SDI research was cut back following the end of Reagan's presidency, and in 1995 it was reiterated in a presidential joint statement that " missile defense systems may be deployed ... will not pose a realistic threat to the strategic nuclear force of the other side and will not be tested to ... that capability.

After that the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee was established by presidential directive in 2004 to advise and coordinate federal departments and agencies on matters concerning the GPS and related systems.

In parliamentary systems, the word " government " is used to refer to what in presidential systems would be the executive branch and to the governing party.

In presidential systems, the term refers to a regularly-scheduled election where both the president, and either " a class " of or all members of the national legislature are elected at the same time.

The older the constitution, the more constitutional leeway tends to exist for a head of state to exercise greater powers over government, as many older parliamentary system constitutions in fact give heads of state powers and functions akin to presidential or semi-presidential systems, in some cases without containing reference to modern democratic principles of accountability to parliament or even to modern governmental offices.

Semi-presidential systems combine features of presidential and parliamentary systems, notably a requirement that the government be answerable to both the president and the legislature.

It is notable that some presidential systems, while not providing for collective executive accountability to the legislature, may require legislative approval for individuals prior to their assumption of cabinet office and empower the legislature to remove a president from office ( for example, in the United States of America ).

Most presidents in such countries are selected by democratic means ( popular direct or indirect election ); however, like all other systems, the presidential model also encompasses people who become head of state by other means, notably through military dictatorship or coup d ' état, as often seen in Latin American, Middle Eastern and other presidential regimes.

In a sense, elected monarchies, such as the Holy See, the defunct Holy Roman Empire or pre 16th century Swedish monarchy, can be regarded as ' crowned ' presidential systems.

In presidential systems the head of state is the actual, de facto chief executive officer.

In presidential systems, such as that of the United States, appointments are nominated by the President's sole discretion, but this nomination is often subject to parliamentary confirmation ( in the case of the US, the Senate has to approve cabinet nominees and judicial appointments by simple majority ).

In presidential systems, the president often has the power to fire ministers at his sole discretion.

Even in presidential systems the head of state often formally reports to the legislature on the present national status, e. g. the State of the Union address in the United States of America.

In some parliamentary systems, and in some presidential systems, however, the head of state may do so on their own initiative.

Typically in presidential and semi-presidential systems the president is directly elected by the people, or is indirectly elected as done in the United States.

For example, it is used in French presidential, legislative, and cantonal elections, and also to elect the presidents of Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zimbabwe — see: Table of voting systems by nation.

In democratic systems of governance based on the trias politica, a fundamental parallel and a fundamental difference exists between presidential systems and constitutional monarchic parliamentary system of government.

Complete separation-of-powers systems are almost always presidential, although theoretically this need not be the case.

Countries with Congresses and presidential systems:

Clinton won the 1992 presidential election ( 43. 0 % of the vote ) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush ( 37. 4 % of the vote ) and billionaire populist Ross Perot, who ran as an independent ( 18. 9 % of the vote ) on a platform focusing on domestic issues ; a significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval.

In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49. 2 % of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole ( 40. 7 % of the popular vote ) and Reform candidate Ross Perot ( 8. 4 % of the popular vote ), becoming the first Democratic incumbent since Lyndon Johnson to be elected to a second term and the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected President more than once.

In the early days of opinion polling, the American Literary Digest magazine collected over two million postal surveys and predicted that the Republican candidate in the U. S. presidential election, Alf Landon, would beat the incumbent president, Franklin Roosevelt by a large margin.

This is the case, because during presidential campaigns the Times systematically gives more coverage to Democratic topics of civil rights, health care, labor and social welfare, but only when the incumbent president is a Republican.

According to Puglisi, in the post-1960 period the Times displays a more symmetric type of watchdog behaviour, just because during presidential campaigns it also gives more coverage to the typically Republican issue of Defense when the incumbent President is a Democrat, and less so when the incumbent is a Republican.

In June 1993, incumbent Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat won the first popular presidential election running as the candidate of the democratic opposition.

With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the re-nomination of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election ; instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott.

** Glafcos Clerides defeats incumbent George Vasiliou in the Cypriot presidential election.

* November 2 – United States presidential election, 1948: Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats Republican Thomas E. Dewey and ' Dixiecrat ' Strom Thurmond.

** U. S. presidential election, 1996: Democratic incumbent Bill Clinton defeats Republican challenger Bob Dole to win his second term.

* November 4 – United States presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger and former Governor Ronald Reagan of California defeats incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter, exactly 1 year after the beginning of the Iran hostage crisis.

* November 8 – U. S. presidential election, 1904: Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt defeats Democrat Alton B. Parker.

* November 6 – U. S. presidential election, 1900: Republican incumbent William McKinley is reelected by defeating Democratic challenger William Jennings Bryan.

* November 2 – U. S. presidential election, 1976: Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Ford, becoming the first candidate from the Deep South to win since the Civil War.

* November 7 – U. S. presidential election, 1972: Republican incumbent Richard Nixon defeats Democratic Senator George McGovern in a landslide ( the election had the lowest voter turnout since 1948, with only 55 percent of the electorate voting ).

* November 6 – United States presidential election, 1956: Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower defeats Democrat challenger Adlai E. Stevenson in a rematch of their contest 4 years earlier.

* November 5 – United States presidential election, 1940: Democrat incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Republican challenger Wendell Willkie and becomes the United States ' first and only third-term president.

* November 6 – U. S. presidential election, 1888: United States Democratic Party incumbent Grover Cleveland wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College vote to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison, therefore losing the election.

** U. S. Senator Eugene McCarthy announces his candidacy for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, challenging incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson over the Vietnam War.

** Former California Governor Ronald Reagan enters the race for the Republican presidential nomination, challenging incumbent President Gerald Ford.

The United States presidential election of 1804 pitted incumbent Democratic-Republican President Thomas Jefferson against Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.

The United States presidential election of 1828 featured a rematch between John Quincy Adams, now incumbent President, and Andrew Jackson, the runner-up in the 1824 election.

The United States presidential election of 1832 saw incumbent President Andrew Jackson, candidate of the Democratic Party, easily win re-election against Henry Clay of Kentucky.