Crisis of presidential system in Ecuador and parliamentarian system as an option in Latin America

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy)The crisis Ecuador is going through with the dissolution of its Congress and the call for elections decreed by the President of the Republic is ungovernability. It is the direct result of the proliferation of political parties and candidates that disable the Presidential System. In most of Latin America’s countries with democracy, candidates that do make it to the presidency are those who get the first or second minority and they get there doomed to the impossibility of being able to govern. Irrespective of ideologies or programs, Latin American presidents are authors and victims of the crisis of the presidential system that makes it urgent to consider the option of a Parliamentarian System.

Presidentialism, or the Presidential System, is “a form of government based on the Republic and the division and independence of its Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, in which the Head of State is also the Head of Government and is directly elected by the voters and not by Congress or Parliament.” Parliamentarism, or the Parliamentary System, is “a system of government in which the election of government, or the Executive Power, arises from the Parliament, or Legislative Power and is responsible to it.” Under the Parliamentarian System the Head of State is normally different than the Head of Government.

The Presidential System works well with few candidates; two or three, so that the winner can garner enough support and have a majority representation or stability in the Legislative. With a proliferation to up to dozens of candidates in a first round of elections, the second round determines the election of a President who only has a first or second minority of support and who is doomed to have ungovernability or a coup d’état.

Th structural cause of the crisis that Ecuador is going through today is the ungovernability of an Executive Power that only has a minority of support from the people and in Parliament. Unfortunately, this is not solely the situation of Ecuador because the crisis of Peru had a similar cause that led President Castillo to his failed coup d’état. In Colombia, President Petro has already hinted threats to get away from the democratic order due to not having a majority of support. In Chile, the government of President Boric is stalled and is now enduring repeated defeats. Lula in Brazil has gotten to power with a mega-coalition of parties that are only a minority.

In Ecuador’s case, in the first round of the 2021 elections, Guillermo Lasso garnered the second highest minority with a 19.74% of votes against Andres Arauz who garnered 32.72% of the votes with the participation of 80.99% of the registered voters. In the second round of elections, Lasso won with 52.36% of the votes, but that increase did not change his condition of being a minority in the Parliament. This is the origin of a weak government who, in the course of governing also loses alliances and who did not have neither the capability nor the opportunity to implement Governance Agreements based on the State’s policies. A minority government with bad governance is crisis and fall.

The situation is repeated in the 2021 elections in Peru. With the participation of 70.05% of voters, in the first round of elections Pedro Castillo garnered 18.92% of popular support and Keiko Fujimori garnered 13.41%. In the second round of elections, Castillo garnered 50.13% of votes and Fujimori 49.87%. In Chile, with the participation of 47.33% of the voters in the first-round of the 2021 elections, Gabriel Boric garnered 25.83% as a second minority against Jose Antonio Kast who garnered 27.91% of votes and Boric won in a second-round with 55.87% of the 55.64% of voters who participated. In Colombia’s elections in 2022 with the participation of 54.98% of registered voters, Gustavo Petro garnered 40.34% in the first- round and 50.44% in the second-round.

The proliferation of candidates splits the electorate’s representation and does not allow for the existence of majorities without which the Presidential System cannot produce governability. In Ecuador’s 2021 elections, there were 16 presidential candidates, in Peru’s elections there were 24 presidential candidates, in Chile’s 2021 elections there were seven presidential candidates, in Colombia’s 2022 elections there were six presidential candidates. Each candidate, in-turn, represents a set of alliances of multiple parties and political groups who, once have garnered parliamentary representations, split themselves.

Ecuador has the advantage of the so-called “crossed death” or “the dissolution of its National Assembly” that is an institution of the Parliamentarian System that was introduced by dictator Correa to strengthen his presidential power. In countries such as Peru, where this mechanism is inexistent, coups d’état occurs, just as it happened with former President Castillo who is now in jail, or under the worse of circumstances dictatorships get established as it happened in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

The Parliamentarian System is ideal for this type of reality with a plurality of political parties, groups, and candidates. A system in which after electing members of the Legislative Branch a parliamentarian majority is formed to elect the government, to sustain it, and provide with governability. This is the option to consider to get democratic stability in Latin America’s countries.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas