Bureaucratic Actors vs Legitimate Actors: Explaining the Choice of Interim Presidents in Filling the Dual Vacance of the President and the Vice President

Abstract

One of the difficult situations in government occurs due to the double vacancy of the President and Vice President offices. The country’s constitution must navigate this vacuum by providing for an Interim President to temporarily lead the government until a new President and Vice President are elected. In the constitutions of various countries, there are two models of Interim President, some give mandate to bureaucratic actors (Prime Ministers/Ministers) and some give mandate to legitimate actors (legislature of House of Representatives/Senate) to step up as Interim President. This paper aims to explain these two models in terms of filling public positions and presidentialism settings. The results of this study will be able to showcase the strengths and weaknesses of bureaucratic actors and legitimate actors when serving as Interim President, which supported with experience from various countries. With the help of socio-legal methods, this paper closes the theoretical gap in the constitutional and political law literature which has not explained these two models. Our paper shows that both have advantages in different aspects: the bureaucrat actor is superior in terms of policy because he was involved in the previous Government Cabinet, while the legitimate actor is superior in terms of politics because he has democratic legitimacy and was elected by the people and political parties. What is a weakness for one actor, becomes an advantage for the other.

Keywords

• constitutional law
• constitution
• interim president
• president
• power vacancy
• presidentialism
• parliamentarism
• bureauctaric actor
• legitimate actor