The Caribbean Electorial Systems

• Report rights infringement
• published: 06 Nov 2014
• views: 1121

All of the political systems of the independent countries in the Caribbean are technically democratic, although there is some debate about how democratic some of them are, such as the case of Cuba. These political systems differ from each other in terms of their systems of government, political party systems and the electoral systems they use. The democratic systems in the Caribbean differ in terms of the governmental systems they adopt, which are usually one of two types: presidential or parliamentary. A presidential system is one in which a republic is formed and a constitution establishes a division of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The president is the leader of the executive branch and has broad legislative authority. The legislative branch, which may be divided into one or two houses (a unicameral or bicameral system) is centered on the congress, which exercises its legislative functions without infringing on the president's legislative rights. The president is directly elected by the voters and not by the congress or parliament. The best known presidential democratic republic in modern history is the United States. Under a parliamentary system, meanwhile, the executive power is elected by the parliament (the legislative power) and must answer to the parliament. This is known as the principle of political confidence, in the sense that the legislative and executive powers are closely tied and the executive depends on the confidence of the parliament to continue in power. In the Caribbean, the only exception to this pattern of presidential and parliamentary systems of government is found in Suriname, which has a hybrid system. In Suriname, since 1991, the country has a political system very similar to a parliamentary system but with a president who is elected indirectly and has considerable constitutional power. At the same time, many of the islands and territories continue under colonial regimes (such as the cases of Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands) or have been fully incorporated into the country that once colonized them (such as the case of the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and French Guiana). In most of these cases, in terms of local and municipal elections, these governmental systems follow the rules defined by the constitutions, decrees and laws of the empire of which they are a part. (courtesy "La Perla Theater in Ponce" Encyclopedia of Puerto Rico. Retrieved January 25, 2006: http://www.encyclopediapr.org)