Problems in interim presidency: A comparative constitutional perspective

Abstract

The research relevance is determined by the diverse constitutional approaches adopted by countries worldwide to address the critical issue of succession in the event of concurrent vacancies in the positions of President and Vice President. The study aims to correctly determine the appropriate acting presidency during extraordinary situations to ensure the continual rule of government. A doctrinal research method alongside a comparative constitutional approach to explore the constitutions of various countries. The study determined that there are legitimized and bureaucratic actors who compete with each other to become acting presidents when the positions of President and Vice President are vacant in various parts of the world. Countries that use legitimacy actors generally use the Speaker of the House of Representatives/Senate (legislative) as the acting president, while countries that use bureaucratic actors generally use ministers (executive) as the acting president. Legitimate actors are the officials to become acting presidents due to their capabilities to ensure stability based on democratic legitimacy stability, backed by votes. The practical value of this article is that it can be a source of knowledge for constitutional drafters when amending/changing the constitution because it has aggregated the arrangements for presidential duty executors from world constitutions and contributes knowledge from Indonesian experience that can be considered as material for discussion of constitutional amendments/changes

Keywords

• president
• acting president
• government
• constitutional comparison
• presidentialism