 3rd edition. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Auers, Daunis (2011): Europe and the 2011 early Parliamentary Election in Latvia. European Parties Elections and Referendums Network Election Briefing No. 66. Sussex European Institute (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sei/research/europeanpartieselectionsr eferendumsnetwork/epernelectionbriefings); accessed June 12, 2013. Balcere, Ilze (2012): Baltic Countries. In: Havlík, Vlastimil – Pinková, Aneta et al.: Populist Political Parties in East-Central Europe. Brno: muni Press, 39–71. Balík, Stanislav – Hloušek, Vít – Holzer, Jan – Šedo, Jakub (2003): Politický systém českých zemí 1848–1989. Brno: MPÚ. Balík, Stanislav (2002): Tři roky svobody? Pretotalitní režim v Československu v letech 1945–1948. Rexter 00/2002 (http://www.rexter.cz/tri-roky-svobody-pretotalitni-rezim-v-ceskoslovensku-v-letech-1945-1948/2002/11/01/); accessed June 11, 2013.

296

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Balšínek, Dalibor – Korecký, Miroslav (2007): Smrtící zkušenost vládnutí (interview with V. Klaus). Týden 2, 8. 1. 2007, 24. • Baylis, omas A. (2007): Embattled executives: Prime ministerial weakness in East Central Europe. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 40 (1): 81–106 • Baylis, omas A. (1996): Presidents versus Prime Ministers: Shaping Executive Authority in Eastern Europe. World Politics 48(3): 297–323. • Bek, Lukáš (2005): Klaus: demise přijmu, když Gross slíbí, že požádá Sněmovnu o důvěru (interview with V. Klaus). Právo 2. 4. 2005, 1. • Bek, Lukáš – Lidmila, Ivan (2005): Paroubek chce omezit Klausovi cesty. Právo 27. 5. 2005, 1. • Beyme, Klaus von (2000): Parliamentary Democracy. Democratization, Destabilization, Reconsolidation, 1789–1999. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. • Biezen, Ingrid van (2000): On the Internal Balance of Party Power: Party Organizations in New Democracies. Party Politics VI(4): 395–417. • Blondel, Jean (1984): Dual leadership in the contemporary world: a step towards regime stability? In: Kavanagh, Dennis – Peele, Gillian (eds.): Comparative Government and Politics: Essays in Honor of S.E. Finer. Boulder, Col.: Westview Press. • Boh, Tomaž – Lajh, Damjan (2003): Predsedniški kandidati in desne politične stranke 1992–2002. In: Fink-Hafner, Danica – Boh, Tomaž (eds.): Predsedniške volitve 2002. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, 153–174. • Bojārs, Juris (2001): Satversmes Grozijumi. Pamphlet published by Latvian Social Democratic Worker’s Party. • Brady, Henry E – Kaplan, Cynthia S. (1994): Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. In: Butler, David – Ranney, Austin (eds): Referendums around the World. Houndmills – London: MacMillan. • Brody, Richard A. (1991): Assessing the president: e media, elite opinion, and public support. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. • Brunclík, Miloš (2008): Role prezidenta při vládních krizích v České republice. In Novák, Miroslav – Brunclík, Miloš (ed.): Postavení hlavy státu v parlamentních a poloprezidentských režimech: Česká republika v komparativní perspektivě. Praha: Dokořán, 286–309. • Bunce, Valerie (1997): Presidents and the Transition in Eastern Europe. In: Mettenheim, Kurt von (ed.): Presidential Institutions and Democratic Politics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 161–176. • Bútorová, Zora – Gyárfášová, Oľga (2008): Verejná mienka. In Kollár, Miroslav – Mesežnikov, Grigorij – Bútora, Martin (eds.): Slovensko 2007. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti. Bratislava: IVO, 233–276. • Cabada, Ladislav – Hloušek, Vít – Jurek, Petr (2014): Party Systems in East Central European Countries. Lanham: Lexington Books (forthcoming). • Cameron, Charles M. – McCarty, Nolan (2004): Models of Vetoes and Veto Bargaining. Annual Review of Political Science, 7: 400–435. • Cerar, Miro (1999): Slovenia. In: Elgie, Robert (ed.): Semi-Presidentialism in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 232–259. • Chary, Frederick B. (2011): e History of Bulgaria. Santa Barbara: Greenwood. • Cheibub, José Antonio (2007): Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Chrastilová, Brigita – Mikeš, Petr (2003): Prezident Václav Havel a jeho vliv na československý a český právní řád. Praha: ASPI.

REFERENCES

297

• Chruściak, Ryszard (2011): Spór o konstytucyjne kompetencje Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Studia Politologiczne 19: 13–33. • Collier, David – Gerring, John (eds.) (2008): Concepts and Method in Social Science: e Tradition of Giovanni Sartori. New York: Routledge. • Colomer, Josep M. (2008): Spain and Portugal: Rule by Party Leadership. In: Colomer, Josep M. (ed.): Comparative European politics. ird Edition. London – New York: Routledge, 174–207. • Constitution of the Bulgarian principality 1879 (http://www.parliament.bg/bg/17) ); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Czech Republic, 1992 (http://www.psp.cz/cgi-bin/eng/docs/laws/ 1993/1.html); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of Czechoslovakia, 1920 (http://www.psp.cz/docs/texts/constitution_ 1920.html); accessed 25 March 2013. • Constitution of People’s Republic of Bulgaria, 1947 (http://www.parliament.bg/bg/ 18) ); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of People’s Republic of Bulgaria, 1971, (http://www.parliament.bg/bg/ 19) ); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, 1991 (http://www.parliament.bg/en/const); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Republic of Estonia, 1992 (http://www.president.ee/en/republicof-estonia/the-constitution/index.html); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, 1922/1993 (http://www.saeima.lv/en/ legislation/constitution); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, 1992 (http://www3.lrs.lt/home/ Konstitucija/Constitution.htm); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Republic of Poland, 1997 (http://www.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/konst/ angielski/kon1.htm); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of Romania, 1991 (http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?id=371) ); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of the Slovak Republic, 1992 (http://www.concourt.sk/en/A_ustava/ ustava_a.pdf); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Constitution of Slovenia, 1991 (http://www.us-rs.si/media/full.text.of.the.constitutio n.full.text.pdf); accessed April, 4, 2013. • Cottam, Martha L. – Dietz-Uhler, Beth – Mastors, Elena – Preston, omas (2010): Introduction to Political Psychology, 2nd edition. New York: Psychology Press. • Črnič, Aleš (2007): Predsednik za novo dobo: religiološka analiza Drnovškovega obrata. Družboslovne razprave XXXIII (56): 21–37. • Črnič, Aleš (2009): e Changing Concept of New Age: A Case Study of Spiritual Transformation of the Slovenian President. Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies IV: 17–29. • Deegan-Krause, Kevin (2000): Accountability and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame. • Deegan-Krause, Kevin (2006): Elected Affinities: Democracy and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. • Delo (2011): Nova vlada do svetih treh kraljev, Interview with Danilo Türk, 15.10. 2011. • Dezső, Márta (2010, ed.): Constitutional Law in Hungary. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International.

298

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Dnevnik (2006): Gibanju dva svetnika, 24.10.2006; http://www.dnevnik.si/slovenija/ v-ospredju; accessed June 12, 2013. • Duverger, Maurice (1992): A New Political System Model: Semi-Presidential. In: Lijphart, Arend (ed.): Parliamentary versus Presidential Government. Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press, 142–149. • Dvořáková, Vladimíra – Kunc, Jiří (1994): O přechodech k demokracii. Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství. • Dziemidok-Olszewska, Boźena (2003): Instytucja prezydenta w państwach Europy Środkowo – Wschodniej. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS. • Eesti Vabariigi Põhiseadus. Kommenteeritud väljaanne, 2012/ Constitution of 1992. A Commentary • Elgie, Robert (2011): Semi-presidentialism: An Increasingly Common Constitutional Choice. In: Elgie, Robert – Moestrup, Sophia – Wu, Yu-Shan (eds.): Semi-Presidentialism and Democracy. Basingstoke – New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1–20. • Elgie, Robert (ed.) (1999a): Semi-Presidentialism in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Elgie, Robert (1998): e Classification of Democratic Regime Types: Conceptual Ambiguity and Contestable Assumptions. European Journal of Political Research 33(2): 219–238. • Elgie, Robert (1999b): e Politics of Semi-Presidentialism. In: Elgie, Robert (ed.): Semi-Presidencialism in Europe. Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press, 1–21. • Elgie, Robert and Sophia Moestrup (eds.) (2008a): Semi-Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe, Manchester: Manchester University Press. • Elgie, Robert – Moestrup, Sophie (2008b): Semi-Presidentialism: A Common Regime Type, but One that Should be Avoided? In: Elgie, Robert – Moestrup, Sophia (eds.): Semi-Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1–13. • Elgie Robert – Moestrup Sophie (2008c): e Impact of Semi-presidentialism on the performance of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe In: Elgie, Robert – Moestrup, Sophia (eds.): Semi-Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press. • Estonian National Electoral Committee (www.vvk.ee); accesed June 12, 2013. • Fiala, Petr – Hloušek, Vít (2003). Stranický systém České republiky. In Fiala, Petr – Herbut, Ryszard et al.: Středoevropské systémy politických stran. Česká republika, Maďarsko, Polsko a Slovensko. Brno: Masarykova univerzita v Brně, 13–54. • Filip, Jan (2003): Ústavní právo. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. • Fink-Hafner, Danica (2006): Slovenia: Between Bipolarity and Broad Coalitionbuilding. In: Jungerstam-Mulders Susanne (ed.): Post-communist EU Member States: Parties and Party Systems. Aldershot, Burlington: Ashgate, 203–231. • Fink-Hafner, Danica – Boh, Tomaž (2003, eds.): Predsedniške volitve 2002. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. • Fink-Hafner, Danica – Lajh, Damjan (2003): Managing Europe from Home: the Europeanisation of the Slovenian Core Executive. Ljubljana: Faculty of Social Sciences. • Fink-Hafner, Danica, Damjan Lajh and Alenka Krašovec (2005): Politika na območju nekdanje Jugoslavije. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. • Fish, Steven (2000): e executive deception: Superpresidentialism and the degradation of Russian politics. In: Sperling, Valerie (ed.): Building the Russian state:

REFERENCES

• • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • •

299

Institutional crisis and the quest for democratic governance. Boulder: Westview Press, 177–192. Fortin, Jessica (2012): Measuring presidential powers: Some pitfalls of aggregate measurement. International Political Science Review 34(1): 91–112. Frič, Pavol (2001): Společensko politický kontext aktuálního vývoje neziskového sektoru v ČR. In Frič, Pavol – Goulli, Rochdi (eds.): Neziskový sektor v České republice. Praha: Eurolex, 2001, 73–125. Frye, Timothy (1997): A Politics of Institutional Choice: Post-Communist Presidencies. Comparative Political Studies 30(5): 523–552. Fundamental Law of Hungary, 2011 (http://www.mkab.hu/rules/fundamental-law); accessed April, 4, 2013. Garlicki, Leszek (2007): Polskie prawo konstytucyjne. Zarys wykładu. Warszawa: LIBER. Gerloch, Aleš et al. (1999): Ústavní systém České republiky. Praha: Prospektrum. Gilmour, John B. (2002): Institutional and Individual Influences on the President’s Veto. e Journal of Politics 64 (1): 198–218. Grad, Franc – Kaučič, Igor – Ribičič, Ciril – Kristan, Ivan (1996): Državna ureditev Slovenije. Ljubljana: Uradni list Republike Slovenije. Hammond, omas H. – Miller, Gary (1987): e core of the constitution. American Political Science Review 81(4): 1155–1174. Hanley, Séan (2005): Blue Velvet: e Rise and Decline of the New Czech Right. In: Szczerbiak, Aleks – Hanley, Séan (eds.): Centre-Right Parties in Post-Communist EastCentral Europe. London – New York: Routledge, 28–54. Hanley, Séan (2008): Embracing Europe, opposing EUrope?: e party politics of euroscepticism in the Czech Republic. In: Taggart, Paul – Szczerbiak, Aleks (eds.): Opposing Europe? e Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 243–262. Haughton, Tim (2005): Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Post-Communist Europe. Aldershot – Burlington: Ashgate. Haughton, Tim (2009): For Business, For Pleasure or For Necessity: e Czech Republic’s Choices for Europe. Europe-Asia Studies 61(8): 1371–1392. Haughton, Tim – Krašovec, Alenka (2013): e 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Slovenia. Electoral Studies XXIII(1): 197–208. Haughton, Tim – Novotná, Tereza – Deegan-Krause, Kevin (2011): e 2010 Czech and Slovak Parliamentary Elections: Red Cards to the ‘Winners’. West European Politics 34(2): 394–402. Havel, Václav (1978 samizdat /1990/): Moc bezmocných. Praha: Lidové noviny. Havel, Václav (1992): Vážení občané. Projevy červenec 1990 – červenec 1992. Praha: Lidové noviny. Havelka, Miloš (1998): “Nepolitická politika”: kontexty a tradice. Sociologický časopis 34(4): 455–466. Havlík, Vlastimil (2011): Česká republika. In: Balík, Stanislav; Havlík, Vlastimil et al.: Koaliční vládnutí ve střední Evropě (1990–2010). Brno: Mezinárodní politologický ústav Masarykovy univerzity, 39–90. Havlík, Vlastimil (2009): České politické strany a evropská integrace. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. Heimann, Mary (2009): Czechoslovakia: e State that Failed. London: Yale University Press.

300

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Henderson, Karen (2002): Slovakia: e Escape from Invisibility. London and New York: Routledge. • Herbut, Ryszard (1998): Proces demokratyzacji systemu politycznego – warunki i ograniczenia. In: Antoszewski, Andrzej – Herbut, Ryszard (eds.): Polityka w Polsce w latach 90. Wybrane problemy. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo UWr. • Hloušek, Vít (2008): Přímá volba prezidenta – český kontext. In Novák, Miroslav – Brunclík, Miloš (ed.): Postavení hlavy státu v parlamentních a poloprezidentských režimech: Česká republika v komparativní perspektivě. Praha: Dokořán, 263–285. • Hloušek, Vít – Kopeček, Lubomír (2003): Konsolidace demokracie a hybridní režimy – slovenský a chorvatský případ. Central European Political Science Review V(4) (http://www.cepsr.com/clanek.php?ID=180), accessed June 11, 2013. • Homepage of the Movement for Justice and Development: Gibanje za pravičnost in razvoj, http://www.gibanje.org/, accessed on 1 April 2013. • Horváth Péter (2009): Az elismerési szabály foglya. Az államfő szerepe a kormányalakításban. Politikatudományi Szemle XVIII(3): 91–111. • Horváth, Peter (2005): Prezident v politickom systéme Slovenskej republiky. Slovenská politologická revue V(3): 1–31. • Houska, Kamil (1998): Teď se ukáže, je-li Ruml politik (interview with Josef Lux). Právo, 23. 6. 1998, 1. • Hrstková, Julie (2000): Kauza Česká národní banka: Havel proti všem? Hospodářské noviny, 4. 12. 2000, 3. • Huntington Samuel P. (1991): e ird Wave. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. • Jičínský, Zdeněk (1993): Československý parlament v polistopadovém vývoji. Praha: Nadas-Afgh. • Kallas, Marian (1997): Historia ustroju Polski X-XX w. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. • Kaniok, Petr – Hloušek, Vít (2013): Europe and the Czech Presidential Election of January 2013. European Parliament Election Briefing, No. 72 (https://www.sussex.ac.uk/ webteam/gateway/file.php?name=epern-election-briefing-no-72.pdf&site=266); accessed May, 22, 2013. • Kasapović, Mirjana (1997): Parlamentarizam i prezidencijalizam u Istočnoj Europi. Politička misao XXXIV(1), 5–20. • Kasekamp, Andres (2000): e Radical Right in Interwar Estonia. London: MacMillan. • Kaučič, Igor – Grad, Franc (1999): Ustavna ureditev Slovenije. Ljubljana: Gospodarski vestnik. • Kavaliauskaitė, Jūratė – Ramonaitė, Ainė – Žiliukaitė, Rūta (2008): Porinkiminė apklausa, 2008 m. lapkritis. Vilnius: Vilniaus universitetas. • Klaus, Václav (1992): Takzvané škrty v ústavě. Mladá fronta Dnes, 4. 12. 1992. • Klaus, Václav (2001): Evropa Václava Klause. Praha: Knižní klub. • Klaus, Václav (2003): Rozhovor prezidenta pro německý týdeník Die Zeit, 16. 4. 2003 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klaus, Václav (2004a): Rozhovor prezidenta republiky Václava Klause pro deník Mladá Fronta Dnes, 30. 6. 2004 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klaus, Václav (2004b): Projev v předvečer vstupu České republiky do Evropské unie, Španělský sál, 30. 4. 2004 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013.

REFERENCES

301

• Klaus, Václav (2005): Rozhovor prezidenta republiky Václava Klause pro BBC, 25. 2. 2005 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klaus, Václav (2006a): Pozdrav prezidenta republiky delegátům XVII. kongresu ODS, 18. 11. 2006 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klaus, Václav (2006b): Tiskové prohlášení prezidenta republiky Václava Klause po schůzce s předsedou vlády Topolánkem ze dne 21. 12. 2006 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klaus, Václav (2008): Rozhovor prezidenta republiky Václava Klause pro MF Dnes, 29. 11. 2008 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klaus, Václav (2011): Odpovědi prezidenta republiky na otázky MF Dnes k aktuální situaci ve vládní koalici, 18. 4. 2011 (www.klaus.cz); accessed 25 March 2013. • Klíma, Karel (2004): Výkonná moc v parlamentním systému ČR (aneb nakolik je forma vlády v ČR ještě parlamentní)? In Hloušek, Vít – Šimíček, Vojtěch (ed.): Výkonná moc v ústavním systému České republiky. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, pp. 37–46. • Klimek, Antonín (1996): Boj o Hrad. 1. díl. Hrad a Pětka. Vnitropolitický vývoj Československa 1918–1926 na půdorysu zápasu o prezidentské nástupnictví. Praha: Panevropa. • Kopeček, Lubomír (2012a): Jak se zrodila opoziční smlouva. Analýza vzniku jednoho z nejkontroverznějších paktů české politiky. Soudobé dějiny XIX(1): 82–102. • Kopeček, Lubomír (2006): Demokracie, diktatury a politické stranictví na Slovensku. Brno: CDK. • Kopeček, Lubomír (2010): Éra nevinnosti: Česká politika 1989–1997. Brno: Barrister & Principal. • Kopeček, Lubomír (2012b): Fenomén Václav Klaus: Politická biografie. Brno: Barrister & Principal. • Kopeček, Lubomír (2007): Politické strany na Slovensku 1989–2006. Brno: CDK. • Kopecký, Petr (2006): e rise of the power monopoly: Political parties in the Czech republic. In: Jungerstam-Mulders, Susanne (ed.): Post-communist EU member states. Parties and party systems. Aldershot: Asghate, 125–146. • Korecký, Miroslav (2005): Čekání na Klause. Týden 16, 18. 4. 2005, 22. • Körösényi, András (2005): Párturalom és államfői szerep. A 2004-es kormányváltás legitimitásáról. In: Sándor Péter et al. (eds.): Magyarország politikai évkönyve, 2005. Budapest: DKMKA, 123–132. • Körösényi, András – Tóth, Csaba – Török, Gábor (2009): e Hungarian Political System. Hungarian Democracy Series. Budapest: DKMKA. • Kovács Virág (2001): A köztársasági elnök – “a végrehajtó hatalmon kívül” és “a politika felett”? Magyar Közigazgatás 51( 6): 352–362. • Kovács Virág (2011): A köztársasági elnök szabályozási koncepciójáról a születendő alkotmányban. Új Magyar Közigazgatás 3(2): 9–17. • Kozule, Emīlija (2007): Vike-Freiberga invites parties to carefully assess their work the past year and financial sources. 21 June 2007. LETA News Agency (www.leta.lv); accessed 10 March 2013. • Krašovec, Alenka – Haughton, Tim (2011): Europe and the Parliamentary Elections in Slovenia, December 2011. EPERN Election briefing No. 69 (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/ sei/research/europeanpartieselectionsreferendumsnetwork/epernelectionbriefings); accessed June 12, 2013.

302

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Krašovec, Alenka – Lajh, Damjan (2004): e Slovenian EU Accession Referendum: a Cat-and-Mouse Game. West European Politics XXVII(4): 603–623. • Krašovec, Alenka – Lajh, Damjan (2008): Slovenia: Weak Formal Position, Strong Informal Influence? In: Elgie, Robert – Moestrup, Sophia (eds.): Semi-Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, pp. 201–218. • Krašovec, Alenka – Lajh, Damjan (2009): Europe and the Parliamentary Elections in Slovenia, September 2008. EPERN Election briefing No. 46 (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/ sei/research/europeanpartieselectionsreferendumsnetwork/epernelectionbriefings); accessed June 12, 2013. • Krivý, Vladimír (2009): Voliči v prezidentských voľbách 2009. In: Mesežnikov, Grigorij – Gyárfášová, Oľga – Kollár, Miroslav (eds.): Slovensko volí. Európske a prezidentské voľby 2009. Bratislava: IVO, 131–168. • Krouwel, André (2003): Measuring presidentialism and parliamentarism: An Application to Central and East European Countries. Acta Politica 38(4): 333–364. • Krupavicius, Algis (2004): Lithuania. European Journal of Political Research 43 (7–8): 1059–1069. • Krupavicius, Algis (2005): Lithuania. European Journal of Political Research 44 (7–8): 1086–1101. • Krupavicius, Algis (2006): Lithuania. European Journal of Political Research 45 (7–8): 1166–1181. • Krupavicius, Algis (2007): Lithuania. European Journal of Political Research 46 (7–8): 1019–1031. • Krupavicius, Algis (2010): Lithuania. European Journal of Political Research 49 (7–8): 1058- 1075. • Krupavičius, Algis (2008): Semi-presidentialism in Lithuania: origins, development and challenges. In: Elgie, Robert – Moestrup, Sophia (eds.): Semi-presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 65–84. • Kubát, Michal (2008): Prezident v politickém systému Polska. In: Novák, Miroslav – Brunclík, Miloš (eds.): Postavení hlavy státu v parlamentních a poloprezidentských režimech: Česká republika v komparativní perspektivě. Praha: Dokořán, 119–133. • Kubát, Michal (2003): Přímá volba prezidenta v České republice? In: Kysela, Jan (ed.): Deset let Ústavy ČR. Praha: Eurolex Bohemia, 299–314. • Kubík, Jiří – Slonková, Sabina (2001): Premiér a prezident jsou na nože. Mladá fronta Dnes, 23. 1. 2001, 4. • Kukorelli, István (1995): Az alkotmányozás évtizede. Budapest: Korona Kiadó. • Kysela, Jan (2004): Výkonná moc jako objekt změn Ústavy ČR. In Hloušek, Vít – Šimíček, Vojtěch (eds.): Výkonná moc v ústavním systému České republiky. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 47–68. • Kysela, Jan (2006): Česká republika mezi parlamentním a poloprezidentským režimem? Politologická revue 12(1): 5–28. • Kysela, Jan (2008): Prezident republiky v ústavním systému ČR – perspektiva ústavněprávní. In Novák, Miroslav – Brunclík, Miloš (ed.): Postavení hlavy státu v parlamentních a poloprezidentských režimech: Česká republika v komparativní perspektivě. Praha: Dokořán, 235- 262. • Lajh, Damjan (2003): Vloga in položaj šefa države v socialistični Jugoslaviji in v državah, nastalih na ozemlju nekdanje Jugoslavije. In: Fink-Hafner, Danica – Boh,

REFERENCES

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

303

Tomaž (eds.): Predsedniške volitve 2002. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, 97–115. Lajh, Damjan (2009): Slovenia. In: Mootz, Lisa (ed.): Nations in Transit 2009: Democratization from Central Europe to Eurasia. New York – Washington (D.C.) – Budapest: Freedom House, 475–489. Latvian State President (www.president.lv); accessed 12 March 2013. Laver, Michael (2006): Legislatures and Parliaments in Comparative Context. In: Weingast, Barry – Wittman, Donald (eds.): Oxford Handbook of Political Economy. Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press, 121–140. Lebeda, Tomáš (2004): Volební reforma v ČR. Zmařený pokus z let 1998–2002. In: Novák, Miroslav – Lebeda, Tomáš a kol.: Volební a stranické systémy. ČR v mezinárodním srovnání. Plzeň: Aleš Čeněk, 347–364. Leschtina, Jiří (2001): Konec hry s ohněm. Respekt, 25. 6. 2001, 4. Leško, Marián (1996): Mečiar a mečiarizmus. Politik bez škrupúľ, politika bez zábran. Bratislava: VMV. Lijphart, Arend (1999): Patterns of democracy: government forms and performance in thirty-six countries. New Haven: Yale University Press. Linz, Juan J. – Stepan, Alfred (1996): Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lukošaitis Alvidas (1998) : Parlamentas ir parlamentarizmas nepriklausomoje Lietuvoje. 1918– 1940 ir 1990– 1997 m. In : Krupavičius, Algis (ed.) : Seimo rinkimai’ 96: trečiasis “atmetimas”. Kaunas: Tvermė. Mägi, Artur (1967): Das Staatsleben Estlands während seiner Selbständigkeit. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Magone, Jose (2011): Contemporary European Politics. London: Routledge. Mainwaring, Scott (1993): Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: e Difficult Combination. Comparative Political Studies 26(2): 198–228. Malová, Darina – Hauhgton, Tim (2002): Making Institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Impact of Europe. West European Politics 25(2): 101–120. Maruste, Rait (1997): Põhiseadus ja selle järelvalve. Tallinn: Juura, Õigusteabe AS. Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue (1925): Světová revoluce. Za války a ve válce 1914–1918. Praha: Čin a Orbis. Matsuzato Kimitaka (2005) Semi-presidentialism in Ukraine: Institutionalist Centrism in Rampant Clan Politics. Hokaido University – Slavic Research Center. Matsuzato Kimitaka – Gudžinskas Liutauras (2006): An Eternally Unfinished Parliamentary Regime? Semipresidentialism as a Prism to View Lithuanian Politics. Acta Slavica Iaponica 23: 146–170. Matulík, Jan (2001): Soud dal prezidentovi za pravdu. Hospodářské noviny, 21. 6. 2001, 11. McGregor, James (1994): e Presidency in East Central Europe. RFE/RL Research Report 3(2): 23–31. Menschik, Tomáš (2005): Silnější prezident? Přesnější Ústava? Týden č. 10, 7. 3. 2005, 28. Mesežnikov, Grigorij (1997): Vnútropolitický vývoj a politická scéna. In: Bútora, Martin (ed.): Slovensko 1996. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti a trendoch na rok 1997. Bratislava: IVO, 15–36.

304

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Mesežnikov, Grigorij (1998): Vnútropolitický vývoj a systém politických strán. In: Bútora, Martin – Ivantyšyn, Michal (eds.): Slovensko 1997. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti a trendoch na rok 1998. Bratislava: IVO, 19–98. • Mesežnikov, Grigorij (2000): Vnútropolitický vývoj a systém politických strán. In: Kollár, Miroslav – Mesežnikov, Grigorij (eds.): Slovensko 2000. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti. Bratislava: IVO, 17–124. • Mesežnikov, Grigorij (2002): Vnútropolitický vývoj a systém politických strán. In: Kollár, Miroslav – Mesežnikov, Grigorij (eds.): Slovensko 2002. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti. Bratislava: IVO, 19–126. • Mesežnikov, Grigorij (2009): Vnútropolitický vývoj a systém politických strán. In: Bútora, Martin – Kollár, Miroslav – Mesežnikov, Grigorij (eds.): Slovensko 2008. Súhrnná správa o stave spoločnosti. Bratislava: IVO, 17–126. • Metcalf, Lee Kendal (2000): Measuring Presidential Power. Comparative Political Studies 33(5): 660–685. • Методиев В., Стоянов Л. (1987): Българските държавни институции 1879–1986. София. (Metodiev, V., Stoyanov.L, e Bulgarian state institutions 1879–1986, Sofia, 1987). • Michalič, Sergej (1997): Referendum: Od petičnej akcie cez zmarenie k rozhodnutiu prokurátora. In: Mesežnikov, Grigorij – Bútora, Martin (eds.): Slovenské referendum ´97: zrod, priebeh, dôsledky. Bratislava: IVO, 43–82. • Millard, Frances (2000): Presidents and democratization in Poland: e roles of Lech Wałesa and Aleksander Kwaśniewski in building a new polity. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 16(3): 39–62. • Molek, Pavel (2010a): Čl. 63 Pravomoci vázané na součinnost vlády. K písm. b). In Bahýľová, Lenka et al.: Ústava České republiky. Komentář. Praha: Linde, 754–761. • Molek, Pavel (2010b): Čl 62. Osobní pravomoci. K písm. a) In Bahýľová, Lenka et al.: Ústava České republiky. Komentář. Praha: Linde, 711–713. • Morris, Helen M. (2004): President, Party and Nationality Policy in Latvia, 1991–1999. Europe-Asia Studies 56(4): 543–569. • Müller, Wolfgang C. – Bergman, Torbjörn – Strøm, Kaare (2006): Parliamentary Democracy: Promise and Problems. In Strøm, Kaare – Müller, Wolfgang C. – Bergman, Torbjörn (eds.): Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies. Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press, 3–32. • Myant, Martin (2005): Klaus, Havel and the debate over civil society in the Czech Republic. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 21(2): 248–267. • Nález Ústavného súdu PL. ÚS 4/2012-77. • Němeček, Tomáš (2010): Vojtěch Cepl. Život právníka ve 20. století. Praha: Leges. • Nørgaard, Ole – Johannsen, Lars (1999): e Baltic States aer Independence, Second edition. Cheltenham – Northampton: Edward Elgar. • Novák, Miroslav (2004): Typy vlád a jejich utváření: ČR v komparativní perspektivě. In: Novák, Miroslav – Lebeda, Tomáš et al.: Volební a stranické systémy. ČR v mezinárodním srovnání. Plzeň: Aleš Čeněk, 311–343. • Nováček, Petr (1998): Diskrétní drama v povolebním zákulisí. Týden 27, 29. 6. 1998, 18–25. • Office of the President of Estonia (www.vkp.ee); accesed June 12, 2013. • Pabriks, Artis – Purs, Aldis (2001): Latvia: e challenges of change. London: Routledge.

REFERENCES

305

• Peach, Gary (2007): e healer. European Voice, 26 July 2007 (http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/the-healer/58012.aspx); accessed 12 March 2013. • Peroutka, Ferdinand (1991): Budování státu. 1. díl, 1918–1919. Praha: Lidové noviny. • Pink, Michal – Spáč, Peter (2012): Prezidentské voľby na Slovensku. In. Pink, Michal et al.: Volební mapy České a Slovenské republiky po roce 1993: vzorce, trendy, proměny. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 171–200. • Põhiseadus ja Põhiseaduse Assamblee: Koguteos, Juura, Õigusteabe AS, Tallinn, 1997/ Protocols of Constitutional Assembly • Protsyk, Oleh (2006): Intra-Executive Competition between President and Prime Minister: Patterns of Institutional Conflict and Cooperation under Semi-Presidentialism. Political Studies 54(2): 219–244. • Protsyk, Oleh (2005): Politics of Intraexecutive Conflict in Semipresidential Regimes in Eastern Europe. East European Politics and Societies 19(2): 135–160. • Prunk, Janko (2000): A Brief History of Slovenia. Ljubljana: Založba Grad. • Prunk, Janko (2003): Liberalnodemokratski kandidati na volitvah za predsednika Predsedstva Republike Slovenije in Predsednika Republike Slovenije 1990–1997. In: Fink-Hafner, Danica – Boh, Tomaž (eds.): Predsedniške volitve 2002. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, 143–152. • Pugačiauskas, Vykintas (2000): Semi-presidential Institutional Models and Democratic Stability. Comparative Analysis of Lithuania and Poland. In: Jankauskas Algimantas et al. (eds): Lithuanian Political Science Yearbook 1999. Vilnius: Vilnius University. • Raun, Toivo U. (2001): Estonia and Estonians. Updated second edition. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. • Rei, August (1932): Kas presidendist on meile tulu loota? Tallinn: Eesti Sotsialistlik Tööliste Partei. • Ribičič, Ciril (1996) Slovenski parlament včeraj, danes in jutri. In: Brezovšek, Marjan (ed.): Slovenski parlament – izkušnje in perspektive: zbornik referatov. Ljubljana: Slovensko politološko društvo, 27–44. • Ribičič, Ciril – Tomac, Zdravko (1987): Ustavne spremembe. Korak naprej ali dva koraka nazaj? Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. • Riigikogu XI koosseis. Statistikat ja ülevaateid (2011): Tallinn: Riigikogu Kantselei – Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu/ 11th Riigikogu. Statistics and Overview • Riigi Teataja, 1936, 1938, 1939 • Rizman, Rudi – Kristan, Ivan – Škerjanec, Janez – Petrič, Ernest (1982): Nacionalno vprašanje in graditev jugoslovanske federacije. Maribor: Dravska tiskarna. • Roper, Stephen D. (2002): Are All Semipresidential Regimes the Same? A Comparison of Premier- Presidential Regimes. Comparative Politics 34(3): 253–272. • Roszkowski, Wojciech (1992): Historia Polski 1914–1990. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. • Rychlík, Jan (2002): Rozpad Československa. Bratislava: Academic Electronic Press. • Samuels, David J. – Shugart, Matthew S. (2010): Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers: How the Separation of Powers Affects Party Organization and Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press. • Ščerbinskis, Valters (2011): Leaders, Divided Society and Crisis: the Coup d’Etat of 1934 in Latvia, its Causes and Consequences. In: Houdsen, Martyn – Smith, David J. (eds.): Forgotten Pages in Baltic History: Diversity and Inclusion. Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi, 187–210.

306

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Schleiter, Petra – Morgan-Jones, Edward (2009): Party government in Europe? Parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies compared. European Journal of Political Research 48 (5): 665–693. • Schleiter, Petra – Morgan-Jones, Edward (2010): Who’s in Charge? Presidents, Assemblies, and the Political Control of Semipresidential Cabinets. Comparative Political Studies 43 (11): 1415–1441. • Sedelius omas (2006): e Tug-of-War between Presidents and Prime Ministers: Semi-Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Orebro: Orebro University. • Sedlár, Jaromír (2005): Slovenská republika. In: Fiala, Petr – Pitrová, Markéta (eds.): Evropská referenda. Brno: CDK, 177–196. • Shapiro, Robert Y. – Joynt Kumar, Martha – Jacobs, Lawrence R. (2000; eds): Presidential Power. Forging the Presidency for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Columbia University Press. • Shields, Todd G. – Huang, Chi (1995): Presidential Vetoes: An Event Count Model. Political Research Quarterly 48 (3): 559–572. • Shields, Todd G. – Huang, Chi (1997): Executive Vetoes: Testing Presidency-Versus President-Centered Perspectives of Presidential Behavior. American Politics Research 25 (4): 431–457. • Shugart, Matthew Søberg (1993): On presidents and parliaments. East European Constitutional Review 2(1): 30–32 • Shugart, Matthew Søberg (2005): Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executive And Mixed Authority Patterns. French Politics 3(3): 323–351 • Shugart, Matthew Søberg – Carey, John M. (1992): Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge – New York: Cambridge University Press. • Siaroff, Alan (2003): Comparative Presidencies. e Inadequacy of the Presidential, Semi-presidential and Parliamentary Distinction. European Journal of Political Research 42(3): 287–312. • Šilde, Ādolfs (1976): Latvijas Vēsture: 1914–1940. Stockholm: Daugava. • Šimíček, Vojtěch (1999): Komentář k návrhu na vydání ústavního zákona, kterým se mění Ústava ČR – sněmovní tisk 359. In: Dančák, Břetislav – Šimíček, Vojtěch (eds.): Aktuálnost změn Ústavy ČR. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. • Šimíček, Vojtěch (2001): Michal Klíma: Kvalita demokracie a volební inženýrství (review) Politologický časopis VIII(3): 288–291. • Skach, Cindy (2006): Borrowing Constitutional Designs: Constitutional Law in Weimar Germany and the French Fih Republic. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. • Skočdopole, Petr (2000): Tošovský přeběhl od Havla k Zemanovi. Týden 47, 4. 12. 2000, 28. • SME (2009): Gašparovič: Som člen Smeru, 1.4.2009, 1. • SME (2002): Prezident vracia priveľa zákonov, 12. 8. 2002 (http://www.sme.sk/c/ 627720/prezident-vracia-privela-zakonov.html), accessed June 11, 2013. • Sólyom, László – Brunner, Georg (2000): Constitutional Judiciary in a New Democracy: e Hungarian Constitutional Court. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. • Spáč, Peter (2010): Priama a zastupiteľská demokracia na Slovensku. Volebné reformy a referendá po roku 1989. Brno: CDK. • Stein, Eric (2000): Česko-Slovensko. Konflikt – roztržka – rozpad. Praha: Academia.

REFERENCES

307

• Strmiska, Maxmilián (1999): Utváření českého multipartismu: příběh na pokračování. Politologický časopis 6(2): 162–169. • Strøm, Kaare (1995): Parliamentary government and legislative organisation. In: Döring, Herbert (ed.): Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe. Frankfurt: Campus, 51–81. • Suk, Jiří (2003): Labyrintem revoluce. Praha: Prostor. • Suksi, Markku (1999): On the Constitutional Features of Estonia. Turku – Åbo: Åbo Akademi. • Szalai András (2012): Ellensúly helyett egyensúly II. Az államfő mint a parlamentáris kormány ellensúlya. Pro Publico Bono 1(2): 77–98. • Szűcs, Zoltán Gábor (2008): ‘Históriai jogi alapra helyezkedtünk.’ Diszkurzív politológiai esettanulmány az 1946: I. törvény szerepéről az 1989–90-es köztársasági elnöki vitában. Politikatudományi Szemle XVII(4): 35–53. • Taagepera, Rein (1993): Estonia: Return to Independence. Boulder – San Francisco – Oxford: Westview Press. • Taggart, Paul – Szczerbiak, Aleks (2002): e Party Politics of Euroscepticism in EU Member and Candidate States. SEI Working Paper No 51. Sussex European Institute (https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=epern-working-paper6.pdf&site=266); accessed June, 18, 2013. • Talat-Kelpsa, Laimonas (2001): e Presidency and Democratic Consolidation in Lithuania. e Journal of Baltic Studies 32(2): 156–169. • Taube Caroline (2002): Baltic Diversity: Comparing Constitutions. Jurisprudencija 30(22): 42–46. • Tavits, Margit (2008): Presidents with Prime Ministers: Do direct elections matter? Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press. • e 1991 Constitution (http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/act_show?ida=1&idl=1&tit=3#t 3c2s0a80); accessed 21 January 2013. • e 2003 Constitution (http://legislatie.resurse-pentru-democratie.org/const_2003. php#080); accessed 21 January 2013. • e Constitution Project 2011 (http://www.presidency.ro/static/Tabel_comparativ_ textul%20actual_Constitutiei-text_propus-1%20iunie%202011.pdf); accessed 6 May 2012. • e Law of Election of the president, Riigi Teataja, 1992, 31 • e Law of Election of the president, Riigi Teataja, 1996, 30 • e Law of Implementation of the Constitution. Riigi Teataja, 1992,26 • e Parliament of Estonia (www.riigikogu.ee); accesed June 12, 2013. • e President of the Republic Rules of Procedure Act. Riigi Teataja, 2001, 43. • e presidents’ speeches (http://vp1992-2001.president.ee/est/k6ned/K6nedeArhiiv. asp); (http://vp2001-2006.president.ee/et/ametitegevus/k6ned.php?arhiiv=true&aas ta); (http://president.ee/et/ametitegevus/koned/index.html); accessed June 12, 2013. • Toomla, Rein (2002): Kuidas valiti president 1996.a.? In: Toomla, Rein (ed). Presidendiraamat. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus. • Toš, Niko, et al. (1999): Vrednote v prehodu II. Slovensko javno mnenje 1990–1998. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. • Toš, Niko, et al. (2004): Vrednote v prehodu III. Slovensko javno mnenje 1999–2004. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. • Toš, Niko, et al. (2009): Vrednote v prehodu IV. Slovensko javno mnenje 2004–2009. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede.

308

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

• Tsebelis, George – Rizova, Tatiana P. (2007): Presidential Conditional Agenda Setting in the Former Communist Countries. Comparative Political Studies 40 (10): 1155–1182. • Uibopuu, Henn-Jüri (1973): e Constitutional Development of the Estonian Republic. Journal of Baltic Studies 4(1): 11–35 • Ústava ČR. • Ústava ČSR 1920. • Ústava SR. • Ústavný zákon 356/2011 Z. z. • Ústavný zákon č. 9/1999 Z. z.. • Ústava 1920. Zákon ze dne 29. února 1920, kterým se uvozuje Ústavní listina Československé republiky (http://www.psp.cz/docs/texts/constitution_1920.html); accessed 25 March 2013. • Valenzuela, Arturo (2004): Latin American presidencies interrupted. Journal of Democracy 15(4): 5–19. • Vesalon, Lucian (2012): State Modernization’ as a Neoliberal Populist Discourse in Romania. DISC Working Paper 22, Budapest: Central European University (http: //disc.ceu.hu/sites/default/files/field_attachment/page/node-3320/disc-wp-22-vesalon-re-1.pdf), accessed 7 February 2013. • Výborný, Miloslav (2003): K okolnostem vzniku Ústavy ČR z parlamentní perspektivy. In: Kysela, Jan (ed.): Deset let Ústavy ČR. Praha: Eurolex Bohemia, 60–65. • Webnoviny (2011): Úlohou dočasnej vlády bude podľa Smeru len kúriť a svietiť, 21. 10. 2011 (http://www.webnoviny.sk/slovensko/ulohou-docasnej-vlady-bude-podla-sme/ 419963-clanok.html); accessed June, 11, 2013. • Wiatr, Jerzy J. (2006): Europa pokomunistyczna. Przemiany państw i społeczeństw po 1989 r. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. • Wintr, Jan (2008): Prezident republiky jako reprezentant státu, garant řádu a moderátor politických sporů. In: Šimíček, Vojtěch (ed.): Postavení prezidenta v ústavním systému České republiky. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 24–34. • Zajc, Drago (2004): Razvoj parlamentarizma: funkcije sodobnih parlamentov. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede.

309

NAME INDEX

NAME INDEX

Adamec, Ladislav 39, 69 Adamkus, Valdas 211, 213, 215–217, 221–228, 230–232 Áder, János 86–88, 90, 91, 100 Antall, József 82, 88–90, 92, 93, 257 Antonescu, Ion Victor 260 Antoszewski, Andrzej 110

Elgie, Robert 22, 23, 27, 271 Ertl, Tomaž 162

Balčytis, Zigmantas -228 Balodis, Jānis 197 Baltraitienė, Virginija 226 Bárta, Vít 64, 65 Băsescu, Traian 25, 257, 263–265, 267, 269, 270, 285, 289, Beneš, Edvard 36, 37, 59, 68, 122, 123 Bērziņš, Andris 191, 196, 199 Borissov, Boyko 242, 243 Brazauskas, Algirdas Mykolas – 215, 217–220, 222, 225, 226, 228, 231, 232 Bulc, Marko 147 Butkevičius, Algirdas 225, 226, 287 Buzek, Jerzy 114, 116

Gašparovič, Ivan 128, 133–136, 139, 285, 290 Göncz, Árpád 84, 86–89, 91–94, 97, 98, 99, 257, Gorbachev, Mikail Sergeyevich 37, 217 Graužinienė, Loreta 226 Grybauskaitė, Dalia 215, 217, 221, 225, 227, 287 Grinius, Kazys 207, 217 Gross, Stanislav 57, 58, 59 Gyurcsány, Ferenc 90, 95

Čakste, Jānis 196 Čalfa, Marián 38–40 Carol I 259 Carol II 260 Ceauuşescu, Nicolae 37 Ciampi, Carlo 51 Constantinescu, Emil 264, 265, 267, 268, 270, 289 Cuza, Alexandru Ioan 259 Diankov, Simeon 249 Drnovšek, Janez 147, 152–160, 165, 280, 285, 287, 288 Dubček, Alexander 39 Dzurinda, Mikuláš 131–135, 284, 285

Falandysz, Lech 117 Franz Josef I 33 Fico, Robert 134–137, 139, 140, 290 Fischer, Jan 62, 63

Havel, Václav 17, 25, 26, 32, 36–57, 59–61, 69, 70, 72–75, 257, 282–286 Havlová, Dagmar 55 Horn, Gyula 87 Horthy, Miklós 78 Huntington, Samuel P. 205 Husák, Gustáv 69 Iliescu, Ion 257, 258, 264, 265, 267–270, 289 Ilves, Toomas Hendrik 174–176, 179, 180, 182, 184, 188, 285 Jakl, Ladislav 59 Janković, Zoran 163 Janša, Janez 155, 156, 158–160, 162–165, 285, 287 Jaruzelski, Wojciech 109–113, 117, 118 Jerumanis, Aivars 198

310 Kaczyński, Lech 67, 111–113, 116–118, 229, 285 Kalvītis, Aigars 201 Kavan, Jan 62 Keltošová, Oľga 130 Kirkilas, Gediminas 227, 228 Klaus, Václav 17, 21, 25, 32, 38, 43–74, 257, 284–286, 288, 289 Klimek, Antonín 38 Komorowski, Bronisław 111, 113, 118 Koutecký, Pavel 48 Kováč, Michal 128–131, 133, 136, 138, 139, 257, 288, 289 Kramář, Karel 34, 44 Kresák, Peter 133 Kubilius, Andrius 221, 228 Kučan, Milan 148, 152–157, 159, 160, 165, 280, 287, 288 Kwaśniewski, Aleksander 20, 21, 111–117 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 227 Lexa, Ivan 130 Lubys, Bronislovas 212 Lux, Josef 50, 52, 53 Macierewicz, Antoni 113, 114 Mádl, Ferenc 86–90, 94, 96, 99 Magone, José M. 196 Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue 32–38, 41, 44, 46, 47, 72, 74, 121, 122, 282, 283 Mečiar, Vladimír – 26, 41, 128–132, 134–136, 138, 139, 257, 288 Medgyessy, Péter 90 Meierovics, Gunārs 198 Meri, Lennart 173, 175, 176, 178–182, 184, 188, 285 Mesežnikov, Grigorij 128–132, 139 Michael I 260 Milczanowski, Andrzej 114 Miller, Leszek 116, 233 Milošević, Slobodan 162 Morlino, Leonardo 50, 51 Mościcky, Ignacy 104 Nečas, Petr 19, 31, 63, 64, 69, 71 Niedermayer, Luděk 55

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES?

O’Donnel, Guillermo 139 Oleksy, Józef 114 Olszewski, Jan 113, 114 Orbán, Viktor 88, 96 Pahor, Borut 143, 152, 161, 162, 287 Paksas, Rolandas 205, 211, 213, 215, 217–222, 224, 226–228, 230, 232, 257, 289 Paroubek, Jiří 59–61, 63, 66, 67 Parvanov, Georgi 239, 241–246, 248–252, 254, 285 Päts, Konstantin 169 Paulauskas, Artūras 211, 212, 217, 219, 224, 227 Pawlak, Waldemar 114 Peroutka, Ferdinand 34 Peroutka, Ivan 49 Piłsudski, Józef Klemens 102–104 Plevneliev, Rossen 241, 243, 244 Poszgay, Imre 82 Pučnik, Jože 148 Radičová, Iveta 125, 135–137, 139, 285, 290 Rath, David 61 Roman, Petre 257, 258, 264, 265, 268 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 47 Ruml, Jan 49, 50, 52, 53 Rusnok, Jiří 19 Rüütel, Arnold 175, 176, 179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 188 Scalfaro, Oscar Luigi 51 Schmitt, Pál 86, 88, 90, 96, 97, 99, 258, 288 Schuster, Rudolf 128, 131–134, 138, 139, 284, 285, 287 Schwarzenberg, Karel 61, 69, 71, 280 Siaroff, Alan 80, 81, 234, 261 Siderov, Volen 242 Šilingas, Stasys 206 Simeon Saxe Cobourg Gotha 241 Šimíček, Vojtěch 55 Šķēle, Andris 202 Sládek, Miroslav 47 Šleževičius, Adolfas 218

NAME INDEX

Smetona, Antanas 206–208, 217 Sólyom, László 84–86, 91–95, 97–100, 288 Špidla, Vladimír 57, 59 Stanishev, Sergei 242 Staugaitis, Justinas 206 Stoyanov, Petar 235, 236, 242 Stulginskis, Aleksandras 207, 217 Suchocka, Hanna 114 Szili, Katalin 96, 99 Tăriceanu, Călin Popescu 266 Tiso, Jozef 122 Tito, Josip Broz 145–147 Topolánek, Mirek 59–63, 67, 74 Tošovský, Josef 25, 48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 59, 63, 75 Tůma, Zdeněk 55 Türk, Danilo 143, 152, 153, 160–165, 285, 287 Tusar, Vlastimil 33 Tusk, Donald 112, 116, 229

311 Ulmanis, Guntis 199, 200, 202, 284, 286 Ulmanis, Kārlis 192, 195–198 Ušackas, Vygaudas 228, 229 Vagnorius, Gediminas 212 Vasile, Radu 265, 269 Vīķe-Freiberga, Vaira 196, 198–201, 203, 284, Voljč, Marko 163 Wałęsa, Lech 20, 109–118, 257, 285, 286, 288 Zatlers, Valdis 191, 193, 196, 199, 201 Zeman, Miloš 19, 20, 31, 42, 47, 48, 52, 53, 55, 60, 61, 71, 72, 75, 280 Zemgals, Gustavs 196 Zhelev, Zhelyu 244 Zuokas, Artūras 227

M S V. 56

V H  .

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, eir Formal Competencies and Informal Power Typography by Lenka Váchová and Zdeněk Granát Published by Masaryk University International Institute of Political Science Joštova 10, 602 00 Brno tel./fax: 549 495 769, e-mail: [email protected], www.iips.cz 1th edition, 2013 Number of copies 300 Printed by Reprocentrum, a.s., Bezručova 29, 678 01 Blansko

ISBN 978-80-210-6687-8

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES ? VÍT HLOUŠEK ET AL.

In last two decades, most countries of Central and Eastern Europe have witnessed an ongoing development of democratic governance, and have thereby acquired a status of stable democracies. Current economic crisis however challenges the traditional position of various political actors and may lead to further personalisation of politics. This development can be observed also in a shifting position of president in other than presidential political systems – a phenomenon that has not been sufficiently analysed yet. We can observe how certain strong political personalities overstep their constitutionally de�ned powers and interfere signi�cantly in the political process. The aim of the book is to �nd out whether we can trace an increasing engagement of presidents in everyday politics in selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. If so, the authors will try to �nd out, what the causes of their increasing engagement are, how it is manifested and whether it is caused by the president’s personality or rather by a changing structure of political opportunities that provides presidents with room to manoeuvre. The country chapters were written by distinguished experts in the �eld. The book contributes in a substantial way to our knowledge of the political systems of the countries of so-called Eastern Enlargement of the EU, to the debate on political systems in general, and to discussion on role of strong political personalities.

International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University Mezinárodní politologický ústav Masarykovy univerzity

PRESIDENTS ABOVE PARTIES ? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power VÍT HLOUŠEK ET AL.

ISBN 978-80-210-6687-8 International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University Mezinárodní politologický ústav Masarykovy univerzity