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What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Having A Parliament Form Of Government?

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Danielle Joynson Profile
The Parliamentary system, as used in the United Kingdom, is a different system of governing to the Presidential system as used in the United States of America.

Its most obvious advantage is the speed with which it can pass legislation. This is because the executive is dependent upon support of the legislative branch. So as the executive is the majority political party or coalition of parties in the legislature, it possesses most votes in order to pass legislation.

In a Presidential system, the executive can be chosen independently from the legislature and this can produce stalemate situations. If the executive and legislature in such a system include members of different political parties, the executive might not be able to properly implement its policies.

As well as its ability to pass legislation fast, the Parliamentary system can also be said to be a better representation of a nation if it has many ethnic, racial or ideological divisions. This is because the executive is made up of a cross section of people, as voted for by the population. In the Presidential system, all executive power is concentrated in one person - the president and he/she cannot be representative of the whole nation.

The disadvantage of the Parliamentary system is that the head of the government is not chosen directly by the voters. Citizens vote for local members of political parties and the one that wins a majority puts its leader forward as the head of state. So only the people in David Cameron’s constituency actually voted for him at the last UK general election.
The rest of the people whose votes led him to power were actually placed for members of his party. Also, if a party has a large majority in the executive, it can force through any legislation that it chooses through sheer weight of votes.

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