Talk:2004 Icelandic presidential election

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One question

In copyediting this article, I changed this:

The presidency is an almost entirely powerless office, as by tradition the presidents do not use the powers granted to them by the constitution, instead just exercising moral authority, although Ólafur Ragnar has expressed a wish to have a public discussion on the role of the head of state.

to this:

By tradition, the presidency is an almost entirely powerless office, as the presidents almost never use the powers granted to them by the constitution, instead just exercising moral authority. Ólafur Ragnar, however, has expressed a wish to have a public discussion on the role of the head of state.

Since I know nothing whatsoever about the governmental system in Iceland (which seems however to be very similar to that of Israel and perhaps the UK/Canada where the head of state has significantly more powers on paper than are traditionally used), I just wanted to point this out where it might be seen by someone who does know something. Here's the question: I thought the original sentence that started out that the presidency is almost entirely powerless, seemed contradicted by the following sentences that talked about the current president vetoing a bill, which was unprecedented. I thought it would be appropriate to clarify that it is really only "by tradition" that the presidency is powerless, so I moved the "by tradition" earlier in the sentence. My question is simply, is this correct? When I am barging into an article I know nothing about just to improve its readability, I want to make sure I am not accidentally amending the constitutions of other countries in the process. 6SJ7 16:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your change doesn't break anything. Exactly how much power the president has is a thorny issue. I remember being taught in class that the president couldn't in reality veto a bill even though the constitution said he could. Well, then he did. Haukur 19:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the confirmation. I love reading about governmental systems in other countries and am especially fascinated by the many countries in which the head of state has only a figurehead role. It is so different from what I am used to here (U.S.) where the President is both head of state and head of government. If anything, the President of the U.S. regularly exercises more power than the written Constitution provides, particularly in the legislative process, where the Constitution gives the President no role except to veto legislation. In reality the President regularly proposes legislation, but Congress retains the power to vote it up or down or to amend it. On the other hand the "separation of powers" that exists between our executive branch (the President, in his role as head of government) and legislative branch (Congress) does not exist in parliamentary systems such as Iceland -- nor does our head of government need majority support or even any support in Congress in order to remain in office. 6SJ7 19:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]