Fortuna e declino del semipresidenzialismo nell’Africa francofona subsahariana

Rise and decline of semi-presidentialism in francophone sub-Saharan Africa – Since the 1960s francophone sub-Saharian African countries abandoned the parliamentary system and experienced a culture of the executive dominance. This system grants the President the full and final decision-making power both over the Government and the Parliament. Within this institutional architecture, in semi-presidential countries the presence of a Prime Minister plays in the praxis mostly a role in strengthening the presidential authority, because it frees up the President from political responsibility. Nevertheless the essay questions whether semi-presidential African systems, instead of being classed as de facto hyper-presidentialism, deserve their own category. To this end, the study analyzes the peculiar semi-presidential form of Government in francophone African States in order to identify the roots, the status, the role and the actual relationship shared between its three main actors: the President, the Prime Minister and the Parliament.