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Cohabitation and Political Wrestling between President and Prime Minister in

Semi-presidentialism

Jung-hsiang, Tsai

poljht@ccu.edu.tw

Abstract

In semi-presidentialism, cohabitation is a special arrangement for coping with the

divided situation between the president and parliament. If cohabitation in

semi-presidentialism works as a parliamentary system, then there is no variance

among different cohabitations. However, when various semi-presidential countries

authorize the president different constitutional powers, then the scenarios of

cohabitation can be varied. There are some situations where the popular elected

president is not entirely sidelined even during the period of cohabitation. What factors

affect the degree of conflict between the president and prime minister during the

period of cohabitation deserves a full investigation. This paper identifies two factors

(presidential constitutional authority and prime ministerial power composition) which

are contributory in explaining the interactions between the president and prime

minister during the period of cohabitation in semi-presidentialism. This paper also

constructs four types of cohabitation: shared cohabitation (France), premier-tilt

cohabitation (Portugal), unbalanced cohabitation (Poland), and balanced cohabitation

(Sri Lanka) and argues that the degree of conflict increases progressively from shared

cohabitation, premier-tilt cohabitation, unbalanced cohabitation to balanced

cohabitation.

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Introduction

In semi-presidentialism, cohabitation is a political arrangement for coping with the

divided situation between the president and parliament. Sulieman (1994: 151) argues

that it contains a safety valve that avoids the clash and crises of two popularly elected

legitimacies by permitting the political system to function now as a presidential

system, now as a parliamentary system. If cohabitation in semi-presidentialism works

as a parliamentary system, then there is no variance among different cohabitations.

However, when various semi-presidential countries authorize the president different

constitutional powers, then the scenarios of cohabitation can be varied. There are

some situations where the popular elected president is not entirely sidelined during the

period of cohabitation. How the president armed with considerable powers interacts

with the prime minister commanding an opposing majority and what factors affect the

degree of conflict between the president and prime minister during the period of

cohabitation deserve a full investigation. The goal of this paper is not only to classify

different types of cohabitation, but also to specify different mechanisms that drive

disparate interactions between the president and prime minister during the period of

cohabitation.

With the trend of more newly democratic countries operating

semi-presidentialism, cohabitation as the prominent characteristic of

semi-presidentialism has shined its spotlight in the field of comparative politics

recently. One school of thought stresses on the demerits of cohabitation. It suggests

that the institutional lock-in conflict between the president and prime minister can

endanger democratic stability by furnishing the intervention of military (Linz, 1994).

Empirically, intense political conflicts during the phase of cohabitation in some

African semi-presidential countries have reversed the course of democracy into

authoritarianism (Kirschke, 2007). However, in some large-scale studies of the

semi-presidential countries, they show that the negative correlation between

cohabitation and democratic breakdown or performance is not statistically significant

(Elgie, 2008; Elgie and McMenamin, 2009) or just one or two cases where

cohabitation or the threat of cohabitation directly triggered the collapse of democracy

such as Niger in 1996 and Guinea-Bissau in 1993 (Elgie, 2010).

The other line of research centers on the merits of cohabitation, arguing that

cohabitation (bicephalous executive) is a delicate mechanism for solving the problem

of divided situations between the president and parliament with an opposing majority

in semi-presidentialism (Sartori, 1997). Cohabitation has passed the acid test in

France since the conflict between the president and prime minister did not necessarily

threaten democracy (Skach, 2005: 116). Dual leaders (president and prime minister)

in the periods of cohabitation have exercised self-control not to cause a serious

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deadlock in order to accumulate popularity for their prospective elections on

presidency, as the cases in France and Portugal (Pasquino, 1997; 2007).

Taken together, the experiences of cohabitation in semi-presidentialism have

presented mixed results. As the cases of cohabitation have proliferated in

semi-presidential countries, it accumulates abundant data and scope for sorting

cohabitations out.1 Past comparative work has probed more on cohabitation and its

effects on democratic survival and less emphasized are cohabitation and its effect on

the interactions between the president and prime minister. This paper aims to fill in

the lacuna of the current work by analyzing how different constitutional structures and

political features entail diverse types of cohabitation, and how different types of

cohabitation bear fruits to political wrestling between the president and prime minister.

This paper sets out to explore what institutional and structural factors affect the

operation of cohabitation and its variance on political struggles between dual leaders,

aiming to detect more types of cohabitation beyond the prototypical case, France.

Cohabitation can be defined as the situation where opposing parties separately

control the president and prime minister or government in semi-presidentialism. Elgie

(2010) offers a more refined definition by adding that the president’s party is not

represented in the cabinet. This paper applies to Eglie’s broad definition in order to

contain more cases in comparison. Cohabitation is a singular arrangement in

semi-presidentialism for coping with the result of splitting votes of the electors. The

president losing majority support in parliament chooses to cohabit with the prime

minister commanding an opposing majority. Cohabitation in semi-presidentialism is

analogous to divided government in presidentialism but the nuance between them is

that cohabitation stands out as the executive is divided rather than unified. This

institutional conformation is doomed to have unavoidable conflicts between the

president and the prime minister if both of them choose to push the envelope. Do all

cohabitations in semi-presidential countries operate in a similar way or differ in any

systematic manner? What factors can explain different degrees of conflict between the

president and prime minister caused by different types of cohabitation? This paper

aims to systematize different types of cohabitation through the prisms of presidential

constitutional power and prime ministerial power composition. In so doing, it can

increase analytical differentiation to adequately characterize diverse cohabitations in

semi-presidential countries that have emerged in recent years. This paper uses the

method of controlled comparison as an analytical wedge to explicate the

consequences of different cohabitations. Why do some presidents in the period of

1 Elgie and McMenamin (2011) focus on exploring the conditions of producing cohabitation, based on the data of the cases of cohabitation in semi-presidential countries.

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cohabitation grant concessions in some cases and not in others? How can we explain

the diversity of prime minister-president interactions in the period of cohabitation?

The first effort of this article is to fully elaborate the relationship between different

types of cohabitation and different degrees of conflict between the president and

prime minister. The second effort of this article is to analyze empirical cases and their

implications.

The Cases of Cohabitation

Table 1 shows the cases of cohabitation in premier-presidential systems and in

president-parliamentary systems.2 It also presents the information of party system in

each semi-presidential country. In 18 semi-presidential countries with cohabitation,

premier-presidential systems achieve 83.3% and president-parliamentary systems get

only 16.7%。Cohabitation occurs more in one subtype of semi-presidentialism

(premier-presidential systems) than in the other subtype of semi-presidentialism

(president-parliamentary systems) (see also Samuels and Shugart, 2010, chapter 2;

Elgie and McMenamin, 2011). Since the president does not have formal authority to

dismiss the cabinet in premier-presidential systems, if elections produce an opposition

majority, then the president has to cede executive power to the prime minister

controlling that majority; on the contrary, when the president in

president-parliamentary systems has the authority to dismiss the cabinet, then

cohabitation would occur less (Samuels and Shugart, 2010: 44-5).

Table 1. Cohabitation in Semi-presidentialism and Party System

Premier-presidential President-parliamentary Two-party Portugal Sri Lanka Multiparty Bulgaria Austria Finland Sao Tome and Principe France Iceland Ireland Lithuania Macedonia Mongolia Niger Poland Romania

2 Premier-presidential systems and president-parliamentary systems are two subtypes of semi-presidentialism. Related discussions see Shugart and Carey (1992) and Shugart (2005). We will explicate these two subtypes of semi-presidentialism in the later section.

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Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Total 15 3

Source: Elgie (2011a); Samuels and Shugart (2010).

Metaphorically speaking, the relationship between the president and prime

minister in semi-presidentialism is like riding a tandem bicycle. In the phase of

unified government, the president is the captain of the bicycle, controlling the

direction and speed while the prime minister is the stoker of the bicycle, providing

strength by tramping the pedals and keeping balanced during the cruising. In the

phase of cohabitation, the prime minister is the front rider (captain) of the bicycle

while the president is the rear rider (stoker) of the bicycle. As the captain, the prime

minister leads the direction of the bicycle, but the president as the stoker can tighten

the brakes or do not tramp the pedals on the bike at times. How the president interacts

with the prime minister depends on what constitutional weapons the president

possesses. In some types of cohabitation, the president granted with unilateral

constitutional powers can have a bout with the prime minister controlling a majority

in parliament. For example, if cohabitation occurs in a presidential-parliamentary

system, then we can expect to see open conflicts between the president with a popular

vote and the prime minister with a legislative majority. Two variables especially

accounts for the differentiation of types of cohabitation in semi-presidentialism:

unilateral authority of the president and power composition of the cabinet led by the

prime minister.

When the president in semi-presidentialism possesses some unilateral

constitutional powers such as decree power, dissolution power, and veto power, he has

the levers to confront with the prime minister controlling an opposition majority. First,

the president with decree authority can establish law in lieu of action by the assembly

(Carey and Shugart, 1998: 9). This power gives the president a considerable say in

policy making. Given the parliament controlled by the prime minister, both the

president and prime minister have legislative authority which can ignite a war of laws.

For example, Russian President Yeltsin had a tug-of-war of issuing decree and

rescinding decree with the Duma (Parrish, 1998). Second, when the president in

semi-presidentialism holds dissolution power, he can use it as a weapon to turn down

the prime minister and cabinet. In the following election, if the outgoing prime

minister can garner a majority in parliament, he can become the acting prime minister

again. If not, the president can nominate another prime minister who may not oppose

him or even support him. Nevertheless, in this situation, the president can terminate

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the tenure of the cabinet and let the public decide whether the prime minister has the

latest mandate or not. Third, when the president is armed with veto power and the

parliament may override the veto only by super majority of deputies, then the

president can use that power to affect the outcome of legislation. On the other hand, if

it only needs the parliament to override any veto by simple majority, then the

president only can stonewall the pace of legislation since the prime minister can

muster a legislative majority in the parliament to override the president’s veto. In a

nutshell, the president with more unilateral authority in the constitution can have more

discretion than the president with less unilateral authority. If the president in

semi-presidentialism does not have any unilateral power, he can only play second

fiddle to the prime minister.

The composition of cabinet is very crucial to the operation of the prime

minister’s power. If only one party forms the cabinet, the prime minister can call the

shots as the leader of the party. If the cabinet is a coalition cabinet and the prime

minister’s party has a dominant position such as the largest party in the cabinet, the

prime minister can be preponderant only when other coalition parties do not oppose.

If the cabinet is a coalition one and two or three or more parties almost equally share

seats in parliament, the prime minister has to proportionally share executive power

with other coalition parties and the prime minister is less powerful than the prime

minister in a single-party cabinet or than the prime minister in a coalition cabinet

where his party has a plurality of seats. Furthermore, there are some situations where

the multiparty cabinet can be quite unstable. For example, the prime minister cannot

coordinate with the coalition parties or some coalition party threatens to depart the

cabinet as its policies are not accepted or enacted. Simply put, the prime minister in

the coalition cabinet is less powerful than the prime minister in the single-party

cabinet. Taken together, we can create a two-by-two table which demonstrates four

different types of cohabitation and different degrees of conflict, as shown in Table2.

The typology used here is an explanatory typology in which the rows and columns are

explanatory variables, and the cells contain hypothesized outcomes (see Collier,

Laporte, and Seawright, 2008: 153).

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Table2: Typology of Cohabitation

High

Unilateral Authority

Low

Unbalanced

Cohabitation

Balanced

Cohabitation

Shared

Cohabitation

Premier-tilt

Cohabitation

Coalition Party Single Party

Power Composition

The experiences of cohabitation in the constitutional trajectory of the French

Fifth Republic were emblematic in semi-presidentialism. Has France as a paragon of

semi-presidentialism run the whole gamut of cohabitation experiences? Or the

operation of French cohabitation only manifests one possible type of cohabitation.

The crux here is that if the president in some semi-presidential countries has more

unilateral authority than the president does in France, then we can find some other

types of cohabitation beyond French experiences. First, when the president does not

have unilateral constitutional powers such as decree, veto, and dissolution power and

when the president’s party only has a minority in parliament, he has to give executive

ground to the prime minister with an opposition majority. If the cabinet is composed

of more than one party, the prime minister has to share executive power with coalition

parties. This is called shared cohabitation. In this scenario, the president retreats to the

second line and the prime minister leads the way on day-to-day matters of

government. The president may delay the process of decision-making by way of

expressing his disagreement in public but cannot stop it becoming laws. Second, when

only one party forms the cabinet, the prime minister as the party leader is more

paramount than the prime minister in the coalition cabinet. That said, the supporting

base of the prime minister is more unified. When the president and prime minister

have divergent views of policy, conflicts between them can arise, but the prime

minister still can gain the upper hand with a coherent majority in parliament. This

scenario is called premier-tilt cohabitation.

Third, in some semi-presidential countries, the president holds some unilateral

authority in some reserved domains. For example, the president can issue a decree or

cast a veto or launch dissolution of parliament or the president can nominate the

portfolios of foreign affairs and defense. In other words, the president can act

independently in some reserved domains and to serve a rallying point for the

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opposition majority. The prime minister still pilots the government but the president

can have discretion on certain spheres. In addition, since the cabinet is a coalition

government, if the coalition cabinet fails to act in unison, it can weaken political

power of the prime minister. This is called unbalanced cohabitation. Fourth, if the

president is granted some unilateral authority and the opposing cabinet is only made

up of one party, it is more likely to see grandstanding between the president and prime

minister. This scenario is called balanced cohabitation which is in stark contrast to the

first scenario. The occurrence of cohabitation has really put the constitution and its

practice into an acid test. During the period of cohabitation, the president and prime

minister have to enact their authority according to the competencies of the president

and prime minister demarcated in the constitution. The ambiguity of constitutional

articles pertaining to the prerogatives of presidents and prime ministers can trigger

clashes between the president and cabinet (Raddt, 2009). Institutional combat grows

fiercer as the president and the prime minister clash over some policies. This kind of

cohabitation makes strange bedfellows who jockey for the upper hand in the power

game. Overall, balanced cohabitation is the most conflict-prone type, unbalanced

cohabitation is the second-most unstable scenario, premier-tilt cohabitation is the

third-most unstable scenario, and shared cohabitation is the least unstable scenario. In

what follows, we will delve into the empirical cases of cohabitation. Simultaneously,

we will provide an overview of constitutional articles that underpin presidential

powers and how the president interacts with the prime minister with an opposition

majority. Finally, we will explicate the implication of various cohabitations in

semi-presidentialism.

Shared Cohabitation in France

The experience of cohabitation occurred in the French Fifth Republic three times.

First, from 1986 to 1988, Leftist President Mitterrand governed with Rightist Prime

Minister Jacques Chirac, second, from 1993 to 1995, Leftist President Mitterrand

worked with Rightist Prime Minister Édouard Balladur and third, Rightist President

Jacques Chirac cohabited with Leftist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to

2002. Due to the limitation of a paper’s length, here we furnish an explanation of a

left-right cohabitation, Mitterrand vis-à-vis Chirac and an explication of a right-left

cohabitation, Chirac vis-à-vis Jospin.

In 1986, France experienced the first cohabitation in the history of the Fifth

Republic. In the 1986 parliamentary elections, the rightist coalition (Rally for the

Republic and Union for French Democracy, and other parties) gained totally 290 seats

and the leftist coalition (Socialist Party, French Communist Party, and other parties)

grasped 248 seats. The total of parliamentary seats was 573. The rightist coalition

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passed the threshold of a majority (287) in the National Assembly although it was a

razor-thin majority, as shown in Table 3. In that time, the president was François

Mitterrand from the socialist party. Facing an opposition majority, President

Mitterrand opted to nominate Jacques Chirac, the leader of Rally for the Republic, to

be prime minister, bringing forth the episode of cohabitation. This cohabitation was

the first case in the Fifth Republic, but it was not new in the past French constitutional

development. In 1877, President Mac Mahon dissolved the opposing parliament but in

the following election, the opposition still won a majority; there were two possible

solutions: the president resigned or the president respected the new parliamentary

majority; President Mac Mahon backed down to nominate a prime minister the

parliament endorsed (Stevens, 2003: 10). Basically, President Mitterrand followed the

constitutional precedent set by President Mac Mahon in the Third Republic of France.

Table 3: Results of the French 1988 Parliamentary Elections

Party or Coalition Seats

Rally for the Republic 149

Union for French Democracy 127

Miscellaneous Right-wing 14

Rightist Coalition 290

Socialist Party 206

French Communist Party 35

Miscellaneous Left 5

Movement of Left Radicals 2

Leftist Coalition 248

National Front 35

Total 573

Source: derived from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_1986, accessed June 1,

2012.

In 1986, the interactions between President François Mitterrand and Prime

Minister Jacques Chirac had to comply with the separation of power in the

constitution. According to the 1958 French constitution, the Government shall

determine and conduct the policy of the Nation and it should be responsible to

Parliament (Article 20). The Prime Minister shall direct the operation of government

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(Article 21) and can enact decrees without the president’s countersignatures (Elgie,

2001: 107). The president in the Fifth Republic has nominating power, parliamentary

dissolution power, and veto power. First, the president enjoys the right to appoint the

prime minister (Article 8). Second, the president may dissolve the National Assembly,

after consulting the prime minister and the presidents of the assemblies but this power

is restricted by frequency such as no further dissolution shall take place within a year

following this election (Article 12). Third, the president can ask the parliament to

reconsider the whole act or sections of the act (Article 10). This power of

reconsideration is known as veto power. Taken together, the president in the Fifth

Republic has some reactive powers but does not have proactive power such as decree

power. The president can dissolve the parliament but cannot exercise this power

unrestricted. The president in France has package veto power and item veto power. In

America, the president only has package veto power and do not possess item veto

power. However, during the period of cohabitation, with an opposition majority in the

parliament, presidential veto power cannot succeed to overturn the passed bills by the

government if the overriding threshold is simple majority. Lastly, the French president

does not have unilateral decree power like the Russian president who can use it to

bypass the opposing parliament (see Parrish, 1998).

According to the drafter of the 1958 constitution, the content of the constitution

demonstrates three attributes: an executive with its own authority stemming from both

its mode of selection and its powers; a parliamentary system, meaning on one hand a

cabinet backed by a majority within an assembly and thus able to guide this majority

as well as head the administration, but also on the other hand, a parliament that could

carry out its legislative duties and act as a control without infringing on the executive:

and third, an election method as close as possible to the British-American system, the

one used by the first French republicans, election by majority vote (Debré, 1981 : 17).

Simply put, the orginial constitutional design is revised parliamentarism which

strengthens the executiven branch on one hand and weakens the legislative branch3

on the other hand. The critical juncture of adopting the direct election of president in

1962 has tranformed the parliamentary system into a semi-presidential one (Duverger,

1980). President de Gaulle capitalized on controlling a legislative majority in the

National Assembly and operated the system tilt toward a super-president one

（Suleiman, 1980）. President de Gaulle depended on his partisan strength in the

National Assembly rather than formal presidential powers in the constitution.

Afterward, President Pompidu and President Giscard, followed suit when their party

3 It is called as rationalized parliament and related discussions see Huber (1996).

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or coalition still commanded a majority in the National Assembly. As partisan

strength in the legislature ebbs, the president’s authority has shrunk into the scope of

constitutional articles which are specifically reseved for the president.

During the period of cohabitation from 1986 to 1988, the prime minister

controlling a legislative majority had primacy while the greatest power of the

president in this period was often the power to say no. President Mitterrand refused to

sign the ordonnances proposed by the government over the privatization of some

industries and firms but in the end Prime Minister Chirac won the battle with the

president over legislation (Poulard, 1990 : 259). However, President Mitterrand still

could have a say on certain reserved domains. President Mitterrand turned down

Chirac’s initial choices for the ministries of foregin affairs and defense, but the two

men quickly agreed on alternates (Pierce, 1991 : 279-80). On the whole, the prime

minister had an edge over legislation or policies while the president could wield his

infulence on some reserved domain such as foreign affairs and defense.

In 1986, Prime minister Chirac led a coalition government which consisted of

two major parties : Rally for the Republic (RPR) and Union for French Democracy

(UDF). Prime Minister Chirac had to reconcile the differences within the coalition

cabinet. There was a high level of conflict between Raymond Barre of the UDF (a

party of the right in coalition with the Gaullists) and Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist

prime minister, both of whom were jockeying to become the leader of the right in the

1988 presidential election (Huber, 1996: 6). In order to solidify a majority in the

parliament, Prime Minister Chirac frequently used the procedures of package vote and

confidence vote. The package vote is based on Articles 44.3, which says “If the

Government requests it, the assembly considering a bill decides by a single vote on all

or part of the text under discussion, retaining only the amendments proposed or

accepted by the Government while the procedure of confidence vote connotes “The

Prime Minister may, after deliberation by the Council of Ministers, engage the

responsibility of the Government before the National Assembly on the vote of a bill;

In this case, the bill is considered adopted unless a motion of censure, introduced

within the next 24 hours (Huber, 1996: 3). Prime Minister Chirac invoked 8 times of

the confidence vote and employed the package vote 68 times (Elgie, 2001: 121).

While powers were shared in some policy sectors, the senior of the two reluctant

partners was usually the Prime Minister, the President often being able only to prevent

some decisions and delay others (Hayward and Wright, 2006:32). On the one hand,

aspiration to a presidential hopeful and challenges within the coalition have made

Prime Minister Chirac more moderate. On the other hand, the odds of reelection and

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the restriction of constitutional authority also have enabled President Mitterrand not to

be out of the orbit during the period of cohabitation.

In 1997, the situation turned round. It was Rightist President Jacques Chirac

cohabiting with Leftist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. The result of French legislative

elections in 1997 manifested a majority of the left coalition, controlling 320 seats

while the right coalition commanded only 253 seats, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Results of the French 1997 legislative elections

Party or Coalition Seats

Socialist Party 255

French Communist Party 35

Radical Socialist Party 12

The Greens 7

Citizens’ Movement 7

Miscellaneous Left-wing 4

Left Coalition 320

Rally for the Republic 139

Union for French Democracy 112

The Independent Right 2

Right Coalition 253

National Front 1

Miscellaneous 3

Total 577

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_1997, accessed on June 1, 2012.

The left coalition was made up of the PS (Socialist Party), PCF (French

Communist Party), PRS (Radical Socialist Party), Greens (Green Party), and

MDC(Citizens’ Movement). It was a multiparty coalition which consisted of 5 parties.

Maintaining a coherent coalition and a workable legislative majority was not an easy

job for Prime Minister Jospin. Especially when the next election approached, the

coalition government became more precarious. The Left was more divided than it had

been previously; the government had failed to propose any new and popular reforms

(Elgie, 2002: 309). For example, Prime Minister Jospin failed to coordinate the

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governing coalition to enact pension reform, family policy reform and education

(Willerton and Carrier, 2005: 61). Political conflicts between President Chirac and

Prime Minister Jospin were unavoidable during this period of cohabitation. President

Chirac employed his constitutional power to veto the judicial reform which Jospin’s

government endorsed to push forward (Elgie, 2002: 303). On the whole, Chirac could

not stop the government and its parliamentary majority from legislating, though

Jospin could not stop Chirac from the latter’s critical commentary on government

action (Willerton and Carrier, 2005: 53). All told, President Chirac was willing to give

way to the Jospin government with the mandate on steering legislation or policy but

still was unwilling to be sidelined in the political stage.

Considering the two cases of cohabitation together, we can conclude that French

experiences are the mode of shared cohabitation. The prime minister sets the direction

and content of policy, while the president can hamstring or delay the pace of

legislation but not the content of legislation. The separation of power in the

constitution of 1958 does not allow the president or the prime minister to come to a

deadlock.

Premier-tilt Cohabitation

When only one party forms a cabinet, the prime minister as the party leader is more

paramount than the prime minister in the coalition cabinet. If the president and prime

minister express disagreement over some policies, conflicts between them can arise,

but the prime minister still can gain the upper hand with a coherent majority in the

parliament. This scenario is called premier-tilt cohabitation. The experiences of

cohabitation in Portugal can be illustrative of this scenario. First, we offer an

overview of the constitutional articles that underpin presidential powers in the

Portuguese constitution. Second, the experience of cohabitation from 2006 to 2009 is

analyzed.

The president in Portugal possesses the power to nominate the prime minister,

the power to dissolve the parliament, and the veto power. According to Article 187,

the President of the Republic shall appoint the Prime Minister after consulting the

parties with seats in Assembly of the Republic and in the light of the electoral results.

This article presents that the president only can nominate a prime minister from any

party in the parliament, but not a non-partisan person who is not a deputy member of

the parliament. If a party or coalition controls a majority in the parliament, the

president cannot help but nominate the leader of that party to be prime minister who is

from a rival party to the president. In addition, the constitution stipulates that the

Government shall be responsible to the President of the Republic and the Assembly of

the Republic (Article 190). This article shows the double responsibility of the

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government and the authority of the president. With regard to the power of dissolution,

the constitution grants the president the power to dissolve the parliament after

consulting both the parties with seats in the Assembly, and the Council of State4

(Article 133). As for veto power, the constitution stipulates that within twenty days of

the receipt of any decree from the Assembly of the Republic for enactment as a law,

or of the publication of a Constitutional Court ruling that does not declare any of the

decree’s provisions unconstitutional, the President of the Republic shall either enact

the decree or exercise the right of veto (Article 136-1). In short, the president in

Portugal possesses considerable powers in the constitution.

In March 2005, the parliamentary elections were held in Portugal. The result of

elections displayed that the socialist party (PS) won 121 seats of the total 230 seats

which passed the threshold of a majority while the social democratic party (PSD)

attained only 75 seats. In March 2006, Aníbal Cavaco Silva from the opposition party

in parliament, social democratic party-PSD, was elected as the president. In this

situation, President Cavaco Silva cohabited with the leader of the socialist party (PS),

José Sócrates as prime minister.5 Owing to the unified control of one party in the

assembly, Prime Minister Sócrates did not have the worriment of the back-up

problems and could make the advantage in position when facing an opposing

president. Over the reform of social security, Prime Minister Sócrates endorsed the

proposal of social security remaining in the public sector while the opposition

supported a mixed approach to enact social security in the public sector and private

sector; President Cavaco Silva advised Prime Minister Sócrates to negotiate with the

PSD, but Prime Minister Sócrates refused to embrace; finally the Sócrates

government went its own way to pass the reform of social security (Magone, 2007:

1079). In addition, President Cavaco Silva also clashed with Prime Minister Sócrates

over the reform of the Divorce Law. In 2009 September, Prime Minister Sócrates and

his supporting deputies passed a law to facilitate divorce by not applying the guilty

principle while President Cavaco Silva refused to sign the bill into law and enacted

his veto power to ask the bill to be reconsidered in the parliament; subsequently, the

4 In December 2004, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio enacted his nuclear option as the power to dissolve the parliament and in that time, Prime Minister Pedro Miguel Lopes who formed a coalition government against the president (Jalali, 2011: 167). This case shows that the president in Portuguese semi-presidentialism holds considerable powers which can be used to react against the government with an opposition majority during the period of cohabitation. Regarding the important role presidents play in policy making in Portugal, please see Amorim Neto and Lobo (2009) and Martins (2006). 5 Cohabitation occurred in Portugal very frequently. From March 1986 to October 1995, President Mário Soares (PS) cohabited with Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva (PSD); from April, 2002 to July, 2004, President Jorge Sampaio (PS) cohabited with Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso; from July 2004 to March, 2005, President Jorge Sampaio (PS) cohabited with Prime Minister Pedro Miguel Lopes (PSD). Related information sees Professor Robert Elgie’s website of semi-presidentialism (www.semi-presidentialism).

15

PS controlled parliament overrode the veto and passed the bill of new Divorce Law

(Magone, 2009: 1083). In brief, during the period of cohabitation, the president and

the prime minister were wrangling for the upper hand over legislation. However, the

prime minister with a solid majority could exert a will that independent of the

president. The power and responsibilities weighed heavily in prime minister’s favor.

In this kind of cohabitation, the government and legislation in the parliament are

sealed off from the president’s influence, but the president is not entirely sidelined

since he owns some unilateral authority. In this mode of cohabitation, executive

power does change partisan hands in Portugal, from the president to the prime

minister.

Unbalanced Cohabitation

In some semi-presidential countries, the president holds constitutional unilateral

authority in some reserved domains. For example, the president can issue a decree,

cast a veto, launch dissolution to parliament, and nominate the portfolio of foreign

affairs and defense. In other words, the president can act independently in the reserved

domains and to serve a rallying point for the opposition majority. The prime minister

still pilots the government but the president can have discretion on certain ambits. In

addition, since the cabinet is a coalition government, if the coalition cabinet fails to

act in unison, it can weaken political power of the prime minister. This is called

unbalanced cohabitation. Semi-presidential practice in Poland can furnish an

explanation of this mode6.

The president in the 1997 Polish Constitution is armed with considerable powers

such as decree power, dissolution power, veto power and appointing power. The

President of the Republic shall issue regulations and executive orders in accordance

with the principles specified in Articles 92 and 937 (Article 142). The President of the

6 Another typical case of unbalanced cohabitation is semi-presidential practice in Niger from 1993 to 1996. The clashes between President Mahamane Ousmane and Prime Minister Hama Amadou during the period of cohabitation had enticed the intervention of the military and a democratic breakdown ensued afterward (Moestrup, 2007). The president during the period of cohabitation is powerful since the president may veto laws and the parliament can only veto only by a two-thirds majority (Article 49). The government during that period of cohabitation only controlled forty-six of the eighty-three parliamentary seats (Moestrup, 2007: 111). When the president launches a veto, the parliament controlled by the opposition cannot muster a two-third majority. This is one of the reasons why the cohabitation is easy to produce a deadlock in Niger. Regarding semi-presidential practice in Niger, see also Villalón and Idrissa (2005).

7 Article 93 stipulates that regulations shall be issued on the basis of specific authorization contained in, and for the purpose of implementation of, statutes by the organs specified in the Constitution; The authorization shall specify the organ appropriate to issue a regulation and the scope of matters to be regulated as well as guidelines concerning the provisions of such act. In addition, Article 94 says that on the basis of and within limits specified by statute, organs of local government and territorial organs

16

Republic shall nominate a Prime Minister who shall propose the composition of a

Council of Ministers (Article 154). The president has the power to dissolve the

parliament under certain conditions. If the Sejm’s candidate fails to gain an absolute

majority, the president can nominate a candidate, whose cabinet can be approved by

simple majority; if this candidate is unsuccessful the president is obliged to dissolve

the Sejm (McMenamin, 2008: 124; Article 155). The president may refer the bill, with

reasons given, to the Sejm for its reconsideration and if the bill is overridden by a

three-fifths majority vote in the Sejm, then the president has to sign it into a law

(Article 122.5). This article grants the president a powerful veto power. The threshold

of three-fifths majority is almost commensurable with the threshold of overriding in

American presidential system which requires two-thirds approval of each house of

Congress. The president shall cooperate with the prime minister and the appropriate

minister in respect of foreign policy (Article 133.3) and the president shall exercise

command over the Armed Forces through the minister of national defense in time of

peace (Article 134.2). Coupled with these two articles, it shows that the president can

have a say over defense and foreign affairs. The president in Poland bears significant

powers in the semi-presidential constitution8. Taken together, while the president and

prime minister represent the executive, the Polish constitutional model allows for a

dualism of presidential and government authority, which means that they remain

separate from one another.9

In the 2007 October parliamentary elections, the Civic Platform (PO) won 209

seats, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) gained 166 seats, the Left and Democrats

acquired 53 seats, and the Polish Peasant Party (PSL) got 31 seats, and the

independent had one seat. The total number of seats in the Sejm is 460 and a majority

needs 231 seats. The Civic Platform (PO) and the Polish Peasant Party (PSL) merged

to form a majority coalition with 240 seats in the parliament. During that period,

President Lech Kaczyński was a member of the Law and Justice party (PiS). Since the

Law and Justice party lost a majority in the parliament, President Kaczyński

nominated the party leader of the Civic Platform, Donald Tusk as prime minister,

causing a situation of cohabitation.

Tussles arise between President Kaczyński and Prime Minister Tusk over foreign

policy, over the attendance at EU summit in Brussels, and over the ratification of the

of government administration shall enact local legal enactments applicable to their territorially defined areas of operation; the principles of and procedures for enacting local legal enactments shall be specified by statute.

8 With regard to the 1997 Polish constitution and its practice, see Wyrzykowski and Cieleń (2006). 9 Associated Press. 2007. President versus PM: Cohabitation or Open Conflict?, Polish News Bulletin, November, 22.

17

Lisbon Treaty. First, Prime Minister Tusk insisted he was responsible for foreign

policy and declared that Poland would pull out of Iraq in 2008 and institute a fully

professional army in 2009 and would cease blocking Russia's accession to OECD

while President Kaczyński opposed against those polices and planned to ask the

Constitutional Tribunal for an official definition of the president's and prime minister's

competencies in such matters. 10 Second, the dual leaders squabbled about the

attendance of EU Summit. The EU summit only offered two delegates for each

member state. President Kaczyński insisted to participate in the discussion of the

Lisbon treaty at EU summit but Prime Minister Tusk responded that the prime

minister was entitled to lead the delegation in this occasion and either the foreign

minister or the finance minister took the other seat11. Third, President Kaczyński

crossed swords with Prime Minister Tusk over the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

After the treaty was rejected in the referendum of Ireland, President Kaczyński was

reluctant to sign the Lisbon Treaty while Prime Minister Tusk and his allies in the

coalition government had a supporting stance of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty

(Jasiewicz and Jasiewicz-Betkiewicz, 2009: 1076-7). To gain the upper hand over

policymaking, President Kaczyński enacted his veto power frequently. Over the

course of 2008, President Kaczyński vetoed 13 bills but nine vetoes were maintained,

three vetoes were overridden and one was pending （ Jasiewicz and

Jasiewicz-Betkiewicz, 2009: 1077）. Due to the threshold of three-fifths majority, the

proportion of the maintained vetoes to the total vetoes was very high. Engaged in a

tug of war with Prime Minister Tusk, President Kaczyński strategically fulfilled his

constitutional authority to obstruct the legislation or polices which the government

endorsed.

All in all, in the mode of unbalanced cohabitation, the prime minister in the

coalition for the most part can decide preferred policies, but the president can pull

strings over the issues of defense and foreign affairs and some policies he opposes.

Since the prime minister has proactive power and the president gains reactive power,

we call it as the mode of unbalanced cohabitation.

Balanced Cohabitation in Sri Lanka

Semi-presidentialism can be broken down into two subtypes: premier-presidentialism

and president-parliamentarism (Shugart and Carey, 1992; Shugart 2005).

Premier-presidentialism contains three features: the president is elected by popular

10 Associated Press, 2007. Polish premier insists he is responsible for foreign policy. BBC Monitoring

Europe, November 28. 11 http://www.wbj.pl/article-42954-polands-leaders-in-conflict-at-eu-summit.html, accessed on June 13, 2012.

18

vote, the president possesses considerable powers, and there also exist a premier and

cabinet, subject to assembly confidence, who perform executive functions (Duverger,

1980: 161; Shugart and Carey, 1992: 23). President-parliamentism includes four

criteria: the popular election of the president; the president appoints and dismisses

cabinet ministers; cabinet ministers are subject to parliamentary confidence; and the

president has the power to dissolve parliament or legislative powers or both (Shugart

and Carey, 1992: 24). In president-parliamentary systems, the president and

parliament are co-equal players in controlling the government. The major nuance

between these two subtypes is that the president in president-parliamentarism is more

powerful over the termination of cabinet and agenda-setting of legislation than the

president in premier-presidentialism.

Based on this classification, Sri Lanka is a president-parliamentary system. The

executive function which carries out or executes the laws is given to the president.

According to the Sir Lankan constitution, the executive power of the people shall be

exercised by the president of the Republic acting on the advice of the prime minister

and the cabinet of ministers, and by the governors acting on the advice of the

respective chief ministers and regional boards of ministers to the extent hereinafter

provided (Article 2). Also, in Article 30 of the constitution, it stipulates that the

president is the head of the state, the head of the executive and government, and the

commander-in-chief of the armed force and in Article 43, it says that the president

shall be a member of the cabinet ministers and shall be the head of the cabinet of

ministers. If we only focus on this part of the constitution, Sri Lanka is a presidential

system where the president takes the helm of government. However, the president in

Sri Lanka possesses some other constitutional powers which the president in

presidentialism does not have. The president can dissolve the parliament (Article 70).

Since the president has the power of dissolution to parliament, the Sri Lankan

constitution is a president-parliamentary system. In addition, the president can also

have the power of referring any bill or provision to referendum (Article 85). In

addition, other features of semi-presidentialism in Sri Lanka are the president can

nominate the prime minister (Article 33) and there shall be a cabinet of ministers

charged with the direction and control of the government of the republic which shall

be collectively responsible and answerable to the parliament (Article 45).Taken

together, the constitution empowers the president greater leeway than the prime

minister. If the president and prime minister from rival parties as the situation in the

period of cohabitation, we can expect the severity of conflict between the dual

leaders.

In the 2001 Sri Lankan parliamentary elections, the United National Party won

109 seats and the People’s Alliance acquired only 77 seats in the total 225 seats.

19

President Chandrika Kumaratunga and her party, People’s Alliance lost a majority in

the parliament and had to nominate the opposition leader in the UNP, Ranil

Wickremesinghe to be prime minister (Shastri, 2002). This was the first time for Sri

Lanka to emerge the cohabitation experience in the trajectory of semi-presidentialism.

President Kumaratunga skirmished with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe over several

issues. President Kumaratunga carried on the campaign against the appeasement

strategy which Prime Minister Kumaratunga proposed to interact with the separatist

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (DeVotta, 2004). Prime Minister

Kumaratunga with a legislative majority enabled him to direct the contours of

lawmaking against the president. His government introduced a controversial

amendment in the parliament to curtail presidential powers over dissolution of

parliament; however, the Supreme Court overruled the amendment and the parliament

launched an impeachment to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for retaliation

(Jayasuriya, 2005: 89).

Facing a confrontational cohabitation government, President Kumararunga and

her party, the UNP were trying to clinch a deal with a small party, the communist

party (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-JVP) and threatened to dissolove the parliament in

order to topple the government led by Prime Minister Wickremasinghe.12 Afterward,

President Kumaratunga suspended parliament, fired the ministers of defense,

information and the interior, and deployed troops around the capital.13 Furthermore,

President Kumaratunga also used her executive powers to appoint two members of

her party, which is in opposition in parliament, into the cabinet, just before dissolving

the legislature.14 The measures of calling emergency and suspending parliament were

not ratified by the opposition majority in parliament (Jayasuriya, 2005: 90). The

lock-in conflict between the president and prime minster from rival parties resulted

from one of the features of Sir Lankan Constitution. The president is not only the head

of the state, but also is the head of the government (Article 30). For example,

President Kumaratunga said under Sri Lanka's constitution, she is the executive

president having all the power except changing a man into woman and a woman into

a man.15 When the opposition grasps a majority in the parliament, the president has to

share executive power with the prime minister commanding a legislative majority. It

becomes an odd situation of the head of the government being at loggerheads with the

12 Associated Press. 2003. Sri Lanka: President said closer to ousting Wickremasinghe government. Press Trust of India. Feburary 28. 13 Associated Press. 2003. Shake-up roils Sri Lanka; Prime minister rips president for dissolving parliament. The Washington Times. November 5. 14 Associated Press. 2004. Sri Lankan parliament axed. The Australian. Feburary 9. 15 Associated Press. 2003. Sri Lankan president in Bangladesh says no plans to dissolve parliament. The Independent Web Site, Dhaka. April 21.

20

head of the cabinet. Cohabitation in this case is a recipe for gridlock and institutional

combat. The president and the prime minister pushed their constitutional powers to

the point of paralyzing conflict. In this scenario, it is balanced cohabitation which

demonstrates the severity of political clashes between dual executive leaders.

Conclusion

There are four types of cohabitation in semi-presidentialism. First, when the

president does not have unilateral constitutional powers such as decree, veto, and

dissolution power and when the president’s party only has a minority in the

parliament, the president has to give executive ground to the prime minister with an

opposition majority. If the cabinet is composed of more than one party, the prime

minister has to share executive power with coalition parties. It is called shared

cohabitation (France). In this scenario, the president retreats to the second line and the

prime minister leads the way on day-to-day matters of government. Second, when

only one party forms the cabinet, the prime minister as the party leader is more

paramount than the prime minister in the coalition cabinet. When the president and

prime minister have divergent views of policy, conflict between them can arise, but

the prime minister still can gain the upper hand with a coherent majority in the

parliament. This scenario is called premier-tilt cohabitation (Portugal). Third, in some

semi-presidential countries, the president holds some unilateral authority or reserved

domains. For example, the president can issue a decree or cast a veto or launch

dissolution power to parliament or the president can nominate the portfolios of foreign

affairs and defense. In other words, the president can act independently in some

reserved domains and to serve a rallying point for the opposition majority. The prime

minister still pilots the government but the president can have some discretion on

certain domains. In addition, since the cabinet is a coalition government, if the

coalition cabinet fails to act in unison, it can weaken political power of the prime

minister. This is called unbalanced cohabitation (Poland). Fourth, if the president is

granted considerable unilateral authority and the opposing cabinet is only made up of

one party, it is more likely to see grandstanding between the president and prime

minister. This scenario is called balanced cohabitation (Sri Lanka).

Take together, the degree of conflict increases progressively from shared

cohabitation, premier-tilt cohabitation, unbalanced cohabitation to balanced

cohabitation. Our task here is to outline a framework capable of explaining the

features that subtend different types of cohabitation. The interactions between the

president and prime minister are best conceptualized by degree along a bounded scale.

At one end of the spectrum is the prime minister holding the final authority over the

operation of government while the president has a free hand to interpret his power at

21

will on certain reserved domains. On the other end of the spectrum is balanced

between the president and prime minister sharing some constitutional authority,

where either the president or prime minister can tip the scales on each specific issue.

This article claims that cohabitation in semi-presidentialism does not work as a

parliamentary system and the president’s authority depends on the weight of his

constitutional prerogatives in different types of cohabitation. During the period of

cohabitation, the prime minister has few incentives to follow the president’s lead.

However, the president can still wield his influence by reserved constitutional powers.

This study clarifies the nexus between presidential powers, party composition of the

cabinet and the degree of conflict between the president and prime minister. In

conclusion, this paper illustrates that the construction of different types of

cohabitation and different consequences over the degree of conflict can contribute to

the literature of comparing semi-presidential countries.

22

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