Politicking

Politics has always represented one of those necessary evils in modern life. The ability to organize ourselves socially is clearly not a skill that is unique to homo sapiens. And it does appear that it is a skill we certainly have neither mastered in practice or principle. The idea of forming a government was meant to be a means of establishing a vehicle for collective action to cater to the needs of a populace. In principle it should be the coming together of a group of people who have been mandated to carry out a charter for the whole.

No matter how much democracy is advocated for there are still major contradictions in the way it is practiced. As we have seen in the USA in recent times it is possible for a presidential candidate to lose the popular vote and still win the election. Electoral fraud also doesn’t constitute a significant obstruction to the legitimisation of an election. As was the case in Florida where we had the saga of the “hanging chads”. America also has the immensely democratic process of allowing a State Governor to appoint to a national legislative seat when it becomes vacant in mid term.

In Great Britain democracy has been enshrined in processes that allow for an upper legislative house whose members are either eligible to sit by birth or by partisan appointment. May the people’s will be done indeed! The system goes even further to espouse all the good values of democracy by having a prime minister who is never elected into office. The party with the greater number of seats has the right to appoint a prime minister. It would follow then that that party would also be able to remove a prime minister and reappoint one without any election taking place. Great Britain also has a parliamentary system in which major executive decision are not (do not have to be) subject to legislative debate or voting. This has been shown to be the case in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the bailing out of banks with public funds.

Socialism and Communism have become so tarnished of late that most socialists have to apologise and mutter their allegiance. The socialism of USSR, and now Russia; and Robert Mugabe can only be described as travesties. Fidel Castro started out as a ‘man of the people’ and ended up as a despot demanding godlike devotion from his people. He became so consumed by his own mythology its hard to imagine that he still realised there was a people somewhere in the equation. And now we have the modern day flag bearer for socialism; Hugo Chavez, who has enacted legislation that would allow him to rule for life. As long as he keeps winning elections, of course. If ever there was a mandate for repression and electoral fraud there you have it.