India has a parliamentary system of government and France have Semi Presidential system. The French republic is governed by the president, prime minister, and cabinet. The prime minister of the country leads the policies related to the republic, while, the president leads the foreign-related policies.
Procedure for election of French President:
The President is elected to 5-year term in a two-round election. If no candidate secures an absolute majority of votes in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later between the two candidates who received the most votes. It is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. Under the two-round system, usually only the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round, or only those candidates who received above a prescribed proportion of the votes, are candidates in the second round. Other candidate are excluded from the second round.
Critical examination:
- It is often said that in the first-round you vote with your heart, and in the second you vote with your head. Hence there is less need to vote tactically in the first-round.
- If more than two candidates go to the second round, they can agree amongst themselves that one of their number should stand down to exclude a third.
- Research has shown that in France it produces the most disproportional results of any Western democracy, and that it tends to fragment party systems in new democracies.
- One of the most serious problems with TRS is its implications for deeply divided societies.
Procedure for election of Indian President:
He is elected by the system of Proportional representation by means of single transferable vote system.
Critical examination:
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is often criticized on the grounds that preference voting is unfamiliar in many societies, and demands, at the very least, a degree of literacy and numeracy. The intricacies of an STV count are themselves quite complex, which is also seen as being a drawback.
However, both the democracies have adopted the system of election for President as per the historical understanding and concerning the status in the terms of Power and Position.