French presidential elections under the Fifth Republic May. French presidential elections under the Fifth Republic There have been eleven presidential elections in France since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Originally the president was elected by the Collège des Notables (an assembly of "notable electors") that included around 80,000 county and city/town councillors (who had been elected locally). Following the 1962 de Gaulle's constitutional reform (the constitutional Act of November 6, 1962) the president has been directly elected by the people of France. Until the French constitutional revision of September 24, 2000, the president had been elected for a seven-year term. Under this revision the
President of the Czech Republic Czech Republic intended to set up a parliamentary system, with the Prime Minister as the country's leading political figure and "de facto" chief executive and the president as a ceremonial head of state. However, the stature of the first president, Václav Havel, was such that the office acquired greater influence than the framers intended. The President of the Czech Republic has the authority to act independently in a number of substantive areas. One of the office's strongest powers is that of veto, which returns a bill to parliament. Although the veto may be overridden by parliament, the ability to refuse