When people think of republics, they often wonder what that would actually mean; and the United States tends to come to mind. They might then assume that becoming a republic would mean adopting a US-style presidency, which few want. However the American model of Republicanism is only one of many and is actually rather unusual. Instead, the most likely replacement for the current monarchic system is more likely to be that adopted by the countries who’ve already taken the step to become a republic. Barbados, for example, recently took the step to become a republic. So what did that concretely change there?
Pretty much nothing. A law was passed that renamed the Governor-General to the President, as well as adding the procedure of how the transition would happen and how new Presidents would be selected. The law also replaced all mentions of the Monarchy with other appropriate terms, so that ‘the crown’ became ‘the state’. Essentially all that changed was the link to Britain, Barbados cut that chain but otherwise kept their political system.
In New Zealand I believe the same thing could happen; few want a US-style presidency: but we still need to cut that final chain link to Britain, to monarchy, and to colonialism. Once that is done our political system will be self-contained (and therefore fully independent and sovereign), and more democratic. Despite this, it wouldn’t function ANY differently: all that would change would be the identity of our head of state and how they’re chosen. In fact the only significant operational difference would be how the President would be chosen. In theory we could keep our current system, where the Governor-General is chosen by the Government, but that doesn’t properly ensure the neutrality of the office in my opinion, as it relies on the good will of said government. So how should the President be chosen?
Having the President be elected by the people directly would quite frankly be a waste of time, money and energy. It could even be detrimental to the position as it could politicise the office of the President, as they would have to campaign and therefore take positions on political matters, which is not the President’s job at all. The President, as the Governor-General, is meant to have integrity and be non-partisan, as their job is to represent New Zealand, be a guarantor of the rule of law, a moral authority, and generally being a positive force in society.
One of the best and most likely options is to just have the President be chosen by the parliament, with a supermajority. This forces the Parliament to pick a candidate for all Kiwis and not just for the party in charge, as you’d need to get a large section of the opposition to agree to the said candidate for them to become President. This is the method used to appoint the President in Israel and is very similar to the methods used in Germany and Italy for example.
Hopefully you can see that Republicanism doesn’t involve a huge political shake up of Aotearoa, but rather cutting the final chain of colonial rule. It isn’t some huge and terrifying leap into the unknown as some make it out to be, it is just a simple step forwards. Our country has taken far more daring steps forward before, (such as giving women the vote and adopting proportional representation) so I believe we are more than capable of following in Barbados’ footsteps and ridding ourselves of the last awkward leftover of colonial rule.
