Parliamentary system

A parliamentary system is a system of democratic governance of a state in which the executive branch derives its democratic legitimacy from, and is held accountable to, the legislature (parliament).

Quotes

• Britain is a special country. We have so many great advantages: a parliamentary democracy where we resolve great issues about our future through peaceful debate; a great trading nation with our science and arts, our engineering and our creativity, respected the world over. And while we are not perfect, I do believe we can be a model of a multiracial, multifaith democracy where people can come and make a contribution, and rise to the very highest that their talent allows.
  • David Cameron, Resignation Speech, 24 June 2016

• Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the most thoughtful historians of [the French Revolution], notes that the French monarchy sowed the seeds of its own demise by destroying the regional parliaments, institutions that the French thought were just as ancient and just as unchangeable as the monarchy itself. After the king dispersed the parliaments both in Paris and in the regions, the French people concluded that everything, including a more democratic system, was possible. Something similar, [Abbas] Gallyamov argues, is now possible in Russia today.
  • Paul A. Goble, "With War in Ukraine, Putin is Demolishing His Argument that Russia Can't Change and Become Democratic, Gallyamov Says", Window on Eurasia (March 17, 2024)

• To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to misrepresent the people in parliament is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism.
  • Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917), in Essential Works of Lenin (1966), p. 304

• As we all know there are many forms of government and parliamentary democracy is only one of them. Parliamentary democracy, like all the other systems of government is not perfect. It has many weaknesses and how these weaknesses will undermine a parliamentary government depends much upon the practitioners. If the practitioners understand the system and its limits and are determined to derive the maximum benefit from it, then it will work and it will deliver the good governance that we all want. If not it will be no better than the systems which we reject, the feudal system, the authoritarian system, the Socialist system, the Communist system, the liberal democratic system, the Presidential system, the two-party system, the one term or two term system or whatever. All are imperfect and they can be worse than the parliamentary democratic system. On the other hand under benevolent, patriotic and skilful hands they can be better than parliamentary democracy.
  • Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, [1] (23 October 2003)

External links

• "The Decurions, Parliamentarianism, and Tai Ji Men" by Massimo Introvigne, Bitter Winter