Embedding Westminster-Style No-Confidence in Turkish-Style Presidentialism

This paper presents Scheme T, a presidential framework. It originates from the author's quest for partisan continuity, whereby a mid-term presidential vacancy is filled by a successor from the same political party as the incumbent, unless a new popular election is held. The American system fails to guarantee this due to its rigid election timing. The Turkish framework offers synchronized terms and flexible scheduling, facilitating partisan continuity, but the current Turkish constitution, the only living implementation of the Turkish framework, has two undesired features: “plebiscitary succession” and “violation of election synchronization”. Scheme T, within the Turkish framework, introduces a vice-presidential office with dual-path confirmation. It mandates that double vacancy (simultaneous absence of president and vice president) or any presidential or legislative initiative of renewal triggers a full general election, eliminating standalone presidential elections. A novel method for presidential election, PLAR (Popular Legislative Automatic Runoff), is proposed. It is a single-round method for simultaneous presidential and legislative elections that matches the fairness of two-round absolute-majority results but offers greater efficiency. Scheme T augments the Turkish system with a Westminster-style no-confidence mechanism (retaining the three-fifths threshold), but restricts it to narrow windows covering only about one-sixth of the term. This curbs impulsive or emotion-driven major decisions and prioritizes governance over continuous political struggle. This adds confidence-based flexibility without fixed-term rigidity, balanced by high thresholds and structured succession. Integrating Turkish, Westminster, and American strengths, Scheme T delivers enhanced stability, accountability, and adaptability, providing an elegant and innovative blueprint for building future presidential governments.