For the first time in my life I got to participate in the democratic process, aka voting. Yes I do regret I never got to vote in my home country. That said, now lets focus on some interesting aspects of democratic process, more importantly difference between the 2 great democracies USA (my adopted country) and India (home country).
The big difference between the 2 countries that every one knows is that in one we vote for the president and the other we vote for the president directly and in other we vote for the member of parliaments, who then elect the prime minister.
This much is known to all but the thing that caught me by surprise was the fact that in India, the elected PM and his party has the choice of cabinet members to work with but in USA the president gets to select his cabinet members but almost all other than his chief of staff has to go through senate hearing and need to be confirmed by the senate, albeit simple majority is probably sufficient. Another key difference is the number of cabinet positions are fixed from president to president unlike India where we expand and contract (mostly always expand) based on how many parties are huddled in the coalition.
In short, the elected leader cannot appoint his own people to work with unless both the senate and house are in control of the president's party.
If anyone had asked me about the elections in USA before 2020, I would have said 2 things. USA votes for president directly and it is determined by electoral votes and not popular votes, vote in 1 election cycle and I know all the nooks and crannies including what the term Gerrymandering mean :).
