The Presidential Party in Comparative Perspective

The presidential party is a party that, in a presidential system with the election of the president by direct or indirect universal suffrage, presents a candidate in the presidential election that is likely to be elected and supports him in his political action when he occupies the function. By focusing on these two activities, the concept of presidential party does not apply to the party to which belongs the president who is head of state in a parliamentary form of government. The presidential party is characterized by its specific role in the functioning of institutions and by the limitation of the freedom of action of its members and leaders from the presidential power (Chagnollaud and Quermonne, 1996) The first role of a presidential party is to choose a candidate with a chance of being elected. The party can use different means to choose its candidate. The presidential party must always choose a candidate capable of winning the presidential election. It may designate him after an internal ballot, following the vote of the governing organisations of the party or party members. This procedure is traditional and is used by many presidential parties. Following this procedure, the party trend away from the preparation of the election campaign, leaving the team around the candidate to take care of this campaign. The elaboration of the candidate's program, even if it is close to that of the party, is made by his team. But funding remains largely the work of the party itself. The second mode of selection is made by using a primary election. It was mostly used in the United States in various ways. It is now used by French political parties in recent years. This method of selection can lead to a divestiture of the role of the party if the primary election is open. The party really lost control of the nomination process. This lack of control is further accentuated when a candidate for a presidential election first declares his intention to run and then gets the support of a political party. This is the idea that a candidate for a presidential election must be held above the political parties and not maintain privileged relations with either of them. The objective of this paper should -first provide a comparative perspective, likely to give diverse examples of this type of party. -then seek the elements of explanation of this diversification.