HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

The question is this: are we prepared ruthlessly to break this long-established Russian tradition of autocracy, or, despite all of the democratic slogans, in the depths of our souls do we wish still to search for a good tsar who will grant Russia freedom – however paradoxical that may seem? If we choose a presidential model, then there is far more likelihood in the future that the autocratic instincts will rise to the surface of Russia’s political culture once again and give the authorities much greater scope to move away from democratic methods than would a parliamentary model.

This is the main – indeed, the single – reason why I consider that a parliamentary republic is the preferred option for the Russia of my dreams. We have messed around too much by experimenting with personalised models of power, which is why today we need to boldly cut right to the bone. However many times we’ve played with the Lego bricks of the Russian political system, we’ve always ended up with the same result. It’s like the old joke about the worker stealing all sorts of spare parts from the factory. Whenever he got them home and started putting them together, he always ended up with a Kalashnikov rifle. Similarly, however many presidents of Russia you try to put together from various constitutional bits and pieces, you’ll always end up with a tsar.

Even though a presidential republic is usually considered to be the opposite of a parliamentary republic, considering the very many formats that you can find of both presidential and parliamentary systems, understanding the subtle differences between them is not so easy. The key question ultimately is the depth of the separation of powers and the exact way in which this is laid out. There’s an extra dimension provided for the separation of powers in a parliamentary republic: the division of power within the executive branch of government, into the head of state and the head of the executive.

So in a parliamentary republic we have this extra dimension of democracy. And the division of the executive can be very varied. The head of state can be a completely nominal figure (such as the British King, as in other constitutional monarchies); or they can play a specific political role as an arbiter (like in modern Italy); or they can carry out an important and even decisive role in power (as in France, which is a very specific type of presidential-parliamentary republic). There are no general rules or set standards in this issue.

The choice of a specific type of parliamentary republic is the key question in creating a reliable constitutional structure. To a large extent, forming an efficient model demonstrates great skill in constitutional creativity. All the successful working models of democracy have come about as a result of a creative instinct and a deep understanding of the peculiarities of a national culture.

The reality is that societies show much more clearly defined individuality than do individuals. Nevertheless, there are certain principles that can be used in any circumstances to create models that work.

One of the basic principles for building a parliamentary republic is that there’s a relationship between parliament and the government. Whatever different types of parliamentary republic there might be, one factor is always a constant: both the chairman of the government and the whole government are beholden to parliament, which appoints them and can get rid of them.

Why is this important in Russia specifically? Because parliament’s shares will immediately rise on the political market. The same shares that until today have been classified as worthless on the Russian institutional exchange. They were bought up only by “bears”, playing for a fall. If parliament becomes the only body that can appoint and fire the government, then the hour of the “bull” will come to Russia. And at that point not only will parliament’s shares rise, but all those of the democratic cluster linked to it.

If parliament occupies the central institutional place in Russia’s political system, then the value of a member’s seat will also rise, leading to the same across the whole electoral procedure.

This would also mean that holding elections for candidates based solely on their personal appeal, as usually happens with Russia’s presidential election, will become much more difficult. Along with this, the value of regional representation in both houses will also rise sharply, because the quantity and quality will be directly related to satisfying the daily needs of the local population. In other words, the system of federal relations will have true significance, instead of the current situation, whereby in the strictly centralised, unitary state it’s a mere bauble. In its turn, this will pull up with it the compensatory development of local self-government, with the aim of not allowing Russia to return to feudalism and the appearance of individual principalities.