Answer: d. voting citizens
Explanation:
"Head of state" and "chief executive" are essentially two different terms for the same thing. The president or prime minister (in a parliamentary system) have much authority for carrying out government, but their authority comes from the voting citizens who elected them.
Similarly, the legislature (Congress or parliament) has much law-making authority, but they only have that authority because the voting citizens put them in office to represent the people.
The Constitution of the United States begins with the words, "We the people," asserting that the power to organize a government is vested in the people of the country that is to be governed. This was an idea that the American founding fathers took from Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke. Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government set forth theories on how a social contract is established that invests the government with its power and limits its power by the rule of the majority.
So, the voting citizens always remain the sovereign (most dominant) in a democratic system of government. That means that elected officials must continue to pay attention to what the voters desire.
