For this comparative research, we selected Spain and Germany, two countries of the European Union with similar political parliamentarian systems. Personification is a distinctive feature of presidentialism and it seems reasonable to examine to what extent this trend occurs in European parliamentary systems today.
The position of political leaders in parliamentary systems is different from the position occupied by them in the presidential republics. Lijphart identifies three characteristics that distinguish essentially presidentialism and parliamentarianism (Lijphart, 2000). Firstly, in a presidential system the executive chief is elected directly by the electors by popular vote and therefore without legislative intervention, so ...
