# What is the second-oldest presidential/congressional republic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 16, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357 "2014-12-16T03:49:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/21 "2014-12-16T15:19:55Z")
Plus, the Third and Fourth Republics were essentially parliamentary republics. It wasn’t until the Fifth Republic that there was a strong President, and even then there are some elements of a parliamentary system (prime minister chosen from party with majority in the Assembly). ---
**Author:** ![Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fool_in_the_Rain)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/22 "2014-12-16T16:03:29Z")
Maybe Argentina? It’s Constitution is doctrinally based upon the US Constitution and was originally written in 1853. They have separate elections for president, congress, and choose justices as the US does. There have been a few amendments and the Peron government may have “interrupted” the continuity in the 1950s, but it has basically remained intact since the 1850s. > **[Constitution of Argentina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Argentina)** > > The Constitution of the Argentine Nation (Spanish: Constitución de la Nación Argentina) is the basic governing document of Argentina, and the primary source of existing law in Argentina. Its first version was written in 1853 by a constitutional assembly which gathered in Santa Fe; the doctrinal basis was taken in part from the United States Constitution. It was then reformed in 1860, 1866, 1898, 1949, 1957 (which mainly repealed the 1949 reform), and the current version is the reformed text of 19... [http://www.llrx.com/features/argentina.htm#judges](http://www.llrx.com/features/argentina.htm#judges) ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/23 "2014-12-16T16:11:07Z")
> [@Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](#): > > Maybe Argentina? It’s Constitution is doctrinally based upon the US Constitution and was originally written in 1853. They have separate elections for president, congress, and choose justices as the US does. > > There have been a few amendments and the Peron government may have “interrupted” the continuity in the 1950s, but it has basically remained intact since the 1850s. > > [Constitution of Argentina - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Argentina) > > [http://www.llrx.com/features/argentina.htm#judges](http://www.llrx.com/features/argentina.htm#judges) You count Peron as an interruption but not the later coup and military regime? ---
**Author:** ![Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fool_in_the_Rain)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/24 "2014-12-16T16:31:54Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > You count Peron as an interruption but not the later coup and military regime? Yea, might have helped if I just kept reading…I withdraw Argentina as a possibility ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/25 "2014-12-16T17:05:04Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Costa Rica has had a functioning republican government since 1948, which sounds more significant than the Mexican example. Costa Rica is definitely the Latin American country with the longest continuous history of constitutional transfers of power. Colombia is next. Venezuela’s current democracy dates to 1958, if you discount the short-lived coup against Chavez, though the current constitution is more recent. [Here’s a list of countries by current system of government.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of_government) Only the countries in blue would fit the criteria in the OP. Going through the list by region: In the Americas, after the US, Costa Rica is the oldest presidential republic with continuous constitutional transfers of power, dating to 1948. Aside from Switzerland, Europe consists of parliamentary republics, constitutional monarchies (I think all with parliamentary systems), and/or countries that have been under dictatorships more recently than 1948. Most of Africa was under colonial rule up until the 1950s or later, and the few that weren’t have been dictatorships at some point. All presidential republics in Asia have been dictatorships as some point since 1948. Oceania has no full presidential republics, and the ones with a mixed system were colonies until after 1948. So if Mexico and Switzerland are rejected, the answer is Costa Rica. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/26 "2014-12-16T17:28:53Z")
I’m still vacillating on Mexico. You can have an authoritarian republic, even if it’s not very democratic, and if they followed their constitutional norms during that period, I suppose it may qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/27 "2014-12-16T17:32:06Z")
> [@Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](#): > > Yea, might have helped if I just kept reading…I withdraw Argentina as a possibility What’s a few coups and juntas between friends, anyway? 😉 More seriously, they were under a military government as recently as the early 80’s (eg during the Falklands War) so I think they’re excluded. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/28 "2014-12-16T18:14:20Z")
Hmmm… Venice - up until Napoleon conquered it in 1797? The Doge IIRC was elected (for life). The Vatican? The pope is elected, by a limited franchise. IIRC, about half the electors tended to reside in the Vatican. ---
**Author:** ![Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fool\_in\_the\_Rain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fool_in_the_Rain)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/29 "2014-12-16T18:29:00Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > What’s a few coups and juntas between friends, anyway? 😉 > > More seriously, they were under a military government as recently as the early 80’s (eg during the Falklands War) so I think they’re excluded. You are correct, sir. I now recall that(and read it again today), but it fell out of the ol’ noggin for lack of use. ignorance fought, or memory jogged…either way. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/30 "2014-12-16T19:27:26Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I’m still vacillating on Mexico. You can have an authoritarian republic, even if it’s not very democratic, and if they followed their constitutional norms during that period, I suppose it may qualify. The Mexican government between 1929 and 2000 operated more like Richard J. Daley’s Chicago or Huey Long’s Louisiana than the Stalinist USSR. There was a deeply corrupt political machine that controlled everything, but there was some effort to keep their political base happy. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/31 "2014-12-16T19:32:22Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Hmmm… > > Venice - up until Napoleon conquered it in 1797? The Doge IIRC was elected (for life). The OP isn’t asking for the oldest democracy or presidential system that ever existed, but the present one that has the longest continuous existence. > [@](#): > > The Vatican? The pope is elected, by a limited franchise. IIRC, about half the electors tended to reside in the Vatican. I can’t see how this qualifies as a presidential/legislative system either. I think you need to read the OP with a bit more care (or maybe just the thread title ;). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/32 "2014-12-16T20:05:17Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Costa Rica is definitely the Latin American country with the longest continuous history of constitutional transfers of power. Colombia is next. Venezuela’s current democracy dates to 1958, if you discount the short-lived coup against Chavez, though the current constitution is more recent. I am _extremely_ pro-Chavez, but even I’d acknowledge he wasn’t a liberal democrat, at least after the first few years. (I’m not really a democrat either, so the fact that he and Maduro have been increasingly soft-authoritarian doesn’t bother me). Chavez won a series of fair elections, and he pretty clearly had majority popular support in every one, and Maduro (barely) won a competitive election last year as well. However, I don’t think for a minute either of them would have stepped down if they had lost. Henry Rangel said, pretty much, that he would stage a coup if Chavez lost the 2012 election, and he was promoted to commander-in-chief of the armed forces shortly afterwards, so I think we can assume Chavez approved of that remark. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/33 "2014-12-16T20:07:56Z")
Colombia’s government tacitly supported right wing death squads in the 1980s that killed a large percentage of the far-left party’s candidates (the former guerilla group that decided to lay down the arms, I forget the name), so I’d hesitate to call them much of a liberal democracy during that era. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/34 "2014-12-16T20:33:57Z")
Well, considering the majority of the regimes we would call “democratic” were European, and most over Europe was overrun in WWII, there’s not a lot to choose from. What are the European exceptions to WWII occupation - Spain and Portugal are out; both had military dictatorships until recently. Sweden and Britain, monarchies with parliaments. Finland - Parliament? Turkey, also parliament. How does Iceland measure up? I believe it’s more of a parliamentary democracy. the rest of the world? AFAIK, all of South America was dictatorships over recent history; Africa, ditto. South Africa - parliament? Most of Asia was colonized, or is still traditional monarchy. As the French Revolution demonstrated early on, not too many places manage to throw off the yoke of tyranny and make a go as a continuing democracy, and creating a president rather than installing the monarch as a figurehead tend to indicate a radical upset - radical upsets tend not to be stable. Countries that evolved into democracies tended to evolve into parliaments with figureheads and there’s a lot more, longer stable versions of them. I still say the Vatican qualifies if we are looking at elected leader, legislative council. the only squirming is that it is an appointed council and perceives its mission to involve more than local administration. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/35 "2014-12-16T21:05:23Z")
Again, I am not asking about democracies generally. I am asking about a republican form of government with a presidential / congressional system. Since the Pope holds power for life or until abdication, and appoints all bishops, cardinals and officers of the Vatican, I fail to see how it is of any relevance to the inquiry. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/36 "2014-12-16T21:32:11Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Again, I am not asking about democracies generally. I am asking about a republican form of government with a presidential / congressional system. Since the Pope holds power for life or until abdication, and appoints all bishops, cardinals and officers of the Vatican, I fail to see how it is of any relevance to the inquiry. President-for-life (or whatever title, Doge, Pope) is a much longer established concept than fixed and limited term. In fact, IIRC, there was no limit on US presidents originally - Washington chose to limit himself to two terms, and set the moral precedent. It was only when Roosevelt II chose to make himself president for life 😃 that the constitution was amended. If Washington himself had been more ambitious, if the Federalists passing the Alien and Sedition acts (the original Patriot Act) had been more invested, if the 13 colonies had not all agreed to the new constitution - history would have been very different indeed. Are there any governments meeting your criteria that predate WWII? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/37 "2014-12-16T23:50:40Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I still say the Vatican qualifies if we are looking at elected leader, legislative council. the only squirming is that it is an appointed council and perceives its mission to involve more than local administration. The Vatican doesn’t have anything remotely resembling a legislative council. Neither the College of Cardinals nor the curia have any legislative function. In fact the chief executive and the sole legislator (and the final court of appeal) are the same person, so there is no separation of powers of any kind. The Vatican is an elective absolute monarchy. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/38 "2014-12-16T23:55:56Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > President-for-life (or whatever title, Doge, Pope) is a much longer established concept than fixed and limited term. In fact, IIRC, there was no limit on US presidents originally - Washington chose to limit himself to two terms, and set the moral precedent. It was only when Roosevelt II chose to make himself president for life 😃 that the constitution was amended. > > If Washington himself had been more ambitious, if the Federalists passing the Alien and Sedition acts (the original Patriot Act) had been more invested, if the 13 colonies had not all agreed to the new constitution - history would have been very different indeed. Yes, history would be different if a lot of things had been different. However, I am not asking about a Henry Turtledove novel, but actual events. > [@](#): > > Are there any governments meeting your criteria that predate WWII? I suggest you read the thread start to finish to follow the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/39 "2014-12-17T00:01:27Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Well, considering the majority of the regimes we would call “democratic” were European, and most over Europe was overrun in WWII, there’s not a lot to choose from. See my post #25. If you’re not going to read the thread, there’s not much point in posting. > [@](#): > > I still say the Vatican qualifies if we are looking at elected leader, legislative council. the only squirming is that it is an appointed council and perceives its mission to involve more than local administration. Again, read the OP. You’re answering a question that hasn’t been asked. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357/40 "2014-12-17T00:06:44Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > My first thought when starting to read the thread was France, but then I don’t think it counts because they’ve had a few revolutions, constitutional redoes, and were temporarily conquered by Hitler. And anyway France only once had a presidential system, that lasted just long enough to elect Napoleon the lesser to the presidency. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-second-oldest-presidential-congressional-republic/707357.md?page=3)