DEMOCRACY: THE SUPERIOR DOCTRINE (The Herald)

Reason Wafawarova

29 July 2010

There are certain words which nobody really wants to be associated with in public; words such as racism and imperialism.

On the other hand there are other words for which almost everyone is anxious to demonstrate enthusiasm, words such as charity and kindness. Democracy is one of such words. In fact some countries that have titled themselves “Democratic Republics” can hardly be described as democratic from any angle of imagination.
With the exception of theocracies, dynasties, kingdoms and sheikhdoms, it is almost impossible to find any regime in the world that does not pay official tribute, in constitution and editorial, to competitively elected assemblies or presidents.

States that possess these attributes often consider themselves superior to those that do not, and this is why post-Soviet Georgia is seen as superior to Soviet Georgia, or post-Indonesia East Timor is seen as superior to Indonesia-controlled East Timor. A corrupt civilian Nigeria is seen as superior to the military Nigeria of the likes of Babangida or Abacha, just like a corrupt civilian Pakistan is seen as superior to the military regime of yesteryear there.

Regardless of historical and cultural differences, the constitutional features common to Sweden, Malawi, Singapore or Liberia officially put these countries in the same class, while North Korea, Cuba or Saudi Arabia are placed in their own class –at least from a liberal democracy point of view.

Scholars like Professor John Dunn have hailed constitutional representative democratic republics as the most stable state forms today; although some impartial observers have observed that some monarchs are clearly good examples of the most stable political systems and can easily be considered to be strongly democratic. The Swazi system of governance is quite popular with the locals and the political system in Swaziland has for many years been one of the most stable in Africa. This is despite the fact that the West derides some of the cultural and political practices there as primitive and undemocratic.

Thomas Hobbes described democracy as this standard state model; that is to say, a constitutional state offering to guarantee the rule of law and various civil and political rights and freedoms, and governed by authorities, which usually must include representative assemblies, elected by universal suffrage and numerical majorities of all citizens, in elections held at regular intervals between competing political parties and candidates.

Of course many will correctly argue that this is a departure from the traditional definition of democracy and surely this cannot be the only definition. What we are confronted with today is liberal democracy and it has its own prospects that we may need to discuss in more detail.

Liberal democracy is made up of conglomerates that are not necessarily logically connected. Non-democratic states may be built on the principle of the rule of law as was imperial Germany and Prussia. Constitutions, even effective and operational constitutions, do not have to be democratic, and many times they are not. Doing an outreach program to the people before drafting a constitution as is happening in Zimbabwe right now does not in and of itself produce a democratic constitution. Many times such exercises turn out to be outreaches to manufacture consent by the masses to the views of a very few people.

Liberal democracy does not necessarily ensure happiness and freedom for all people, as is often preached through right wing rhetoric.

In fact, as John Stuart Mill pointed out, freedom and toleration for minorities are often more threatened than protected by democracy. This is what is called the tyranny of the majority – a crude imposition of the views and values of the majority on the minorities.

We have also known since Napoleon 111 that regimes that come to power by coup d’état can proceed to win genuine majorities by successive universal suffrage. There is no organic connection between capitalism and democracy, contrary to US advocacy and rhetoric, and much of the case for liberal democracy rests on its constitutional liberal component rather than its democratic, or more precisely electoral, component.

The case for free voting does not guarantee rights and does not guarantee that choices provided in the ballot are what people really want. All that happens is that the vote enables the people to get rid of unpopular governments, at least in theory. Many ballots today offer the people an opportunity to protest against the status quo more than they allow them an opportunity to elect better governance.

There are three key observations one can make when it comes to liberal democracy. Firstly, liberal democracy, like any other form of political regime, requires a political unit within which it can be exercised, and this unit is what we often call the nation state.

This is why liberal democracy is not applicable to global affairs – and why it is futile for the US to try and democratise other states – it is just not possible where such a unit does not exist.

The politics of the United Nations cannot be fitted into the framework of liberal democracy, except as a figure of speech.

In fact the current composition of the UN Security is egregiously worse than any of the appalling dictatorships that liberal democracy seeks to correct.

Secondly, there is strong doubt on the widely and universally held US discourse that liberal democratic governments are always and ipso facto superior, or at least preferable to non-democratic governments.

No doubt this may be true, other things being equal, but clearly other things are often not always equal. Ukraine is now considered to have attained democratic politics at the price of having lost two thirds of the modest national product that the state had under the Soviet Union and one wonders if indeed post Soviet Ukraine is superior to its predecessor.

Or is Colombia a superior democracy for periodically holding elections and for not being ruled by the military regardless of the fact that in Colombia the number of people killed, maimed and driven from their homes over the past 60 years runs into millions?

The number is by far larger than the death tolls in most of the other countries notoriously plagued with military dictatorships. Admittedly, it is misleading to say non-democratic regimes are better than democratic regimes, but it is important to remind ourselves that the wellbeing of countries does not depend on the presence or absence of any single brand of institutional arrangement, however morally commendable.

This is why Zimbabweans must be made aware that the mere presence of a Media Commission that dishes out publishing and broadcasting licences like they were a traffic authority licensing vehicle drivers does not guarantee a better wellbeing for the country. Neither does a Western endorsed Electoral Commission ensure that the country lives happily ever after.

The third observation is perhaps best illustrated by Winston Churchill’s classical saying, “Democracy is the worst of all governments, except for all others.”

This is an expression of acute scepticism on the effectiveness and efficiency of democracy, much as it is an argument for representative liberal democracy.

Whatever the rhetoric used in election campaigns, political analysts and practitioners are aware that representative democracy is not a guaranteed effective way of governance. This is why the mere election of politicians into office is not enough to create an effective and reliable system of governance.

Zimbabweans are no strangers to electing absolutely unelectable and useless candidates into political office, and one needs no more than a quick visit to parliament to see how unrepresentative some of these politicians are. This writer recently had occasion to sit next to a recently appointed Cabinet Minister at a Press Club in Harare.

The man was not only the most disruptive person in the house, but also continuously threatened this writer with arrest and The Hague for what he said was “writing rubbish in The Herald”. This was coming from a man appointed to take care of affairs in the Prime Minister’s office and there is no doubt he genuinely believed the ICC could do his bidding on writers he does not like.

It is hard to believe that a man of such unimaginable levels of ignorance can be a suitable candidate to represent the interests of a constituency in Parliament or those of the nation in Cabinet.

Despite the noise made so much about the so-called democratic movements and what is often touted as their glorious credentials, the case for democracy still remains a largely negative one – an alternative that can only be defended with a deep sigh.

The shortcomings of democracy are often outweighed by the defects of authoritarianism and dictatorships – concepts seen by most liberals as patently awful. However the built in defects of liberal representative democracy as a system of governance are evident to most serious thinkers as well as satirists.

These defects were once extensively discussed before the 1960s civil rights movement after which politicians realised that it was becoming increasingly inadvisable to say in public what they really thought of the masses of voters on whom their election depended.

The majority of developing countries under liberal representative democracy today do not have the comfort similar to that in Western countries and many of them make the classical definition of poverty. Liberal representative democracy was largely accepted in the terrible era of world wars and the global economic catastrophe. The post World War economic boom in Western countries meant a better life for even the poor, and also comprehensive public welfare systems.

This is what popularised liberal representative democracy, but such happiness has not been seen in most of the non-Western countries under liberal representative democracy today, and there is simply neither potential nor prospect that this is ever going to happen.

Liberal democracy centres itself on the concept of “the people” and this phrase is always the point of reference for all state governments that count themselves as democratic. Understandably, any government with a purpose will have to act and speak in the name of the people.

All government is in fact government of the people and for the people. However it is patently clear that government cannot in any operational sense be government by the people.

It does not matter that the government in question is that of democrats, communists, fascists, nationalists or dictators. The only difference between these governments is the way they choose to control the masses – the way they want to manufacture or coerce consent from the masses, whether by the bludgeon or by classical deception.

Liberal representative democracy thrives on the support of the people but this support is often derived from calculated influences and control over the will of the people.

Media deception, mass propaganda and force are some of the most common methods used by the elites to manufacture or coerce consent from the masses.

The act of one’s assent to the legitimacy of a political system, such as voting periodically in elections, is little more than symbolic. The candidates provided for the electorate are often an imposition and not a product of any measure of consensus. Usually only a minority actively participates in the political processes of their country.

This situation is most convenient for politicians, and by and large, politicians have been long known to hope for a degree of political apathy. It makes the process of making “the people” ratify the decisions of a few powerful individuals a lot easier.

Australia has the compulsory vote to avoid a total boycott of elections by the people. However the people who go to vote are clearly guided not by their own judgement, but by what a few political activists will be advocating for or against. Kevin Rudd was presented by a handful of Labour politicians as a political choice for the premiership of Australia two and a half years ago, and he was in like manner removed from office by an even smaller gang of politicians. There was neither judgement nor choice from the people. They pretty much woke up one morning with Julia Gillard as the country’s first ever female Prime Minister.

Julia herself is an unelected Prime Minister, because the gang that propped her just took it upon themselves to impose a new Premier on the people of Australia.

Popular election must be the primary criterion for liberal representative democracy, and yet we had the US House of Representatives elected by one third of the potential electorate during the Bush administration’s last midterm elections and about 20 percent of the electorate taking part in the 2007 British local government elections. Under such scenarios it is not easy to talk about the democratic legitimacy of an authority.

Many times the US president has been elected by a little over 50 percent of the electorate entitled to vote.
Liberal representative democracy operates on three presumptions. Firstly the winning party derives legitimacy from the fact that it has more power than other parties competing with it. Secondly, the winning party believes that the inhabitants of their territory accept their authority more or less willingly. Thirdly there is an argument that government can provide services for the people – services like the so-called “law and order”.

In Africa some winning parties have carried less than 30 percent of the vote and that in reality means that such parties are not endorsed by more than 70 percent of the electorate.

It makes no sense for such political parties to claim legitimacy on the basis of having more power than the so-called “losing parties” since all the participating parties in this scenario are essentially losing parties.

Zimbabwe currently has provisions for a runoff election in the event that no presidential candidate garners more than 50 percent of the participating voters. However the participating voters could in themselves be a minority of the eligible and entitled electorate.

Zimbabwe has had many members of parliament elected by less than 20 percent of the registered voters in the past and such leaders cannot meaningfully be described as having been democratically elected.

Both the MDC-T and ZANU PF failed to get more than 50 percent of the vote in the March 2008 general election and both their presidential candidates also failed to get more than 50 percent of the vote in that first round of election.

The presidential election runoff did produce a winner with 85 percent, albeit from an even smaller participating electorate and these are some of the shortcomings of liberal representative democracy.
It is hard to believe that an authority elected by a majority made up from a minority of the eligible electorate can sensibly claim that the inhabitants of their territory willingly accept their authority. It makes more sense to believe that those who did not vote for this “winning” unit do not accept its authority, especially when one uses Francis Fukuyama’s argument that those who choose not to vote are in fact democratically expressing their opinion, and in fact participating in the election.

Not participating in the election must be a stronger NO than actually voting against someone.

As for providing services to the people in many cases this has turned out to be a sad joke. Sometimes authoritarian regimes and monarchies have actually provided a lot better for their citizens than liberal representative democracy. Elites elected through liberal representative democracies are largely known for overpromising, unreliability and deception.

The MDC-T led urban councils have not only disappointed voters by not delivering on their promises, but have also proven to be great admirers and executors of corrupt conduct – amassing as much stolen wealth as the available time and opportunity can allow them.

The party itself has been publicly embarrassed by its own officials and has had to disown the Chitungwiza City Council based on alleged corrupt activities.

Many of the elected representatives desert their constituencies and only reappear to campaign for votes each time there is an election and this culture is now synonymous with African politics.

The superior doctrine of liberal representative democracy is a huge deception and a mere red herring by Western countries each time they want a pretext to meddle in the affairs of resourced countries.

It is an illusion to believe that liberal representative democracy in and of itself is a methodology towards the attainment of happiness or prosperity. It simply is not. In fact there is less deception in authoritarian forms of government than there is in democracy.

Liberal representative democracy is a celebrated and popularised system of government whose credibility is nothing more than its capacity to sustain corporate power and the hegemony of political elites over the masses.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!!
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or visit reason@rwafawarova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.com