DailyPost 398
DEMOCRACY IN A FIX!
When the world had started believing that democracy has matured & its systems & processes are running fine, the ascendency of Trump has thrown the spanners in the very concept of democracy itself. The capability of the democratic system to throw up leadership competent enough to manage it, seems to be suspect now. Last ten months of Trump’s Presidency has only opened up floodgates of questions without answering none. The faith that the democratic verdict decides finality in a democratic set up does not seem to the reality now.
End of elections means the beginning of serious governance process. Not any more. Trumped. The election itself get embroiled in controversy on a permanent basis. US could get over the Florida counting / recounting et al. The present story does not seem to die down with Congress Committee & independent investigation having a field day. Important positions in the government are still in a limbo & the fast paced musical chair has added to the already nebulous situation. Attack on some well established institutions erodes it further.
Kenya is having its own brush with democracy. Catalonia has thrown up one of its kind situation in Spain, a self determination of a type, not ordained in the democratic set up. Does the democratic set up has any solution to issues of this magnitude & complexity? Can it provide solutions to only day to day routine stuff by the majority mechanism. Brexit has shaken the world by a designer referendum, unwarranted & nobody knows how to the take it forward.
Nationalism of a different type of closing borders to both trade, business & genuine refugees is also emanating out of democracy, totally antithetical to the direction in which most democracies have moved forward in the last fifty or more years. Democracy is an idea put into reality, which we presumed had matured. Is democracy in a fix or is it getting unfixed, only time will tell. It has to be preserved for mankind.
PUT THROUGH TESTING TIMES, DEMOCRACY WOULD COME OUT FURTHER EMBOLDENED.
Sanjay Sahay