Resignation

Last week the Syrian-supported government in Lebanon resigned. The other day the president of Bolivia resigned.

Motive? (read incentive)

In the case of the president of Bolivia some believe that he calculated that his resignation would not be accepted by the parliament. The economy was being disrupted by protesting peasants; given their capitulation, their interest evidently was not to see a change in government. And (as a result?) the parliament did not accept the president's resignation.

In the case of the Lebanese government there's another angle. Initially, the story seemed to be that it had been forced out of office by anti-Syrian protests. But the size of the pro-Syrian march in Lebanon suggests another calculus. Given that an election was triggered by the resignation, could it be that the objective of the resignation was to mobilize the (now former) government's supporters?

Here's a twist that I suspect that is not widely known. The president of Bolivia cannot resign unless the parliament accepts it. One of my Bolivian colleagues tells me that you simply cannot resign the presidency without the permission of the parliament. That's interesting to me, because it means that tendering resignation signals less information than it would if the president had the option of resigning unconditionally -- it's harder to guess whether resignation is sincere or strategic. And it is morely to engender the desired conciliations if it is interpreted to be sincere.

Was that what the writers of the constitution were thinking?