Today will mark the ascension to power of the next routinely elected Polish after the death of the country's last President in a plane crash on April 10th last. The winner with 95 percent of the votes counted is expected to be Bronislaw Komorowski, the man who has acted as interim President for the past couple of months.
While reading the story it got me wondering about the nature of Presidency in some countries. The role of the Irish President and Polish President are similar in nature. There duty is to act as a representative of the State abroad but both importantly have the power to veto certain laws they find to be unconstitutional pending supreme court review. However, while this seems significant in the 13 years that our President Mary Mc Aleese has been in power she has done this just once. No Irish president has ever dissolved Government. It begs the question, what is the point?
