Democracy in crisis, why?
Michael Dingake | Tuesday July 11, 2017 16:41
Why, is this ideal government, ever conjured in the minds of men, in travail? Without traveling far in thought you discover that democracy thrives best when premised as it must, on the rule of law; otherwise anarchy ensues; secondly, to function optimally democracy ought to answer to the principle of the majority, as king, lest a dictator emerges; thirdly, it should be rooted on equality, not so, you’ll have slave-owner/ slave coexistence; trample on the rule of law, overlook majority test or sever its root, then democracy stews in crisis and becomes a nullity!Why has the American democracy veered without signal, into the anti-democratic Donald Trump lane? Trump and his dupes didn’t win on the principle of the majority! How could they, when three million more voters voted for Hillary Clinton?
The Electoral Colleges which handed Donald Trump victory he didn’t deserve, are not institutions of equality, but instruments of deliberate inequality instituted by the powerful and the rich, to defend the ill-gotten gains of the few. Nothing more, nothing less!
Donald Trump mobilised his anti-black supporters, on his pro-Ku-Klux-Klan instinct, his contempt for equality of sexes and personal derogation of blacks, symbolised by the ‘unnaturalness’ of a black man becoming the first President of the US and a woman attempting to follow in his footsteps! Think of it. Had Barrack Obama not become the president of the US when he did, Donald Trump wouldn’t have got it into his dunderhead to run for the American Presidency in 2016!
He knew his chances of winning the presidency were zilch! Barrack Obama’s long odds successive victories, was largely aided by Michael Moore’s satirical work, Stupid White Men, lampooning GW Bush’s win in 2000 beating Al Gore by foul means. It is safe to say the one or three percent Americans, excluding the Buffets, the Gates and the Soros, were caught off-guard by the Obama, 2008 victory.
That it was repeated in 2012 intensified the determination of the pro-KKK lobby to find the ultimate moron among them, to assume US presidency with the sole objective of obliterating traces, of the US that was in default once ruled by a nigger.
The ideal moron was found in Donald Trump who has vowed to make America great by erasing all the landmark initiatives by Barrack Obama, the nigger! Obamacare, progressive taxation, relaxation of the Cuban embargo, Iran nuclear deal, two-state Arab- Israel solution, US- NATO relations, the US Trade Treaty with Canada, Mexico and other Pacific countries, Paris Climate Accord, all became victims for revision, for they reflected the Obama ‘filthy’ trail.
Seizing on the inequality of white and black, women and men, the rich and the poor, thick-headed Donald Trump has been unleashed on a world trying to democratise African leaders, having inherited the neo-liberal ideological equality have in addition adopted the two-term presidential tenure copied from the US; but the rule like pie has been adopted to broken. Right now, the two-term limits is honoured more in breach than in observance: Nkuruzinza of Burundi hangs on, cutting short many lives who’d like to keep him on the narrow and straight path; Yuweri Museveni of Uganda refuses to let go; Kabila of the DRC, twists and turns, refusing to be dislodged despite the succinct mandate and many Congolese who prefer him to vacate office; the Congo Brazzaville gentleman won’t let go either; Paul Kagame of Rwanda relied on his popularity to amend the Rwandan constitution to stay put; Yaya Jammeh had to be chased out of the Gambia to thwart his millennium rule, by ECOWAS, the regional body. Historically the shining example of democracy, Botswana, adopted the two-term presidential tenure after 32 years of life-presidency. So far the first president of the two-term limit didn’t disappoint; he even surrendered the one-year interregnum created by oversight of a hurried clumsy constitutional amendment, but which failed to synchronise the retiring and incoming transition rationally, obviously due to absurd anti-democratic ‘Automatic Succession’ amendment.
However the two-term presidential limit kicked off breathtakingly. We eagerly await the current president’s exit under nine months! Botswana political parties however appear to be plagued by inner-party democracy spectre. Democracy is obviously an ideology and system of many political parties.
These parties literally incubate democracy expected in ‘democratic government.’ Political parties who don’t reflect a divergence of views in their structures and underline the rule of law, will be viewed quite rightly, as undemocratic and ipso facto unlikely to display democratic credentials, in power. BMD is reported to be wrecked by factions by non-adherence to the rule of law. Both factions appear guilty: one won’t abide by its constitution in terms of membership discipline; another appears to have given itself authority by manipulating the party constitution to set up the Disciplinary Committee! BMD needs to revisit the rule of law criterion, otherwise its attraction to public support may diminish! The BDP employs vote-buying to win internal and external elections. In spite of consistent denial of buying votes, Hon Masisi’s Tonota Dubai camp where 19 elands, 15 kudus,15 impalas and 25 cattle were slaughtered to woo and retain supporters, was incontrovertible evidence of a party un-acquainted with the rule of law, namely fair elections’ rule!