Archive for the ‘Democracy’ Category

A John Dingler Moviette: March for Democracy Trailer – Video


A John Dingler Moviette: March for Democracy Trailer
Occupy Riverside #39;s 28ers, devoted to prohibiting the use of private wealth in political campaigns and in lobbying by means of the future 28th Amendment to the US Constitution, participated...

By: John Dingler

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A John Dingler Moviette: March for Democracy Trailer - Video

Nigeria and the Challenge of Democracy in Africa

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Without economic development it will be very difficult for Nigeria to achieve a steady democratic development, says Nigerian journalist Zacheaus Somorin.

That Africa is being faced with many challenges in its effort to make democracy sustainable. Since individual survival comes first before political consideration, it thus becomes difficult, in the realistic sense, for democracy itself to survive without economic development. All over Africa, the issue of good governance has always been an intractable topic for academic and political discourse. Thus Nigeria is not an exception. While each nation contends with it own problem, developed nations inclusive, Nigeria, being the heartbeat of Africa, with vast resources, has been trying to resolve its development challenges; the first attempt of which was the fight against the military that had no development agenda but power for its own sake.

With the enthronement of democracy in the country in 1999, there were global expectations as how the nation will surmount its many pixilated problems. With a militarist psyche that had held people down for years, there emerged a democracy that would heal the wounds of the urgly past.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, after taking the mantle of leadership, he emerged as a quintessential African leader with his strong diplomatic acumen to take on the world. While touring the world to ensure that the Paris club cancels the nations debts, pressure mounted at home for poverty eradication. However, the global trip had a positive impact: the debts were cancelled. Despite that, Nigerians still demanded for more as the global gesture aimed at getting the nation out of its economic misery was contrasted with the growing emergence of unacceptable class crisis between the Nigerian people and the elected political elites. In the most astronomical manner, the lawmakers budgeted for themselves unbelievable fat wages.

Thus, activists, journalists and those who challenged the military became disillusioned asking if democracy, is afterall, was what the nation needs to survive economically as a people. Political reforms were called for; with strong opposition party demanding for better governance. Expectedly, the consequence of the pressure was the regional defeat of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the 2003 elections.

One of the challenges of democracy in Africa and Nigeria is resistance to political change. And without political change, it is expected that concrete consolidation of democratic principles would be difficult. Attainment of power through electoral means, most times, within the continent, is motivated by the esoteric interest of having access to resources hence the tendency of an average leader to hold on to power despite governance failure.

Evidently, when the purpose of the national conference inaugurated for the purpose of restructuring the nations federal system was suspected to being tilted towards enshrining in the constitution a third term for former President Olusegun Obasanjo, analyst began to wonder if the nations democracy will survive with party hegemony. The global outcry against what transpired during the 2007 election almost took the nation deeply backward there was a presidential declaration that late Shehu Musa Yaradua must win the election whether Nigerians like it or not. Regional elections were consequently flawed with the real winner going to court to claim their mandates back. Simply, the European Union declared the 2007 election as the worst in the history of Nigeria.

As it is obtainable all over the world, industrial development which drives employment is not possible without stable power supply. Several global co-operations have been established to ensure that Nigeria achieve stable electricity for its industrial growth. Since 2009, billion of dollars have been budgeted in that regard. But its seems there is no political will to make it work as some esoteric elitist cliques, possibly more powerful than the government, have been taming all afford at revamping the power sector. Summarily, the seeming performance of the present administration in the power sector ended when the former energy minister, Prof Berth Nnaji resigned

The ongoing national conference set up by President Goodluck Jonathan is aimed at consolidating the nations democracy thus avoiding the possible disintegration which the United States has earlier predicted. The hot debate at the conference has been based on the same question: what has been the impact of democracy on the people in terms economic empowerment and security.

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Nigeria and the Challenge of Democracy in Africa

Vote-buying and democracy

Ziad Salim Mataram

The Jakarta Post

Publication Date : 20-05-2014

Listening to the complaints about vote-buying by some of the sore losers of the recent legislative election or watching some of them going nuts after losing, one could almost be forgiven for thinking that the election had been a total disgrace or Indonesias democracy had gone to the dogs.

But the following points are more than enough to dispel these notions: 1) the antics and semantics of the losers do not explain vote-buying but indicates how much money they had spent with nothing to show for it afterward; 2) losers explain, complain and whine while the winners keep mum, go home and celebrate; 3) as long as the concept (and practice) of secret ballots remains sacred, voters can never be bought. The incessant complaints about vote-buying are nothing more than sour grapes, post-election fatigue or a pesta demokrasi (fiesta of democracy) hangover.

More seriously, the critics of so-called vote-buying missed some important points on the relation between money, politics and democracy: Unlike people in the street, who overwhelmingly believe that politics is dirty, they assume and regurgitate that money is dirty, while politics is noble and democracy is a moral system and both are tainted by the dirty money, not realizing that with or without money, politics is dirty because in the pursuit of the holy grail of politics (i.e. government positions), politicians use every trick in the book and every means at their disposal to get what they want.

As Harold Lasswell (1936) wrote, politics is about who gets what, when and how, and the what in that definition is unmistakably money. The government collects it from the people, spends it recklessly and will give it back to the people, usually around election time, in the form of subsidies, social assistance and so on to influence the voters, of course.

So, not only is politics dirty but the whole business of governing is dirty because in both instances, you have dirty politicians playing with other peoples money or the money they never earned. This deadly embrace is the reason why corruption is inevitable and endemic, as the steady parade of high-profile politicians to Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) headquarters indicates.

Money, they say, is the root of all evil but the fact of the matter is, it is only so because we dont have enough of it. To run an election you need money, and the government itself also needs money to run. Money isnt called a liquid asset for nothing. Even spiritual institutions, which mostly look down on money, cant get enough of it and, quietly, they make you accept that even to be God-loving, you have to have enough money to donate.

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Vote-buying and democracy

Democracy Is the New Quantitative Easing

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. -- Aristotle

India is proof that democracy is more powerful than quantitative easing. There has been much written over the excitement of India's election results, with many arguing that a new era is coming in the world's largest democracy. Oddly, talk of India as a "Fragile Five" member has gone quiet, but make no mistake about it: If everyone is talking about a crisis, it either already happened or it never will. The crisis in India never existed, and a massive up-move has seemingly taken everyone by surprise.

Last year, the Federal Reserve's QE program was credited for sending the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) up 30%. The WisdomTree India Earnings Fund ETF (NYSEARCA:EPI) is up about as much so far in 2014, with no stimulus in place. The narrative that QE is so effective seems to be at odds with the reality of how other countries have behaved. Markets don't move based on money -- they move based on hope. Clearly that hope can be a powerful force in the beginning stages of a sea change on the fiscal side. Sometimes that hope lasts, sometimes not.

In the case of Japan, for example, hope failed to maintain the bull trend. Despite numerous intelligent arguments for why Japan is due for prolonged strength, nearly all of last year's huge move on Abenomics occurred in the first five months of the year. Take a look below at the price ratio of the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (NYSEARCA:DXJ) relative to the S&P 500. As a reminder, a rising price ratio means the numerator/DXJ is outperforming (up more/down less) the denominator/SPY. A falling ratio means underperformance.

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Japan on a relative basis has been an abysmal performer. Democracy and the return of Abe caused a lot of hope for escape velocity, but markets simply haven't reflected that for nearly a year now, despite continued QE by the Bank of Japan. India may be undergoing a similar situation, although clearly the reflation/debt trap dynamics are very different, as well as the country's growth prospects from a demographic and industrialization standpoint. However, the notion that one should chase QE is simply invalid. India is proof of that, with its markets now being the best-performing on a global front since March 2009.

I'll take the will of the people over the will of the Federal Reserve any day. How about you?

Twitter: @pensionpartners

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

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Democracy Is the New Quantitative Easing

Genuine democracy – Newspaper – DAWN.COM

TERMING the current system as a sham democracy, Dr Tahirul Qadri has promised genuine democracy in Pakistan through a revolution. Given his impressive religious credentials, one is thankful to him for championing democracy vociferously, for some religious leaders out-rightly reject democracy. One also agrees with his critiques of current Pakistani democracy and his desire for a better democracy. However, one disagrees with his preferred method, ie, revolution.

Before jumping into the discussion, it is appropriate to follow French philosopher Voltaires advice, who famously said, If you wish to converse with me, define your terms [concepts]. Blending popular desires with academic definitions, one can say that genuine democracy is when elections are regular and credible; corruption is low; government services are high-quality; people feel secure and rights are respected.

If one reviews all events generally branded as revolutions, three features emerge. Firstly, revolutions refer to fundamental changes in political and/or economic systems, ie, from monarchy to democracy or capitalism to communism.

Secondly, they are led by people outside current power structures. Thus, palace and military coups are excluded.

Thirdly, these outsiders use extra-legal measures, eg, war or demonstrations, to achieve change since current legal structures disallow peaceful change efforts.

It is debatable whether one should call it a revolution if outsiders topple the elected Sharif government through demonstrations and instal another elected government since there would be no structural change in the political system; at most a more competent elected government would replace a less competent one.

More fundamental is the issue of what revolutions have achieved globally, for there is not one revolution which delivered enormously improved governance immediately. Take the highly celebrated 18th-century American and French revolutions. All they achieved was to replace monarchies by highly imperfect democracies no better or even worse than Pakistans today. It was decades later by the middle of the 20th century that governance reached the high levels prevalent today.

Consider next the Arab Spring revolutions. Governance quality has either deteriorated or stayed unchanged. Ethiopias 1970s revolution which toppled Emperor Selassie actually produced massively worse governance.

The 1948 Chinese revolution created mixed results, with land reforms combined with starvation, death and repression. It was only after Deng Xiaopings 1978 peaceful ascension that China started its development spree.

Iran certainly has independent foreign policies since its 1979 revolution but its actual governance is no better than Pakistans. It lags behind Pakistan on the Transparency corruption index and on many sub-dimensions of the World Bank Governance index. Moreover, there is more openness and freedom in Pakistan.

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Genuine democracy - Newspaper - DAWN.COM