Some questions about the elections process

[Mahmoud]

Firstly, I know this forum is about International Laws discussion. But I didn't know where to post my topic, so feel free to move it to another forum if it doesn't fit in here.

Okay. I'm Mahmoud, an Egyptian who has some questions about the elections process in the US, UK or any other country because as you might know, this is the first elections process we will go through in the last 60 years, so we literally have zero experience. I have some questions about the candidates, the parliament and others.

1- How candidates are chosen? Do they apply for it or something? Or they get nominated by their parties?
2- Do the candidates have to be independent or do they come from political parties?
3- Can a party nominate more than one candidate for the presidential elections?
4- Who forms the government? The president after being elected? Or the parliament?
5- What if the parliament's majority and the president are from the same political party? Is this essentially bad thing? Or it might be a good thing? And for what reasons?

These are the most questions I want to get answers about. And sorry if there's something not entirely understood, I'm still new to this whole elections process and politics, so I might not get the exact terms.

Thanks a lot,
Mahmoud

[Lambsbread]

Hi Mahmoud! Welcome to the forum.

I can answer your questions about the US.

1. The candidates basically say "I'm running for President!" (though they do have to fill in some papers,) and generally they are already a member of a party. Afterward, elections are held in single states in which voters determine which candidate they believe would best represent their respected party. Once a candidate collects a certain number of delegates (people who go to the national party conventions every four years) they win the nomination.

2. Some candidates have a party (Republican, Democrat) but some don't. There are also smaller parties (Libertarian, Socialist, Constitution) but they aren't expected to win much, as they are virtually unknown.

3. No, only one Presidential candidate may be nominated. The party nominates a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate.

4. I think you're referring to the cabinet. When the new President comes in, he or she picks people to serve as the head of a certain department. There are several departments (Treasury, Health and Human Services, Transportation, etc.) in which many different people serve. The people picked by the President to serve must first be confirmed by the Congress in a majority vote.

5. It's not viewed as a bad thing in general, but a lot of people think it's bad. Essentially, if the President and Congress are both of the same party, the Congress can just propose legislation, pass it right through and the President signs it into law without opposition.

I hope I answered your questions well enough!

Cheers,

20RP12

[Smid]

One of your best sources on this is likely to be Hashemite, a poster on here, who operates a blog: World Elections. He provides a great deal of background information on each election once it has occurred, and covers numerous countries, so you'll get a fair idea of how things work in multiple different countries by reading over his blog, since each country does things slightly different to any other country.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each system, so while some may appear to be the best system, it may have hidden drawbacks which make it less desirable than at first glance.

[Mahmoud]

Thanks a lot, both of you. This was really helpful.

20RP12, For the first question I meant does the candidate says that himself, or he gets nominated by his party? Like they hold a meeting or so to choose the one to be their candidate?

For the third question, what I meant is that here the Freedom and Justice party nominated a candidate to be theirs, but he was threatened that he can't be accepted, so they nominated another one as a spare in the case the primary candidate didn't get accepted. This was in the pre-elections period that all the candidates weren't yet accepted as official nominations.

And yes, I was referring to the cabinet, sorry.

Thanks a lot,
Mahmoud

[Middle-aged Europe]

20RP12, For the first question I meant does the candidate says that himself, or he gets nominated by his party? Like they hold a meeting or so to choose the one to be their candidate?

The process is like this:
1. You announce your intention to become your party's presidential nominee.
2. Party "members" vote in primary elections which of the potential nominees they prefer. This determines how many delegates every candidate receives for the nominating convention.
3. The candidate who won a majority of the delegates in the primary elections is formally nominated at the party convention and hence becomes his party's presidential nominee for the election.
4. The presidential nominee chooses a vice presidential nominee who is then formally nominated by the convention as well.

Also see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_primary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_nominating_convention

Strictly speaking, you don't have to be a member of a party and go through this process to become a presidential candidate. You could also do it as an "Independent" candidate who doesn't belong to any of the political parties. These candidates usually don't have any chance of winning the election though. Only the Republican and the Democratic nominees do.

For the third question, what I meant is that here the Freedom and Justice party nominated a candidate to be theirs, but he was threatened that he can't be accepted, so they nominated another one as a spare in the case the primary candidate didn't get accepted. This was in the pre-elections period that all the candidates weren't yet accepted as official nominations.

This isn't how it is done in the United States. In the end, there is only one presidential nominee and one vice presidential nominee. Normally, presidential nominees aren't threatened to be "rejected". If a nominee withdraws or even dies, the party would have to nominate a replacement candidate as quickly as possible. Usually this doesn't happen though.

[Lambsbread]

Old Europe said it best.

[Mahmoud]

Thanks very much. That really enlightened me up

The reason for me asking about the spare nominee is that Freedom and Justice party are basically the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, and as you might know they had lots of conflicts and fights against Moubarak's regime. So almost all of their leaders have been arrested before. After the revolution they nominated one of them to be a presidential candidate, but they were threatened he would not be accepted as a final nominee because he was in jail, so they put another one as a spare in case their primary nominee was rejected.

So, I had to ask if this actually normal and would happen in other countries or not? Because almost every other political party bashes them for this move. So I wanted to get a better vision by taking opinions of experienced persons.

Mahmoud

[Insula Dei]

Within the Egyptian context it would seem reasonable for the Muslim Brotherhood to try and make certain they would have a candidate on the ballot of the Presidential Election, especially given the fact that the Freedom and Justice Party is so dominant in the freshly elected parliament. If anything, the move to ban someone from running on the grounds of a period in jail during the Moubarak period would be considered abnormal and a little bit fishy and undemocratic.

But every country has a different political culture, and different things that are deemed normal. Egypt's transition to democracy will ideally eventually result in a nation with an equally unique political culture and landscape of its own.

Hope that helps

[Mahmoud]

Yes, it did help a lot

Thanks very much for your responses. We hope for the best in our future and a real democratic culture.

[minionofmidas]

the move to ban someone from running on the grounds of a period in jail during the Moubarak period would be considered abnormal and a little bit fishy and undemocratic.

This. Very much this.

Try and imagine the uproar in West Germany if the GDR had tried to impose such a rule for the march 90 elections (for parliament, not a Presidency, but still.)
It's really a very telling sign of just how much power the old order (and that means the military, mostly; at least as far as one can tell from the outside) still has despite Mubarak's fall. The democratic revolution is not complete, at least not yet. (And Western governments are evidently quite happy with that.) That doesn't necessarily mean more violence is needed; it may well happen gradually after the election.
I'm hoping for the best for your country's future, Mahmoud.

[Mahmoud]

This. Very much this.

Try and imagine the uproar in West Germany if the GDR had tried to impose such a rule for the march 90 elections (for parliament, not a Presidency, but still.)
It's really a very telling sign of just how much power the old order (and that means the military, mostly; at least as far as one can tell from the outside) still has despite Mubarak's fall. The democratic revolution is not complete, at least not yet. (And Western governments are evidently quite happy with that.) That doesn't necessarily mean more violence is needed; it may well happen gradually after the election.
I'm hoping for the best for your country's future, Mahmoud.

Unfortunately yes. They still have the powers to use for their own needs. Nonetheless, the democratic transofrmation will happen indeed, we hope sooner than later, but it will, even if we had to make another revolution for it.

Thanks a lot

[Tender Branson]

Hi Mahmoud,

maybe you take a look at these papers here:

http://usa.usembassy.de/elections08/index.html

http://www.america.gov/publications/ejournalusa/1007.html

Or this:

http://usa.usembassy.de/elections04/electn04.pdf

This 2004 election brochure was the one I used for my English graduation in high school in 2005 that I found it quite interesting because it explains almost anything about US Presidential Elections.

Hope this helps.

[Smid]

Have you visited the International Elections board yet? I think there's an Egypt thread there.

[Mahmoud]

Tender Branson, thanks a lot, that helped me

Have you visited the International Elections board yet? I think there's an Egypt thread there.

No, not yet. I will now though

[ilikeverin]

Your writing is excellent, by the way!  Where did you learn English?

[Mahmoud]

Your writing is excellent, by the way!  Where did you learn English?

Thank you. Actually I learnt it at school