If “one man, one vote” is the essence of democracy as we understand it in the West and the EU, then the election of Malta’s President by a simple majority of the House of Representatives is not exactly the epitome of democracy. Should this change?

I personally believe that, if asked, a majority of Maltese would favour the direct election of the President.

If there is a growing feeling that the powers vested in our President should no longer be just ceremonial but be more substantive, what exactly do we want him to do?

But the question whether there should be a popularly-elected President, while it may engage the public’s attention, is not necessarily the best question to ask. Equally, if not even more important, is the issue of the functions of the presidency in Malta. Both matters should be debated healthily in the upcoming constitutional convention.

It is important to recall that a basic principle common to all forms of democracy is the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers. We already have a problem – not uncommon to other established democracies – that the executive has tended to abrogate to itself many powers that are not adequately subject to legislative scrutiny. Do we want to stymie the Parliament even more by having a strong President, as would tend to be the case if the President were to be elected by popular vote? Or do we want to put the emphasis on a strong Parliament?

In our parliamentary democracy, it is the political parties who dominate the agenda, especially in terms of the laws that are debated and passed by Parliament. While the Government of the day may theoretically ignore the Opposition, in practice many laws are the result of consensus or compromise, the ultimate sanction being that an unhappy Opposition may revoke or change the laws concerned once it gains the majority. A famous example is the Alfred Sant government’s revocation of the Opposition Nominees Act, now being invoked by Simon Busuttil, even though the PN failed to reinstate it.

But in a Parliament with only two parties, one of which normally has a comfortable majority, the effective checks and balances that are at the core of a parliamentary democracy tend to fall by the wayside. The Labour government’s programme includes “a strengthening of democratic structures” but leaves the details to the Constitutional Convention, though a first initiative has been the setting up of an Economic and Financial Affairs Committee of the House. Only one of the House’s committees is chaired by the Opposition. In general the committees lack the necessary clout and powers to keep the Executive in check.

Do we then want a strong president to counter an overly-strong Executive? And how strong do we want him to be? Is it that he would henceforth nominate the ministers, even ones who need not be members of Parliament? That is one of the features of a semi-presidential democracy, like France’s. Is it that he would have a veto on certain types of legislation or on certain appointments, or even be involved directly in them? If the answer is in the affirmative, will his actions in such spheres be subject to scrutiny by other institutions, and to what extent? The questions would multiply if we were to move to a fully-presidential system.

At the moment, there seems to be lack of clear thinking on such issues. Some people, for example, are suggesting that certain sensitive areas should be reserved to the President in the interest of taking the politics out of them. One which comes to mind is the running of the Public Broadcasting Service. There might be something in this, but how can the citizens guard against the possibility of excesses by a President who believes that, being popularly elected, he can challenge or override other institutions?

If there is a growing feeling that the powers vested in our President should no longer be just ceremonial but be more substantive, what exactly do we want him to do? There are models where he appoints and dismisses prime ministers or cabinets, where he is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and has the power to declare war, where he is the Head of Government and therefore directs the executive branch, in addition to being the Head of State.

Even if one were to agree that we should have a stronger President, there is no inherent reason why he should be popularly elected. The Constitution could be amended to extend the powers of the President while leaving his election to the House of Representatives. If the President is to have more clout and be more representative of the will of the popular majority, then conceivably he could be elected by two-thirds or four-fifths of the House, so that except in a devastating collapse of the Opposition this would have a say in his election.

Other questions would be whether a directly elected President would be from a party-approved list of candidates, or whether anybody could run for the post; whether he would be elected on the strength of a majority, a plurality of votes, or after a runoff election between the two candidates with most votes; and whether we want to entertain a cohabitation situation where the candidate who wins the election is from a different party than the governing one.

It seems to me that we are somehow floating away from a parliamentary republic with a ceremonial President to something else. What, exactly, that something else should be, however, is far from clear. The President’s Forum, where certain issues are being debated, is a helpful contribution but most people get to know about it after each session is over and is reported in the Press. It is also failing to engage a wider audience.

Now that Franco Debono is drawing up the terms of reference for the Constitutional Convention, it is hoped that he will consult widely with civil society as well as with the political class to make sure that we avoid an elitist exercise.

The Convention should also be able to call upon experts in various fields to submit specialist papers which can be the basis of informed and objective discussions both within the convention itself and the country as a whole.