Iran is only the latest situtation where the election of a President (or
Chief Executive Officer) was associated with violence.
Kenya
also had a problem. And there were many disputed elections which fortunately
had less violence. Examples are
Bangladesh, Ukraine in 2004, Zimbabwe and the United States
Bush Gore election come to mind.
This raises the question. Does every country need a chief executive
officer (president, prime minister)? After all most countries believed
they needed an army until
Costa Rica in its constitution and Panama banned
their army. Could a nation ban the institution and office of chief executive
as well?
It would mean that the legislative body would be available continually.
This could be the normal legislative body or it could be a group selected
by sortition (random selection). Various officials in the government
(army commanders), a percentage of the legislators, or even a percentage of
randomly selected voters would be permitted to raise an issue. We could
use a rapid response system like the Clickers used in College Teaching. Thus, the "Commander in Chief Role" does the Army go west or East
gets resolved by Clicker.
Questions that don't require immediate response such as "Do we preemptively
invade this country?" or "Should we spend more money on Research in X"
can be decided by the legislature in a more deliberative fashion.
Or for a more radical approach, I discuss the role of sortition on
my Participatory Democracy blog.