03.03.06
Honorary President – above politics
The Honorary President Republican Model makes the claim that Australia could have directly-elected, yet apolitical Head of State. In comments posted at South Sea Republic, this claim was sceptically received. If a president were elected, who would run the campaigns? Wouldn’t there be just party candidates? Surely then the Honorary President would then become political.
This article shows how the Honorary President’s power is codified so that none exists. It then explains how the mechanisms of election and tenure are tailored so the Honorary President rises above politics, rather than embroiled within it.
A common refrain from minimalist republicans is that the Australian public desire to elect a future president would result in something they desire even less – a political Head of State. This apparent contradiction is at the heart of the stalemate in the republican model debate.
The Honorary President Republican model breaks down this contradiction. It says that we can elect our Head of State without them becoming a political animal. The key to this resolution is a codification of the Queen’s powers and replacing her with an institution designed from the ground up as an apolitical office.
As is implied by its title, the Honorary President is not a President in the usual understanding of the word. Under the constitution, they have a different role from that of a politician or even a Governor-General.
The Honorary President is assigned one and only one constitutional function. Upon a nomination by the Prime Minister or premier of a state, the Honorary President would appoint the Governor General and state governors and delegate executive power to these appointees in strict compliance with the constitution and laws of that jurisdiction. The governors are able to exercise powers for each of their respective parliaments according to the Westminster conventions.
Aside from this fundamental function, which is based upon the existing powers of the Queen, the Honorary President is prohibited from exercising any power of the Presidency directly. In effect, the model involves a codification of the Queens powers as they apply when she is not in Australia.
The Office of Honorary President is not a political prize and offers no political power. It is irrelevant if they are progressive or conservative in their personal outlook. The fundamental assumption of this model is that there is no political advantage for major political parties to contest or involve themselves in the election of the Honorary President.
A feature of Honorary President Model is its belief that that former Governors (including former Governors-General) by virtue of their service, would make excellent Honorary Presidents. To facilitate this, the constitution would allow the federal and the state parliaments to nominate a former Governor as a candidate. This would be the constitutional equivalent of promoting in-house.
But there is hidden benefit to this, which protects the election of the Honorary President from becoming a battle between the major political parties. Every state parliament will have an interest to ensure that its former governor achieves a satisfactory result. As the number of major political parties is smaller than the number of states, a major party will be unable to unite behind a single candidate with both its federal and state apparatus. It is also likely that that the political interests of all major parties within each state would be best served by bi-partisan support of the official state candidate – the former governor.
Readers of the previous article will remember that three candidates in the election will be nominated through public petition. There could be minor party support for these candidates as perhaps the office could be seen a platform for their agenda. Nevertheless, minor parties are, by definition, limited by resources and influence. They will assess that an attempt to promote a candidate will be difficult and even if successful, the Honorary President has no power to implement policy. Consequently, minor parties will continue to put their resources into obtaining upper house seats which require far less electoral support and offer the opportunity for preference deals, parliamentary resources and perhaps even the balance of power.
In summary, elections for the Honorary President will unfold entirely differently from the political contests at the federal, state and local government level.
Without the resources of the major or minor parties and no policies to promote, candidates will rely upon their existing public profile and any system of public information established by the government. Such a system could ensure that former governors do not need to establish their own campaign at all.
The tenure of the Honorary President is five years, extensible in lots of six months up to eight years. In practice, the election for the Honorary President will be held ten to twelve weeks after every second general election.
While political parties are busily involved in their parliamentary campaigns, community organisations will be collecting signatures from their members or out in the street. Organisations would be motivated primarily by honouring eminent people who have made a significant contribution to society. It may be a charity, a university, a local council or a business association. It remains a question mark as to whether political organisations should be explicitly excluded, however the timing of the signature collection activity during a general election plus the politicians’ backing of former governors as parliamentary candidates results in some implicit exclusion.
After the candidates are nominated, voters will receive their voting papers in the mail, along with a booklet introducing all the candidates and their record of community service.
The method of election must consider that there will be ten or close to ten candidates, most of who are respected members of the community and many of who would have served as a Governor.
Of all the methods of voting available, the most appropriate is the approval voting system. Under this system, when people vote, they will be either approving or not approving each candidate individually. There will be no ranking, how-to-vote cards or preference deals. This simple system is perfect for choosing a non-political head of state.
Approval voting is used by a large number of professional organisations and a variant of this system was used by the Security Council to nominate Kofi Annan to the United Nations General Assembly.
It would be interesting to know whether voters will respond to the experience and certainly that electing a former governor or governor-general would offer. Alternatively, if organisations were to nominate a great humanitarian, a scientist or medical pioneer or a business leader, what degree of support would they attain?
But once in office the person would not and could not challenge the political power of the government. Their contribution would be outside government and above politics – an independent institution symbolic of the sovereignty of the people.
