Kenyan And Pakistani Democracy: We The People
I hadn’t intended to start this column until next week, and not on this issue either - but rather by trying to find a working definition of democracy instead. This flurry of activity over the last week or so has prompted me to begin a bit early, and on a different topic.
Is there a Crisis of Democracy?
What could be called crises of democracy has occurred in Kenya and Pakistan, both accompanied by bursts of violence - one caused by the assassination of an opposition political leader, and another by alleged and suspected electoral fraud. Neither of these countries have a highly developed or deeply-embedded democracy, and are still riven by tribal differences. Fifty Kenyans have died in a torched church - a place normally regarded as a safe-house - because they were members of the same tribe as the President.
But is there really crises of democracy in these two countries?
In Pakistan, I think this is less so though it could easily develop into one should the election, which is to be postponed, is delayed for very long - the new date of February 18 is as far as they could have safely gone without causing a real crisis.
In Kenya, however, a crisis of democracy is much closer. The EU observers said it had concerns over the results, caused by them having been denied access to the vote tallying centre in Nairobi, and having been turned away from some polling stations. They found important discrepancies – differences between voting numbers announced at the polling station, and those announced later at the election panel at the capital. The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has asked “What is there to negotiate? Kibaki must first accept that he lost the election”. So it seems more than likely that a crisis is not far off – if indeed it has not already begun.
Are Kenya and Pakistan Ready For Democracy?
What does this say about Kenya and Pakistan? Does it say that they aren’t fully democratic? Does it say that they aren’t ready for real democracy? That their political systems or politicians aren’t truly democratic, but just paying lip-service to it?
To an extent, I think that is true.
I wrote a post on my own blog a few days ago saying that Pakistan isn’t yet ready – or at least hasn’t yet demonstrated that it is – for real democracy, because of its reaction to Benazir Bhutto’s death, and the appointment of a successor based solely on him being Bhutto’s son.
Is this also true of Kenya? It seems that there are corrupt politicians and officials who are willing to change the electoral results in order to keep their party in power. Corruption exists in most political systems – but varies in the extent and form it takes.
I don’t think that this alone amounts to these countries not being ready for democracy, but it does show that they – or at least the ruling party – do not want it.
Wrapping Up
Democracy in Pakistan and Kenya appears to be having trouble. Whether this is symptomatic of nations not being “ready” for democracy, corrupt politicians, or anything else, that fact is undeniable.
The bigger – and pretty much unanswerable – question is this: how can we save it?
Unless elections are going to be run by external people, an imposition which no nation will accept, there is little that really can be done beyond what is already in place.
We can just hope that democracy will win out in the end.
There’s another question about whether democracy is an evolutionary result, or a cultural product. Talking about countries being ‘ready’ for democracy is the language of progress and development, it implies that once a nation has reached a particular point, it will be ready to enter the promised land of one person one vote. Anything short of that is merely a evolutionary stage on the way to the democratic end point.
An alternative view is that democracy is a system of government suited to particular cultures. So making countries ‘ready’ for democracy is actually another way of saying that we want them to adopt Western cultural values, (the West being the heartland for democratic states and democratic philosophy.) It’s cultural imperialism by another name.
So if a functioning democracy is incompatible with, for example, an African tribal culture, or a patriarchal Islamic society, which set of values backs down first? Or do we start with the culture of a place, find the system of government best suited to that cultural way of operating, and find a way of making it work best? Would benevolent dictatorship, for example, be better than bad democracy?
I guess the problem is that every nation is working with a Western definition of statehood too, since we’re the ones who drew their borders, back in the colonial era, and didn’t stop to think that it might be a bad idea to split the Kurds between 3 nations, or to lump various central African tribal groups in with one another.
But if they claim to be democratic or to have democracy, they should be judged under that definitions. They claim to have and to want democracy, so we can but use that yardstick against which to measure it!
“I don’t think that this alone amounts to these countries not being ready for democracy, but it does show that they – or at least the ruling party – do not want it.”
Nicely put.