Democracy Lies in the Eye of the Beholder
As in the case of female beauty, Democracy lies in the eye of the beholder. Many countries in the world claim to be democratic but their systems differ widely. The USA, which considers itself the greatest democracy in the world, lays wide emphasis on the election of legislators and even public officials on the basis of universal adult franchise and regards this as the key to democracy. With its overwhelming control of the international media and its own propaganda, its view is the mostly widely accepted. It is so important that the US administration has a Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, headed by an Assistant Secretary (currently Michael H. Posner), working under the umbrella of the Department of State which is headed by the Secretary of State. It strives to promote democracy worldwide. Several other US organizations have been funded to promote democracy in other countries, notably the National Endowment for Democracy, IFES-Democracy at Large, Freedom House, United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
If we accept that universal adult franchise is the bedrock of democracy, it seems an interesting exercise to compare this form of democracy in just two countries: the USA which is the most powerful and richest country on earth, and Sri Lanka which is a small comparatively obscure developing country in the Indian Ocean.
The right to universal adult franchise
The concept of adult franchise was introduced in the USA by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution in 1870 which reads as follows:
“Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
But females did not have the right to vote and they were enfranchised in 1920 with the 19th Amendment which ran as follows: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any other State on account of sex.” And Afro-Americans still did not have voting rights as many Southern States denied them voter registration and used intimidation and violence to keep them outside the voting system. It was only after the Civil Rights Movement led by the late Martin Luther King carried out a national campaign (that was met with egregious violence and human rights abuses and even with the assassination of King by his opponents) that further legislation enfranchised the ‘coloured people” with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enforce the 15th Amendment and then the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The US President, unlike members of Congress, is not elected by a direct vote. Each state votes separately and selects a given number of Electors who form the Electoral College that elects the President. The rules governing the selection of Electors varies from state to state. In some states the winner takes all; in others it is based on a proportion of the votes. The President may sometimes be elected by the Electoral Council though the number of votes cast for him nationally may be less than that of his opponent, a in the case of President George Bush.
Universal adult franchise was granted in 1931 to the people of Ceylon, without restriction of class, race or religion, by the British colonial government when the country was still a Crown Colony (it gained full independence only in 1948). It was the very first country in Asia to have this privilege. It allowed its citizens to elect members of the State Council which was the legislative and administrative body that controlled domestic affairs while the British Crown retained powers to control foreign policy, financial policy and internal security. The proposal for universal adult franchise was initially rejected by most of the national leaders of the time, who came from the affluent class, but the far-seeing British Labour-Liberal government of Ramsay McDonald established it on the grounds that it was the only way to empower the poorer population. The minimum voting age was 21 years. From the very beginning, it worked without serious limitations and discrimination against groups. It justified its promise by introducing many social development programmes, including free government heath services and free education for the entire population in 1945, while still a British colony. These benefits continue to date.
Though Sri Lanka now has an office of the President, the President is also elected by a direct national ballot.
Participating in the voting process
There is a fundamental difference in the process of obtaining participation in the ballot in the USA and Sri Lanka. In the USA, citizens are expected to apply for registration to be voters. This is done either by accessing the National Mail Voter Registration Form on internet and sending it to the local elections office or by registering at the local Motor Vehicle Agency (MVA). According to the US Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), 45% registered through the MVA. The minimum voting age was reduced to 18 years in 1971 after student agitations during the Vietnam War. According to the latest reports of the EAC, there are172.8 registered voters in the US. Since the Census reports that the under 18 population was 29% or 90 million out of a population of 309 million, the total eligible voting population of the US must be around 219 million. This leaves 46 million people unregistered. Even allowing for resident non-citizens and illegal immigrants, about 30 million remain unregistered. Convicted felons are not registered to vote. As the US has over one per cent of the population in prison or on parole, it is a large number.
The complexity of the registration process in the US deters the poor, the very elderly and the uneducated who cannot access the internet or discover how to obtain registration. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an active community association for the rights of the under-privileged, states that it helped 1.7 million to register as voters[1]. The National Association of Coloured People (NAACP) also helps people to register as voters.
In Sri Lanka, voter registration is the responsibility of the Elections Commissioner and his office and this office must ensure that all citizens are registered. And it happens without restraints. The Elections Commissioner conducts all national and local government elections. He is an independent official, not subject to government control. He will employ tens of thousands of government officials and trains them before each election on the conduct of an election. His staff visits every postal address in the country to identify the number of adults and register them. These registered voters’ names are then posted at the main post offices for scrutiny and those who have been missed out can seek registration by bringing it to the notice of the Elections Commissioner, while others may draw attention to the fact that a registered voter is now deceased or is not at the given address. Candidates for election and their political parties can obtain voters lists for each electorate for purposes of canvassing voters and also to verify the accuracy of the names. At the polling booths, each party candidate is allowed to send an observer from the area who could challenge a voter who is believed to be impersonating someone else. This process ensures that all eligible voters are registered as a matter of right.
Conduct of elections
The conduct of elections in every USA state (50 states and the District of Columbia) is in the hands of elected state officials under its Secretary of State. So the process can differ from state to state and may sometimes lead to manipulation by those in power at the time. In Florida in 2004, the Republican administration de-registered over 100,000 voters, mainly Afro-Americans, claiming they were dead or were felons. Many states started electronic voting machines made by private corporations and there are many records of fraud by the administration in power at the time as the machines do not provide voting slips for public record. The software for voting machines is considered a corporate secret and is not available for outside scrutiny. In Ohio, the owner of the largest voting machine manufacturer promised the election in the state to one candidate publicly. There is credible evidence that in some states voting machines were rigged in favour of one party or the other.
State election officials are occasionally also known to manipulate voting by either by design or omission by having insufficient polling booths in some areas or by closing voting booths early. Whether these local manipulations will have a significant effect on an election in a country with a very large population is doubtful, unless it is a very close election as in the case of the elections of Presidents John Kennedy and George Bush.
Election abuses also occur sometimes in Sri Lanka but again this is not significant enough to alter the general results. This is in the form of intimidation by local strong men of supporters of opposing candidates in some provincial areas during a bitterly fought election campaign. This results in retaliation by others while the police may sometimes be unwilling to intervene for fear of antagonising local leaders. The reason for this is that Sri Lankan voters are highly political and election campaigns are very visible and fought in the open with giant political rallies. An election is taken very seriously and voter turnout is usually high, unlike in the US. People generally vote for a party more than a person and will evaluate how party policies will benefit them. Fraudulent voter lists are not possible and voters are not disenfranchised. The Elections Commissioner’s office in Sri Lanka, as in neighbouring India, has a good record for impartial work.
Every citizen is encouraged to vote and the polling date is a public and mercantile holiday. Ballot forms are printed on paper in the three official languages and bear the candidates names and their party symbols. Counting is done by hand in the presence of the agents of the different candidates. If the results are close, a candidate may ask for a recount. If the election in an electorate was marred by violent incidents, the Elections Commissioner will invalidate the election and order a fresh election on a subsequent date.
Composition of political parties
The multi-party system is considered democratic as against the one party political system. The USA essentially has a two party system that has developed over time and attempts to introduce even a third party have failed. The political differences between these two parties is marginal. This is because the whole party system is oiled by money, big money given to them by the world’s largest corporations and wealthy special interest groups. It is the only country in the world where it takes several millions of dollars to be elected to Congress or the office of the President. Ten percent of the members of Congress are also millionaires. President Obama spent US$730 million on his campaign to be elected[2]. It is incontrovertible that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” Tentative efforts by a few to introduce campaign finance reform has drawn no support in Congress.
The effective work of Congress is often dictated by the 35,000 lobbyists working for big corporations and special interest groups who spend hundreds of millions of dollars canvassing legislators. This effectively limits the access of ordinary people to voice their demands. Accordingly, the protection of big corporations, protection of the wealthy and their property, the maintenance of an enormous military worldwide, are sacrosanct and above debate. There are perpetual national dangers: socialism and communism, class conflict, foreign enemies of US interests, and now Islamic terrorists. The other issues at stake at elections must seem trivial to outsiders: family values, illegal immigration, abortion, gays in the military, the right to own guns without restriction, Christian prayer in the classroom, etc. Campaign finance and lobbying are considered legitimate democratic rights in the US though many other countries would view these as corrupt practices.
In Sri Lanka, there are two big parties but also at least 5 or 6 small parties that are represented in the parliament. As in the British political system, taking big money from corporations for political activity and professional lobbying is illegal. This does not rule out unofficial influence peddling and private funding of political parties but the scale of these is small and not sufficient to change the political agenda. The two big parties are not all powerful. Smaller parties representing views diametrically opposed to that of the main parties hold around 10-25% of the seats in the national parliament. Some of these parties are Marxist, others represent narrow communal interests like those of the Indian Tamils, Northern Tamils and Muslims. Even terrorist supporters were represented in the parliament. While the LTTE terrorist organization was fighting the government militarily and blowing up buses, trains, public institutions, using suicide bombers to kill opponents and political leaders, their mouth piece, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was represented in parliament with over a dozen elected parliamentarians. They were elected from terrorist controlled areas as opposition to the terrorists meant certain death. The major parties are usually compelled to ally with these smaller parties to gain an effective majority in the parliament.
The composition of the two main parties is also diverse. The UNP represents more the urban middle class that is Anglicised and its leaders are mainly from that social class. It tends to be more representative of conservative politics. The SLFP represents more the large rural population that is more overtly nationalistic and it was responsible for many of the outstanding social reforms like the land reform that disempowered absentee landlords and gave the farming rights to the actual farmers. But both parties base their campaigns on economic issues that concern ordinary people: rural electrification, roads/bridges to rural areas, irrigation schemes, locating industries in rural areas, infrastructure projects, labour rights, etc. You would not get elected espousing “family values”.
Selection of leaders and candidates
The US has a commendable system for choosing candidates for elections through the “primaries”. This is probably unique to the US. Registered voters usually declare an affiliation to one of the two main parties. Before the main election, the states will arrange with these two parties to allow them to hold primary elections where voters affiliated to the party will have the chance to elect the party candidate of their choice who should contest a post on behalf of the party. This process becomes an elaborate and long drawn process when it comes to presidential elections. State party members will select their delegates and the delegates will assemble at national conventions to listen to the candidates and vote on their choice. This ensures transparency in the selection. As in the general elections, the cost of election at the primaries is very high and prospective candidates must spend huge sums on publicity to catch the attention of voters.
The system of choosing leaders in Sri Lankan political parties is almost feudal. The leadership of the main political parties is in the hands of family dynasties which can trace their family history to political leadership in the two decades before independence. The leaders generally pass on the mantle to wife, son, daughter or nephew. The family prestige creates instant name recognition among voters. The leader also appoints or approves most of party candidates for elections. So while the parliamentary system is democratic, the party structures are undemocratic, making it difficult for capable new leaders to enter the political scene. This is a feature of politics in the entire South Asian region, not a Sri Lankan phenomenon, and may be due to old cultural traditions.
What is a real democracy?
What is a democracy? There is no single answer to this question. The people of each country evolve their own political systems, based on their history and traditions, and it is for them to change if it pleases them. And changes do occur worldwide as economic and social conditions improve. Many systems of government have their advantages and disadvantages and no political system devised by man has ever been entirely perfect. In this context, the US policy of introducing democracy to other countries, through aid, subversion and regime change, or direct military intervention, seems hypocritical.
Kenneth Abeywickrama
1st October 2010
[1] For its actions, ACORN was targeted by opponents and deprived of its federal funding assistance.
[2] See the site http://www.opensecrets.org
Anonymous says:
last week our class held a similar discussion on this subject and you illustrate something we have not covered yet, thanks.
– Laura
| Kesh L. keshinil@yahoo.com 66.44.40.168 |
Absolutely correct! A far better analysis than paid journalists provide. The core problems are completely ignored, I fear because the Dems don’t have an answer. They have been completely brainwashed by the financial class, as you say. Those who haven’t been are stuck in the New Deal era and haven’t updated their world-view to account for the ecological crisis or globalized production. We badly need some answers, and they won’t come from the Dem establishment. Paul Hawken is one author who has presented a solid world-view for an ecologically aware economy (e.g.,”The Ecology of Commerce). I’m not aware of anyone who has really come up with an answer to globalization… |