President

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

A president is the leader of a country or a company or other group. A president is usually elected by the people in that group. Voting is one way to elect a president.

[edit] Choosing a President

The United States has a president. He is elected by the electoral college. Companies have presidents. They are elected by the people who own part of the company. In some companies, the people who are workers for the company elect (vote) their company president.

[edit] Power of a President

The president of a country is not the same thing as a prime minister. A prime minister is part of a parliament, but a president is not. In some countries, (such as the United States or France), the president has more power and responsibility than anyone else. In other countries (such as Ireland or Israel), to be president is more of an honor or a symbol, and the position has no real power.

In most countries that have a King or Queen as their monarch, there is no president. Some countries, like Spain have both a monarch and a president.

The American President is severely restricted by the written American Constitution, which can be changed but only if two-thirds of congress as well as the President and three-fourths of the states agree to it. The American constitution was designed to ensure that the American executive never became as powerful as the British system it had broken away from. The British Prime Minister is part of both the Legislature and Executive, whereas the American President is the head of the Executive. The American governmental system shows a clear separation of powers unlike the British system. the American president, although directly elected by the American people, is severely restricted in several ways.

1. All the president's ministerial apppointments have to be vetted by Congress (parliament) and Congress may have an opposition majority.
2. The president does not have the ability to introduce and influence legislation in the same way as the British prime minister.
3. Congress has much greater control over the budget and foreign policy than the British Parliament.
4. There are broad areas of American life, such as education, crime and punishment, over which the president has virtually no influence at all.
5. The president even has very limited control over the economy.

So despite having a huge nuclear arsenal, the American president simply does not have the ability to carry out policy and introduce legislation as freely as the British prime minister.