The Coalition Potential of Presidents in Semi-Presidential Republics

Recent studies have brought more attention to the trend of ‘presidentialization’ of politics (Webb and Poguntke 2009, Samuels and Shugart 2010 etc.) This paper aims to add new data to the comparative effort and in contention of this evaluation by putting forward the case of Romania. We argue that structural presidentialization is subject to the potential of the president to coalesce parties into forming legislative majorities in his support, just as much as the prime minister needs the same support to remain in government. The cases analyzed prove that the parliament remains the most important and influential institution as the final choice on whether to support the prime minister or the president in an open conflict rests with the parliamentary parties. Romania’s inclusion into the larger debate is relevant, as it is the only remaining semi-presidential republic in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Although the president continues to be perceived as the highest figure of formal and informal authority, in practice, his powers are institutionally limited and although we can record peaks of presidential authority, no change could take place without a consensually united parliament. 26 years into its democratic life (1990 -2016), Romania has had four presidents, 12 prime ministers and 26 cabinets (counted according to the maximalist approach, Muller and Strom 2000). Although the four president have made ample use of their informal authority over their party of origin and used their exclusive prerogatives to empower these parties and thus themselves, this strategy alone has had no effect on the structural ‘presidentialization’ of the regime. We will put forward a comparative analyses of cases of ‘union’ between president and government and cases of ‘cohabitation’ and notice the factors that operate in tilting the balance between presidentialism and parliamentarianism. Although non-institutional factors such as the president’s strong will and personality and his link to the party of origin has led to increased political instability and rival interpretations of the constitutional order, it has only had contingent effect on the regime and proved that institutional structural change in a multi party system can only take place with a larger consensus of political elites, irrespective of the will of the president.