Shifting powers in full display

FOR Filipino voters, I would imagine, what happened politically in recent months and weeks in the United Kingdom, Australia and even my own country of Malaysia and perhaps a few other member states of the British Commonwealth (a loose confederation of mostly former British colonies) is perhaps unthinkable. In the Philippines, as I understand it, the president who is the chief executive of the country is popularly elected separately from members of the Congress, and may

of impeachment and conviction in Congress for what must have been great offenses. Otherwise, the president stays put to complete his

Not necessarily so with the chief executives of many Commonwealth members states which practice parliamentary democracy. The voters in these countries get to elect only the members of parliament ( roughly equivalent

the UK and Malaysia, for example, only the lower house of parliament (roughly equivalent to the House of Representatives) is popularly elected, while the members of the upper house (roughly equivalent to the Senate) are appointed. A notable exception is Australia, where members of both houses of parliament are popularly elected. But the main point here is the voters typically do not get to directly elect the chief executive or head of government of the country, who typically is called a prime minister, with the king, president or governor-general (in Commonwealth member states which still consider the British Queen to be

- cally relegated to symbolic roles.

Instead, in most of these parliamentary democracies, as the name suggests, parliament is supposed to reign supreme, even when it comes to the formation of a government. The prime minister is typically the member of the lower house of parliament who commands the support of a majority of his parliamentary colleagues (usually after a fresh general election, but not necessarily so), who is then appointed by the largely ceremonial head of state. In theory, a house of parliament could be composed of all politically mutually independent members, a majority of whom coming forward “spontaneously” to support one among themselves to be the prime minister.

In practice, however, modern partisan politics is the order of the day. Most candidates for parliamentary (congressional) seats typically represent the various political par-

UK, there are the Conservatives and Labor. In Australia, there are the Liberals and Labor, too. If a party wins an outright majority in the lower house of parliament, then the parliamentary leader of that party typically becomes the prime minister. If no party wins an outright majority in the lower house, as is the case with the UK now, then the party with the plurality of (most) seats would typically form a coalition with other smaller parties until a parliamentary majority is reached, and the plurality party’s parliamentary leader becomes prime minister. There were rare

occurred in Australia, when no parliamentary majority was achieved and the plurality party forms a government, albeit an unstable one.

Well, what the parliament can form it can also dissolve. Unlike in the Philippines and the United States where a sitting president can only be removed by impeachment and conviction for actual, grave offenses, in parliamentary democracies there is usually this

in theory, detecting winds of discontent swirling above the political arena, the opposition ( minority) party in the lower house of parliament could put forward a so- called motion of

- ernment of the day, even though the opposition votes by themselves could not have carried the motion. It was hoped, sometimes not so vainly, that some parliamentary members of the ruling party would “defect” and vote against their own government. This was what the British Labor Party did after Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit proposal was humiliatingly defeated by a large margin, not least by the “defection” of her own Conservative parliamentary members. In the event, despite Conservative dissension when it came to the earlier Brexit vote, the Conservatives quickly regrouped to defeat the motion of no confidence against the May government.

had passed, the government of the day would have to resign, and either fresh election is called ( which by the way is partially responsible for rendering the terms of government in many parliamentary democracies not to be able to be fixed), or a new coalition government is attempted which must then face a words, it is the parliament which essentially forms the government holding the executive power.

The real political intrigues, however, typically take part in the ruling or even the opposition parties. Brexit, for example, is a divisive political subject among both the British Conservatives and Labors. There are of course genuine ideological differences over the necessity, nature and speed of Brexit among British parliamentarians of the same party. But more often, Brexit has been utilized as a political weapon to advance their respective political ambitions. May was fortunate that at the end of the day, her Conservative parliamentary colleagues saw that she was still their most viable leader in facing down Labor, and hence did not join the latter in trying to topple her government by a

did not mount an intra- party leadership challenge against her. As to the Labors, some parliamentarians have recently left the party to protest their own leader’s ambiguous stance over Brexit, instead of challenging his leadership outright.

In Australia, however, the past decade has witnessed an almost annual or biennial change of prime ministers, mostly due to the alternately ruling Liberals and Labor having mounted intra-party leadership challenges against their respective sitting prime ministers. Some may argue that such frequent change of the head of government is not conducive to smooth and steady running of the government, but others may also argue that the essence of democracy is partly also frequent change

political wills. What do you think?