It's election year in New Zealand, and the political competition between the left, right and centre has begun in earnest. Some polls are showing a very close election result - primarily because of New Zealand's proportional representation system.
This of course creates great anxiety amongst the politicos - the potential for a hung parliament means an uncertain election outcome, which means instability and all that goes with it. (more)
Jacob Zuma has been elected leader of South Africa's ruling ANC party at a stormy party conference. Unlike in New Zealand, Australia, Canada or the UK, Zuma doesn't automatically gain a executive post such as Prime Minister for being leader of the ruling party - instead, the incumbent President, Thabo Mbeki, retains his office until the next presidential election is held, which will be at the end of his term, as defined by the South African constitution, in 2009. (more)
Following on from
this article
: if you didn't know Australia was a parliamentary system, and you read
SSR
, then you could be excused for thinking we have a presidential one. It is all
Keating, Howard, Rudd, Greiner, Carr, Bracks, Kennett
etc
(more)
Technical forms of production are very dependent on quality control to minimise the variation in their product from the requirements. This means the customer gets a consistent product or service every time. Consequently in industrial parlance quality means minimum of variation from the requirements or specifications. We can probably start looking at Parliament as having inbuilt quality mechanisms to produce quality legislation where policy substitutes in the role of requirements.
(more)
Who got makes money bills and who got voted out in the US mid-terms? The one and the same - the Legislative.
(more)
Bruce Schneier
's ideas have
been commented about on SSR
in the past in relation to security. However in this article titled;
Unchecked presidential power
he has a look at separation of powers and the aggrandization of the executive branch in times of war.
(more)
