Presidential System - Criticism

Criticism

Critics generally claim three basic disadvantages for presidential systems:

• Tendency towards authoritarianism — some political scientists say that presidentialism is not constitutionally stable.
• Political gridlock - The separation of powers of a presidential system establishes the presidency and the legislature as two parallel structures. Critics argue that this frequently creates undesirable and long-term political gridlock and political instability whenever the president and the legislative majority are from different parties, which is common because the electorate usually expects more rapid results from new policies than are possible. In addition, this reduces accountability by allowing the president and the legislature to shift blame to each other.