Powers
By convention, the president controls foreign-affairs and defense-related issues of the state, while the prime minister manages the day-to-day affairs including the economy.
The prime minister heads the Cabinet, which in turn plays a leading role in shaping the agenda of the houses of Parliament. It may propose laws to Parliament as well as amendments during parliamentary meetings.
Under the system created by the 1980 constitutional amendments, the president is the pre-eminent executive figure who appoints the prime minister.
When the president's political party or supporters control Parliament, the president is in effect the ‘dominant’ player in executive action, choosing whoever he wishes for government, and having it follow ‘his’ political agenda.
However, when the president's political opponents control Parliament, the president's dominance can be severely limited, as he must choose a prime minister and Cabinet reflecting the majority in Parliament.
When parties from opposite ends of the political spectrum control Parliament and the presidency, the power-sharing arrangement is known as cohabitation. Several cohabitation governments took control in the 1970s yet proved to be very unstable.
Read more about this topic: Prime Minister Of Egypt
Famous quotes containing the word powers:
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)
“Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.”
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“A man is the prisoner of his power. A topical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, disputant; skill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar. Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against the dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers. It watches success.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)