http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,687944,00.html
If you want a free vote, ask nicely
The American President has a singular view of democracy.
After all, look what happened in Florida
Observer Worldview
Terry Jones
Sunday April 21, 2002
The Observer
After last weekend's shocking events in Venezuela, in which President
Chavez was ousted in a free and fair democratic coup, only to be returned to
office two days later on what seems to have been little more than the whim of
the people, the leaders of the Free World have clearly been forced to
reconsider the nature of democracy.
When asked whether the Bush administration now recognised President
Chavez as Venezuela's legitimate President, a spokesman for President Bush
conceded that although Mr Chavez 'was democratically elected' one had to
bear in mind that 'legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a
majority of the voters, however' [sic].
Clearly, this involves a fundamental re-evaluation of what we understand by
democracy, and I offer here some thoughts on the principles - other than
counting votes - which might confer legitimacy.
Since its ground-breaking experiments in vote-counting in Florida two
years ago, the United States has been universally recognised as the chief
innovator in the field of democratic principles. Therefore, one of the factors
that must surely confer legitimacy on any democracy would be approval by
the United States.
It is no good people blindly voting in any Tom, Dick or Hugo if they are not
acceptable to Washington. If this is true of Iraq, North Korea, Serbia and the
UK, it is doubly true of South America and trebly true of a country that
happens to be the third largest supplier of oil to the US.
It is also no good imagining that landslide victories are any guide to
legitimacy. Just because Chavez has twice been elected President by the
largest margins in Venezuela's history, and just because his government has
twice the number of elected representatives that its opponents have, that
does not mean it can go around passing any legislation it wants.
According to the 'Florida Rules', the narrower the margin of victory, the
greater the legitimacy. In fact, if the victor actually has fewer people voting
for him than the loser (almost half-a-million fewer in the case of George
W. Bush) then that is democracy's way of awarding him carte blanche to do
whatever he and his friends in the oil business want.
Another good measure of legitimacy, according to the 'Florida Rules', is the
number of interesting variations that can be introduced into the voting
system. Florida led the way in the 2000 presidential elections with
confusing ballot design in Palm Beach County (a confusion which favoured
Bush by 10 to 1) and difficulties with the punch-card system in 26 out of
the 67 counties (which probably lost Gore something in the region of
30,000 votes). Then there was also the question of setting up roadblocks to
prevent black voters getting to the ballot, and the novel expedient of simply
not collecting some of the ballot boxes when they did.
The lack of this sort of experimentation in the Venezuelan elections must do
a lot to harm the legitimacy of any so-called 'President' in the eyes of the
Bush administration. Especially Mr Bush's brother's eyes.
The truth is that democracy is not really served by having elections at all.
That is why the Bush administration was so prompt to endorse the
presidency of Pedro Carmona Estanga, the head of Venezuela's most
important business association, who promised faithfully not to hold any
elections for a year.
One thing that certainly does not confer legitimacy on any democratic
government is passing legislation to benefit its own people. Chavez reformed
the corrupt system that he inherited. He tried to redistribute land to benefit
the poorest farmers, granted titles to the self-built homes of the barrios,
increased the minimum wage and enrolled more than a million students in
school, who were previously excluded.
Nevertheless, 'Mr Chavez's record as President is terrible,' said one
American newspaper. He has failed to end all the corruption, put his
supporters into government and (at one point during the riots) blocked
press coverage. But, of course, what really destr- oys any claims to
legitimacy Chavez might have has been his meetings with Saddam Hussein,
Muammar Gadaffi and Fidel Castro.
In fact, far from stifling the press and television, Mr Chavez has been
foolish enough to allow it total freedom, with the result that nine out of 10
newspapers and four out of the five television stations are in the hands of
vested interests who oppose his reforms.
These television stations played a big part in organising the demonstrations
of 12 April, by advertising the event every 10 minutes. During the riots,
they continually showed film of Chavez supporters firing rifles, while
reporting that 10 demonstrators had been killed and hundreds injured. All of
which has been dutifully reported worldwide and used against Chavez by the
US government.
However, an eye-witness report suggests that most of the dead were Chavez
supporters killed by rooftop snipers belonging to the extreme Bandera Roja
party, an assertion supported by the secretary of health for metropolitan
Caracas, Pedro Aristimuņo, who reported that of those who died 'the most
serious wounds were in the cranium and cheek... they appeared to be shots
from above'.
If democracy is to live up to the high expectations placed on it by the
President of the United States and his team, it will have to conform to the
principles established in Florida. In the meantime, states such as Venezuela
may claim to be democracies, but their words will ring hollow in the ears of
George W.
|
