Fake Democracies

I have lived for a time in Sierra Leone, and it was interesting to compare Sierra Leone's interpretation of Democracy to Canada's. Both came from a British parliamentary tradition, but Sierra Leone had only been independent for about 6 years when I went there. Let's be clear right away: Sierra Leone had a genuine democracy. It was just different enough from Canada's to make me realize how little I knew of democracy, and to begin to see what makes a democracy work.

We all know that it takes more than mere voting to make a liberal democracy. Even a dictatorship can vote, but can we really pick out what makes it a fake democracy? Some of the really easy clues: If there is only one party, or if the votes are 99.9% for one party, it's probably fake.

There are also problems of stuffing ballot boxes and miscounting results, everybody knows about those and are on the lookout for it. Another well know ploy is voter intimidation. But neither of these are an indication of a fake democracy, as long as people are aware of the glitches.

A potential weakness of a democracy is in handling tribal groups. Each tribe votes for their own candidate, but what made it work in Sierra Leone was that no one group had a majority over all the others combined, and as a result people often ended up having to choose between candidates that they had no connection to. And the government had to behave decently towards all the losers they had any hope of winning the next election. As some of my students in Sierra Leone pointed out when discussing politics, Canada also had tribal groups, which I had no response to.

A key indicator of democracy is the orderly transfer of power from one party to the other. In a liberal democracy, you do not cling to power saying you won after it's pretty clear you lost. Also, in a liberal democracy if a new government is elected, you do not put the ex-leaders on trial. Why? Because in that case the stakes are raised so high that elections stop being an activity with rules and begin to be a fight for survival. Twice in recent years, the Democratic party in the USA has taken the high road to preserve democracy - first when Al Gore conceded the election instead of carrying on the struggle. Second when Barack Obama refused to listen to complaints of left wingers who wanted George Bush and Cheney put on trial for War crimes. You do not hold an election to oust a criminal government. You have to overthrow it some other way.

While on the subject, anything that raises the stakes so high that neither side can concede, is going to weaken the democratic tradition. For example, if you call your opponent in an election "a foreign terrorist" or a "traitor" or call for his murder or execution, the stakes are now too high to back down honourably when the opponent wins. Some of this is unfortunately going on now with some of the more rabid right wing supporters in the USA. Right wing media (Fox News) are now sponsoring protests where conservatives will refuse to pay taxes to the new government, and right wing media are also recommending that their supporters buy guns to resist the government "when the time comes".

More important than we think, in a real democracy, is "Rule of Law" which means nobody is above the law. We cannot have rulers and politicians disobeying the law. But that must be resolved by the courts and judges, not by elections. It's part of what Americans call "checks and balances".

I recently came across a new potential form of "fake democracy". I won't mention the name of the country that made me think of it, as it is a serious accusation. Say the military wanted to run a country but for some reason needed to maintain the appearance of being a liberal democracy. The secret service can set up a system whereby any aspiring politician needs to take soft "bribe money" to get anywhere. The secret service of course keeps track of who is on the take and has all the evidence they need to convict any politician in the parliament. Then anytime a politician tries to make a move that is not favourable to the military, he/she can be removed from office on corruption charges, yet with all the outward appearance of a democratic system. The only outward clue is the amazing frequency with which leading politicians are ousted on "corruption" charges.