In view of ongoing and recent contestations between the president and prime minister, and president and legislature in Tunisia and in Sri Lanka, International IDEA’s Constitution-Building Programme organised a webinar on the ‘Value and Perils of Semi-Presidentialism in Transitional Contexts’ on 2 August 2021. Consititution-building experts also discussed Nepal—though it does not have a semi-presidential system—because of its parliamentary system that has recently faced political instability in similar ways as Tunisia and Sri Lanka.
A few key issues emerged during the discussion, including the understanding that semi-presidential systems can be complex and are not always best suited to deal with underlying social and economic pressures. For instance, the challenge in Tunisia appears to be the inability of democracy to deliver, which triggers popular discontent and in turn instability. The Constitution, and the political system therein, has been unable to deal with these challenges. Whether or not another political system could have avoided the brunt of this instability remains an open question.