President

Rear part of the chair where the president of the United States, Barack Obama, is sitting, which carries a plate with the inscriptions: The President January 20, 2009 (in Spanish): President 20 January 2009).

President or president (from Latin praesĭdens, -entis, 'the one who leads a meeting'), so In general, it is the designation used to identify the person who directs a meeting, a work session or an assembly. Currently, the isolated term refers to the public official, elected for a specific period, who holds the executive power of a State or a region. This formula was first incorporated into the United States Constitution and is now widely used. In addition, it serves to identify who presides over a certain collegiate public body, such as by way of example, the respective presidents of Congress (both in the Upper House and in the Lower House), Supreme Court, Constitutional Court and others.

In the same way and by extension, it is also called, in some countries, the top manager of private companies, universities, business chambers, associations and institutions of various kinds, public or private.

There is also the word vice president and its feminine equivalent vice president, with a rank immediately below that of the president in the organizational hierarchy.

Etymology

In the last phase of the Roman Empire and the Late Antiquity, "President" (praeses provincee) was a title used to refer to the governor of a province. Them praesides formed the lowest level of provincial governorates. In the image, the bust of Emperor Constant I, who during the reign of Caro reached the post of praes of the province of Dalmatia.

The present active participle noun praesĭdens (accusative: praesidentem) meant ‘who presides; president, leader’ and comes from the verb praesideō, -ēre (‘to preside over’). This is made up of prae- ('before, in front') and sedeō ('to sit, be seated'). The original meaning was 'to sit in front, to protect', in the sense of directing a meeting or 'to be in front to protect others'. A secondary meaning is 'command, rule'. So praesĭdens means 'one who leads a meeting' or 'governor, commander'. From the root praesidēre derive words like "president", "presidio" and " prey".

Although there are doubts regarding the feminine variant because nouns ending in -nte (such as «seer», «manager», «patient», «servant», «infant», etc.) are generally common in terms of gender, the Nueva grammar de la lengua española (2009) of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) indicates that «the alternations of -nte/-nta [...] do not affect the meaning of the noun, but rather the sex of the designated person", so it is valid to build its feminine by changing the final e for the a to form «president», a word included in the Dictionary of the Spanish language since 1803 and which is the majority form of use in Spanish according to the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Dudas. Due to its ending, presidente can also function as a common noun in terms of gender and precede the corresponding feminine article ("the infant", "the seer", "the patient", " the servant", "the president").

According to the RAE, the voice president has been documented in Spanish since the 15th century. In the fifth edition (1803) of the Dictionary of the Castilian language of the RAE, it included the mottos presidente and presidente separately with the following definitions:

CHAIRPERSON. The president's muger, or the one that commands and presides in some community. Praesidis uxor, praeses faemina.

PRESIDENT. He who presides, commands and prefers others. Take regularly for him who is head, or superior of some council, rostrum, or board. Praeses, praefectus.

Though in the past, the term president was used primarily to refer to the "president's wife" (compare 20th-century English XIX which used similar expressions such as Mrs. President/Mrs. Presidentress as expressions prior to the current "First Lady"), this meaning has changed in late 20th century and early XXI by speakers who explicitly want to express that there are women who preside over a meeting, a public body, a government or a society, as well as a head of state.

History

As explained above, the title president comes from the Latin prae- 'before, in front' + sedeō 'to sit, be seated'. As such, it originally designated the head or official who presides over or sits in front of a meeting and ensures that the debate is carried out in accordance with the rules of order (compare President of the Board of Directors, speaker ), but now more commonly refers to an executive position in any social organization. The earliest examples are from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (from 1464) and the founding president of the Royal Society of London, William Brouncker, in 1660. This usage survives today in office titles such as "Chairman of the Board of Commerce" and "lord president of the council" in the UK, as well as "president of the senate" in the US (one of the roles constitutionally assigned to the vice president). The priest who officiates at certain Anglican religious services is also sometimes referred to as the "president" in this sense. However, the most common modern usage is as the title of a head of state in a republic.

Lit de justice celebrated by Charles VIII of France in Vendôme. The presidents of the chambers of parliaments are in the top row.

In pre-revolutionary France, the president of a parliament was a powerful magistrate, a member of the so-called noblesse de robe ("robed nobility"), with considerable judicial and administrative authority. The name referred to his primary role of presiding over trials and other hearings. In the 17th and 18th centuries" , seats in parliaments, including presidencies, effectively became hereditary, as the holder of the office could ensure that it would pass to an heir by paying a special tax known as a paulette< to the Crown. /i>. However, the position of premier président ("first president") could only be filled by the king's nominees. Parliaments were abolished by the French Revolution. In modern France, the chief judge of a court is called the president (président de la cour).

In the English King James Bible, the word presidents is also used in Daniel 6:2 to translate the Aramaic term סָרְכִ֣ין (sā rə ḵîn), a word of probable Persian origin meaning 'officers', 'commissioners', 'overseers' or 'chiefs'. In the Spanish Reina-Valera translation of 1909 it is also translated as "presidents".

The first use of the word president to denote the highest-ranking official of a government was during the Commonwealth of England. After the abolition of the monarchy, the Council of State, whose members were elected by the House of Commons, became the executive government of the Commonwealth. The Council of State was the successor to the Privy Council, which had previously been headed by the Lord President; its successor, the Council of State, was also headed by a lord president, the first of whom was John Bradshaw. However, the Lord President by himself was not head of state, for that position was held by the council as a whole.

George Washington, first president of the United States.

Modern usage to designate a single person who is the head of state of a republic can be traced directly to the United States Constitution of 1787, which created the office of President of the United States. Previous American governments had been headed by "presidents" (such as the president of the Continental Congress or the president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress), but these were presidents in the old sense, with no executive authority. It has been suggested that the executive use of the term was borrowed from early American colleges and universities, which were generally headed by a president. British universities were headed by an official called "chancellor" (usually a ceremonial position), while the chief administrator held the title of "vice-chancellor" (cf. cancelario). But America's early institutions of higher learning (such as Harvard University and Yale University) were less like a full-size university than one of their constituent colleges. Several colleges of the University of Cambridge were headed by an official called the 'president'. The principal, for example, of Magdalene College, was called "teacher" and his second in command the "president." Harvard's first president, Henry Dunster, had been educated at Magdalene. Some have speculated that he borrowed the term out of a sense of humility, considering himself only a temporary placeholder. Yale College's first official, originally a "chancellor" (according to the usage of continental European universities), became "president" in 1745.

A common management style for presidents, “Mr./Mrs. Speaker' is taken from the British parliamentary tradition, in which the Speaker of the House of Commons is referred to as 'Mr./Mrs. spokesperson» (Mr/Mrs. Speaker). Coincidentally, this usage resembles the old French custom of referring to the president of a parliament as Monsieur/Madame le Président, a form of address that in modern France is applied to both the president of the Republic and to the main judges. Similarly, French-speaking parliamentarians address the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons as Monsieur/Madame le/la Président(e). In Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel Dangerous Liaisons, the character identified as Madame la Présidente de Tourvel ("Madame President of Tourvel") is the wife of a magistrate in a parliament. The fictional name Tourvel does not refer to the parliament in which the magistrate sits, but rather, in imitation of an aristocratic title, to her private estate.

Once the United States adopted the title "president" for its Republican head of state, many other nations followed suit. Haiti became Latin America's first presidential republic when Henri Christophe assumed the title in 1807. Almost all of the American nations that gained independence from Spain in the early 1810s and 1820s elected an American-style president as their executive leader. The first European president was the president of the Italian Republic in 1802, a client state of revolutionary France, in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte. The first African president was the President of Liberia (1848), while the first Asian president was the President of the Republic of China (1912).

In the 20th and XXI, the powers of the presidencies have varied from one country to another. The spectrum of power has included everything from presidents for life and hereditary to ceremonial heads of state. The presidents of countries with a democratic or representative form of government are usually elected for a determined period and in some cases they can be re-elected by the same process by which they were appointed, that is, in many nations, periodic popular elections. The powers vested in such presidents vary considerably. Some presidencies, such as Ireland's, are largely ceremonial, while other systems give the president decision-making powers such as the appointment and dismissal of prime ministers or cabinets, the power to declare war, and the power to veto legislation. In many nations, the president is also the commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces, although again, this can range from a ceremonial role to one with considerable authority.

Classification

Presidential systems

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (left) and George W. Bush, presidents of Liberia and the United States respectively.

In almost all states with a presidential system of government, the president exercises the functions of head of state and head of government, that is, the president directs the executive branch of the government. When a president is not only head of state, but also head of government, this is known in Europe as president of the council (from French Président du Conseil), used between 1871 and 1940 and between 1944 and 1958 in the French Third and Fourth Republic. In the United States, the president has always been both head of state and head of government and has always held the title of president.

Presidents in this system are elected directly by popular vote or indirectly by an electoral college or some other democratically elected body.

In the United States, the president is elected indirectly by the Electoral College made up of electors chosen by the voters in the presidential election. In most US states, each elector agrees to vote for a specific candidate determined by the popular vote in each state, so that the people, by voting for each elector, are in effect voting for the candidate. However, for various reasons, it is unlikely that the number of voters in favor of each candidate will be proportional to the popular vote. Thus, in five close elections in the United States (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016), the candidate with the most popular votes lost the election.

In Mexico, the president is directly elected by popular vote for a six-year term (colloquially called sexenio). The candidate who gets the most votes is elected president even without an absolute majority. The president is allowed to serve only one term.

In Brazil, the president is directly elected by popular vote for a four-year term. A candidate must have more than 50% of the valid votes. If no candidate achieves the majority of the votes, a second round is held between the two candidates with the most votes. Once again, a candidate needs a majority of the votes to be elected. Also, a president cannot be elected to more than two consecutive terms, but there is no limit to the number of terms a president can serve.

Many South American, Central American, African and some Asian nations follow this presidential model.

Semi-presidential systems

Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic.

A second system is the semi-presidential system, also known as the "French model." In this system, as in the parliamentary system, there is a president and a prime minister; but unlike the parliamentary system, the president can have significant power on a day-to-day basis. For example, in France, when his party controls a majority of the seats in the National Assembly, the president can operate closely with Parliament and the prime minister and work towards a common agenda. However, when the National Assembly is controlled by his opponents, the president may find himself sidelined with the prime minister from the opposition party wielding most of the power. Although the prime minister is still appointed by the president, the latter must obey the rules of Parliament and select a leader from the majority party in the lower house. Thus, sometimes the president and the prime minister can be allies, sometimes rivals; this last situation is known in France as cohabitation. Variants of the French semi-presidential system, developed in the early Fifth Republic by Charles de Gaulle, are used in France, Portugal, Romania, Sri Lanka, and various post-colonial countries that have emulated the French model. In Finland, although the 2000 Constitution moved towards a ceremonial presidency, the system remains formally semi-presidential, with the President of Finland retaining, for example, foreign policy and appointment powers.

Parliamentary systems

The parliamentary republic is a parliamentary system in which the presidency is largely ceremonial, either de facto or without significant executive authority (such as the president of Austria) or de jure without significant executive power (such as the President of Ireland), and executive power rests with the Prime Minister, who automatically assumes office as leader of a majority party or coalition, but takes an oath of office administered by the president. However, the president is head of the civil service, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and in some cases can dissolve parliament. Countries using this system include Austria, Armenia, Albania, Bangladesh, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Pakistan, and Singapore.

A variation of the parliamentary republic is a system with a president with executive powers (he is the head of state and government) but, unlike a presidential system, he is elected by a Parliament (not by popular vote) and answers before him, and is called president. Countries that use this system include Botswana, Nauru, and South Africa.

Dictatorial Regimes

Suharto (left), Konstantin Päts (centre) and Saddam Hussein (right) are examples of dictatorial leaders who used the title "president".

In dictatorships, the title of president is often taken by self-proclaimed or military-backed leaders. Such is the case in many States: Idi Amin in Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia and Saddam Hussein in Iraq are some examples. Other presidents in authoritarian states have exercised only token power or no power at all, such as Francisco Craveiro Lopes in Portugal and Joaquín Balaguer during the "Trujillo era" of the Dominican Republic, when, in reality, he is loyal to or controlled by other individuals or forces. internal or external.

President for Life is a title assumed by some dictators to try to ensure that their authority or legitimacy is never questioned, such as Alexandre Pétion, Rafael Carrera, Josip Broz Tito and François Duvalier who all died in office. Kim Il-sung was named "eternal president of the Republic" after his death; there is currently no president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, since that position was abolished in the current Constitution and its powers have been divided between the president of the Supreme People's Assembly and the president of the State Affairs Commission.

Collective presidencies

Only a small minority of modern republics do not have a single head of state. Some examples of this are:

The Federal Council of Switzerland, seven members, serves as the collective head of Government and State.

• Switzerland, where the head of State falls collectively on the Federal Council of seven members, although there is also a president of the Confederation, a member of the Federal Council (Federal Council).primus inter paresand elected by the Federal Assembly for a one-year term. According to custom, the charge rotates every day of New Year.
• The rulers of San Marino elected by the Grand General Council.
• In the former Soviet Union from 1922 to 1938 there was a position of collective head of State known as the Central Executive Committee which consisted of four and later seven presidents representing the central executive committees of all the republics incorporated in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasusia and since 1925 Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. However, from 1927 to 1989, the real power was exercised by the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After 1938, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet exercised the powers of a collective head of State, and his president was often called "president" in the West, although later a singular head of State was established called "president" in 1990.
• Yugoslavia after the death of Josip Broz Tito, where a presidency consisted of members of each federal unit and ruled the country until its dissolution.
• Ukraine, in 1918-1920 there was a Directory composed of seven parliamentary faction leaders and was the head of collective state.
• The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina of three members, with representatives each of the largest ethnic groups in the country and serves as the head of collective State of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• National Government Council in Uruguay from 1952 to 1967.
• National Reconstruction Government Board in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1985.

One-party systems

The President of the People's Republic of China is the head of state of that country. Under the Constitution, the presidency is a purely ceremonial office with limited power. However, since 1993, by convention, the presidency has been simultaneously held by the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the top leader in the one-party system. Between 1982 and 2018, the Constitution stipulated that the president could serve no more than two consecutive terms. During the Mao era there were no term limits for this position. In 2018, these restrictions were abolished, but their powers and ceremonial role did not change.

Denominations

President of the Republic

In countries with a republican government, the head of state or government is called president. Normally, heads of state are elected by citizens, congress or parliament for a period of less than a decade (4 to 8 years, depending on the country).

Presidents can be distinguished according to their functions and powers as follows:

• When they serve only as head of State: this is the way the parliamentary republics operate. In such forms of government, the President appoints the Prime Minister in accordance with the support of the Parliament and lacks executive functions. It only signs the laws and decrees adopted by the Council of Ministers and has the capacity to dissolve parliament, with agreement with the Prime Minister. The president has the role of representing the State and associated protocol functions. It has exactly the same role as a king of a constitutional or parliamentary monarchy, where the only thing that basically changes is the name. They are elected directly or indirectly by parliament or an electoral assembly formed for that purpose. They usually exist in countries that have passed from a monarchy to a republic, and that is the case of the whole practice of the European republics.

• In addition to the functions of Head of State, he has some of the executive power that are of his exclusive field of action or shares them with the Prime Minister: this corresponds to semi-presiding or semi-parliamentary forms of government, as in France. In these systems, the president has an important role in the direction of foreign relations and national defence, the power to convene plebiscites and dissolve parliament for his initiative, and he is also the guarantor of the constitutional order. They are generally elected by universal suffrage.

• When it is at once Head of State and Head of Government: in this case the president appoints or designates all members of the government exclusively. These political regimes are called presidentialists, in them there is usually a clear division of powers, and the presidents do not have the capacity to dissolve the Congress, although they are also collegislators. It emerges in the United States (1787) and is the form of government of the republics of the American continent, except for much of the Caribbean, where they have a parliamentary regime. They are elected by direct suffrage in most countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela, or indirectly as in the United States, through an electoral college.

President of the Government

In some countries with a parliamentary monarchy, the prime minister is called head of government. That is the case of Spain.

Presidents

Presidential symbols

As head of state, in most countries the president is entitled to certain privileges and may have a prestigious residence, usually a luxurious mansion or palace, sometimes more than one (for example, summer and winter residences or retirement village in the country) Typical symbols of office may include an official uniform, decorations, a presidential seal, a coat of arms, a flag, and other conspicuous accoutrements, as well as military honors such as gun salutes and fanfares, and a presidential guard. A common symbol is the presidential sash most often worn by the presidents of Latin America and Africa as a symbol of continuity of office.

Controversy over the feminine form of the title

The debate surrounding the voice president goes back several centuries. Tomás de Iriarte, in response to an editorial in the Diario de Madrid, defended this feminine form back in 1787:

... there is no doubt that when they become substantial, they usually move the e in aaccording to the nature of our tongue [...]. Thus, it is generally said, and should not be replicated, Register, Assistant, Intendentto denote the managers of the Regents, Assistants and Intendents. In Palacio there is the filling of Tenienta de Aya [...]. [...] in Cadiz there is no one to call the president of the Tribunal of the Contracting [...].

This controversy has extended to the other nouns ending in -nte: vicepresidente/vicepresidenta, relative/relative, applicant/postulant,... Critics point out that the usage is inconsistent: clienta is usually used to refer to female clients, but not *student for female students; the RAE points out that the latter, as a rule, remains common in terms of gender until "it is significantly documented" in cultured use: el/la estudiante. A similar discussion occurs in Portuguese.

A recurring argument used by those who oppose the use of this feminine is that if presidente is formed presidente, then we would have to form the masculine *presidento , *governmanto, *gerento... Likewise, they insist that presidente is the active participle of "to preside" and that is formed with the root of said verb presid- plus the also passive participle of «to be», which would be *ente (actually, such a word is, although in disuse, eseyente, not *ente). The Dictionary of the Spanish language indicates that the suffix -nte « forms deverbal adjectives, traditionally called active participles" —because in Spanish the verb forms from the Latin present participle, ending in -nte, have been almost completely integrated into the class of adjectives or in that of nouns—and that "many of these adjectives are usually nouns, and some have been lexicalized as nouns and have sometimes generated a feminine form in -nta: director, dependent, dependent”. For its part, the New Grammar indicates that presidente has not been formed from presidir, since the noun was used in Spanish, first as cultism, a century before the verb.

On the other hand, the issue has continued to be relevant beyond Hispanic academic circles, fueling social and political debates in recent decades with polemics between non-sexist language and normative grammarand between progressivism and social conservatism. The constitutions of some countries, such as that of Ecuador and Venezuela, use the formula "president or president" to avoid the generic masculine; this practice is rejected by the RAE as "unfolding" or unnecessary circumlocutions. Recently it was wanted to be implemented in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and in the proposed Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 2022. The RAE's position is that «president of the Republic», «president of the Government», etc., are defined nominal expressions built with the generic masculine and that have or do not have an inclusive value depending on the syntactic context in which they are found, since «it is convenient to differentiate linguistically the denomination of any position, organ, position or dignity of the mention of the person who occupies them":

The preaching of the defined nominal expressions referred to charges, positions or dignity is also the one prevailing in the constitutional text. The syntactic group President of the Congress It does not mean in our Magna Carta “the man who holds the presidency of the Congress”, but “the person who holds the presidency of the Congress” (or “who serves as President of the Congress”). [...] It is also appropriate to recall that common names that designate titles, positions, posts or dignity can be applied to women used in men (as in the case of women) The woman who holds the office of Ombudsman; she exceeded the oppositions of State counselor in female (The woman who holds the office of Ombudsman; she exceeded the oppositions of State counsel). [...]

Lidia Gueiler was the first head of State, though intern, to use the title of "President of the Republic" in official documents.

Among the Spanish-American heads of state who have used the name "President of the Republic" in laws, decrees and official acts are: Lidia Gueiler (interim: 1979-1980), Rosalía Arteaga (interim: 1997), Mireya Moscoso (1999-2004), Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010, 2014-2018), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015; Vice President: 2019-2023), Laura Chinchilla (2010-2014), Jeanine Áñez (interim: 2019-2020), Xiomara Castro (2022-2026) and Dina Boluarte (interim: 2022-2023). Only María Estela Martínez de Perón (interim: 1974-1976; "vice president": 1973-1974) and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997) signed as "president of the Republic" during their terms.

In 2019, in Argentina, national senator José Mayans addressed the head of the Senate, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, as "president" of the body instead of "president", which she herself requested. and from the community debate that arose, a user of the social network Twitter asked on the profile of the Royal Spanish Academy if it was appropriate to say "president" or "president", which replied:

In reference to a woman, the most appropriate option today is to use the form "president", female documented in Spanish since the 15th century and present in the academic dictionary since 1803.

Shortly thereafter, the national senator Silvia Beatriz Elías de Pérez once again insisted on the treatment of Fernández de Kirchner as "president", who returned the treatment calling her "senator".

A similar case took place in 2022 with deputy Javier Milei when addressing the head of the Chamber of Deputies, Cecilia Moreau, when he explained that the word president “has to do with the act of to preside over an entity, there is no 'enta'”, so the feminine form would not make sense. She then indicated that, although she accepts the "deviations" of the RAE, the Constitution of the Argentine Nation defines the position with the name of "president".

In the case of Brazil, her inaugural speech and even before taking office, Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) said she preferred to be called "president" (in Portuguese, presidenta), but since his election there has been no official position on the subject, which has generated some confusion. Although the Portuguese cultural norm establishes presidente as common in terms of gender, dictionaries The most important also register, almost always accompanied by the appropriate reservations, the term president. Although linguistically correct and due to Rousseff's preference, the media did not establish any standardization and since then "the presidente" (a presidente) as "president" in reference to her. Rousseff enacted the legislation as "the president of the Republic" (in Portuguese, a presidenta da República).

Kamala Harris (2021-2025) is titled "Vice President of the United States of America" in the official White House Spanish translation.