Did I miss something ...then? Ours is no longer a parliamentary system. This means that the House of Representatives is not the same as the British House of Commons which can summon a Prime Minister to appear before it and explain his or her actions. The difference is clear. The prime minister is, first of all, a parliamentarian, elected from a small, local constituency from where he is handpicked to lead a government on behalf of the party that won majority of seats in parliament. In a presidential system, the president is elected by majority of voters in the entire country to lead a government on behalf of the people. Unlike the Prime Minister that has a defined constituency before he became king, the President has the entire country and her citizens as his constituency. This is why the President is automatically bigger than his political party and every other elected official, unlike the Prime Minister who is a servant of his party and a primus inter pares among legislators in a parliamentary system.
The point seemed obvious to me when I dismissed the House "summons" as an act of mischief. The president is therefore not a member of parliament who can be “summoned” by the House. In the United States, which we are often quick to cite as a model of presidential democracy, no one – not even an opposition politician – ignores an invitation by Mr. President for a discussion, whenever there is an issue that needs to be sorted out. It is never the other way around. The President could, on his own, decide to address the nation through Congress on the state of the nation but is never “summoned” to appear and talk to the Reps and “in secret” for that matter.
I rest my case
