Lately it has been one of the first news, every day there are new events to add. The presidential election has started. The American political system is somewhat different to what we know from Spain, as well as many other countries. We took a look at it to explain the main differences, focusing on the process currently happening.
Like in many other countries, there are two major political parties in America: the Democrats and the Republicans. There are however other parties, like for example the Green Party, the Libertarians, the Constitution Party etc, but since 1872 only these two forces have been elected.
Also like other countries, there are three branches in the government: the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch.
The legislative branch is the one in charge of writing the laws. This is done in the congress, which is made up of two parts: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives has 435 members, coming form the different states proportionally to their size. Thus, a big state like California has more members than a smaller state. The members of the Congress are elected every two years. The Senate is formed by 100 members, two from each state.
The executive branch is in charge of making sure that the laws are being followed. The leaders of this branch are the nation's president and vice president, which are elected by the people every four years.
Lastly, the judicial branch considers how the law should be applied under specific situations. It is made of courts. The Supreme Court is the highest in the country, it is formed by 9 judges, appointed by the president.
Unlike many other nations, in the US every party has several candidates that can be elected by the US citizens to run for president. This is called the primary election. The rules to chose the running candidate vary from state to state. Some of the states allow the citizens to choose both the Democrat and Republican candidates, without being registered by their party (this is called open primaries). Other states only allow votes from people registered at any of the parties (closed primaries). Then there are the caucuses, bases on people gathering and choosing together rather than individual votes.
Each state, depending on their size, is given an amount of delegates who are sent to the national convention to declare their people's votes.
Once the nominees have been identified they will start on-on-one campaigning, where they will give reasons why they should be elected. There will also be debates, where the candidates argue their vision of America's future and how the challenges will be handled.
One crucial difference between American political system and many others is the idea that the main political issues are handled locally, that means by the state, and not by the federal government. In fact, not many people in America care much about what happens in Washington.
In terms of different political ideas, the U.S. is rather a "conservative" country. Even the democrats seem much more conservative than the "left" in many other countries. In fact, both parties defend the private sector more than the public. Some examples are industries like communications, fuel or ground transportation; these industries are handled by the government in many other countries, whereas here they are all owned privately.
Another example has been very present in the media, it is the health care. In many other countries, especially in Europe, people pay taxes to finance the health care system. Until not so long ago, this was unthinkable in the US. Even the new Obamacare does not reach the level of European countries, although it made a huge step requesting all citizens to have insurance.
The last thing I'd like to add is how the political system is financed. In Spain, for example, the different parties get an amount proportional to their votes to be spent on the campaigns. In the US, the huge campaigns organized by the different candidates are paid by private individuals or companies. This has a huge impact on how the nation's government works. In Spain, for example, the party with most votes can use the collected taxes for their benefit, which often leads to money misappropriation, thus is very criticized by the people. On the other hand, parties in America are financed by private companies, which often then have a lot of power to change the laws to their benefits.
In conclusion, the differences in government systems are huge, here are just a couple of big ones. A comparison between nation's political systems is very complex due to these differences, but in any case it is interesting to know what the others do and see how our own system could be improved.
Thanks for reading,
Lita & Andres
