President of Meronnia
| Premier of Meronnia | |
|---|---|
| Premier de la République | |
| Executive branch | |
| Style |
|
| Status | Head of State |
| Residence | Château Vieille |
| Seat | Senone, Meronnia |
| Nominator | At least 500 elected officials |
| Appointer | Direct popular vote (two-round) |
| Term length | 5 Years |
| Constituting instrument | Constitutional Amendment 1922 |
| Precursor | Meronnian Directory |
| Formation | 2nd October 1922 |
| Salary | L422,000 annually |
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The Premier of Meronnia is the head of state of Meronnia. The current Premier is Pierre-Antoine Tremblay, since 28 May 2012.
The Premier has both significant political and ceremonial responsibilities as the Head of State. The Premier is responsible for accrediting ambassadors and signing treaties, is the Commander in Chief of the Meronnian Armed Forces, makes a number of non-partisan appointments, along with many other responsibilities.
The Premier is elected to five year terms. Candidates may not be a member of a political party, and must be recommended by five hundred elected officials (including representatives to the Chamber of Deputies as well as to Communal legislatures) to be placed on the ballot. The Premier is directly elected by Meronnian voters in a two-round system.
History
The office of the Premier was created by the Constitutional Reforms of Pierre-Marie Jaubert in 1922. Prior to these reforms the Meronnian Directory was the collective Head of State and held many of the responsibilities the Premier does today. The introduction of the Premier was motivated both by a desire to eliminate the existence of a collective as the Head of State, as well as broad support for a directly elected office taking the status.
There has been little change to the roles and responsibilities of the Premier since its introduction.
Responsibilities
As Head of State, the Premier has many responsibilities in foreign affairs. The Premier appoints and accredits ambassadors and consuls and may do so with or without the advice of the government. The Premier also signs treaties on behalf of Meronnia and can elect not to do so, which gives the Premier an effective veto of treaties and international agreements ratified by the Chamber of Deputies. The confluence of both ceremonial and authoritative responsibilities in this area means that many Premiers have dominated foreign policy, though it has become more common over time for the Head of State to respect the priorities of the sitting government.
The Premier is also the ex officio Commander in Chief of the Meronnian Armed Forces. However, the oaths of the Armed Forces are to the Republic rather than directly to the Premier, and executive military decisions are only made by the Premier on the advice of the First Deputy and the Secretary of Defense.
Due to a long-running convention of attributing non-partisan appointments to the Premier in legislation, the office makes a number of appointments to civil service roles. Generally, this involves the related civil service agency preparing a short list of proposed candidates, from which the Premier selects. Positions appointed in this way include members of the Electoral Commission, the Oversight Office of the Committee of Finance, and most roles in the Public Advocacy Commission including the Inspector-General.
The Premier is not able to block the Chamber of Deputies from legislating, as the power to veto was never transferred from the Directory to the new office. However, the Premier may legally dissolve the Chamber and initiate new elections under certain circumstances, most prominently on the passage of a Vote of No Confidence - however the Premier is not compelled to dissolve the Chamber in the instance of such a vote passing and may instead allow a new coalition to form a government within the existing Chamber.
Overall, the Premier is a politically weak office, though one that can be leveraged into broad unofficial influence.
Elections
Every five years an election is held for the position of Premier. The most recent election was held in 2017, and the next will be in 2022.
The process begins with candidates, which may not be registered party members, being recommended by a list of at least 500 elected officials (which counts both those at the Federal and Communal levels). Candidates that reach this threshold are compiled into a list, and often pre-election polling leads to the worst performing candidates removing themselves from the ballot. It is convention for political parties to avoid endorsing a candidate in Premier elections, though commonly elected officials of parties will group around ideologically similar candidates.
The first round of voting sees all enrolled voters vote for their preferred candidate. After the results are tallied, the top two candidates proceed to a second round of voting, where the winner is elected Premier. There is a theoretical constitutional bypass wherein a candidate who receives an absolute majority in the first round immediately wins the office, though this has never happened in practice.