Mediaboss Marketing

The Democracy Fund, New Havens public campaign financing program, took a step last night toward extending its services to races for the Board of Alders.

The funds board met Wednesday night, after last weeks meeting was postponed when the absence of secretary William Wynn prevented the board from achieving a quorum. The fund, which was established in 2006, aims to support clean elections by offering grants and matching funds to candidates who do not accept donations from PACs or corporations and do not accept private donations exceeding $370. At yesterdays meeting, the board discussed extending the fund to include more local elections namely races for alder, city clerk, voter registrar and probate judge in addition to mayoral and state-level races, including state senators and representatives.

Were trying to get an understanding of under what circumstances the Board of Alders would allow an expansion of the fund, Fund Administrator Alyson Heimer said.

Heimer prepared a questionnaire, which was up for discussion at the meeting, for the Board of Alders to gauge their interest in using the fund. After a brief review, the funds board members unanimously approved the questionnaire and moved to send it to the alders.

As administrator, Heimer must file a request regarding the expansion to present to the alders by the end of the month. The Democracy Fund board entered into an executive session, separate from the review, last night and discussed the potential format of such a presentation behind closed doors.

At last weeks informal meeting, members of the funds board agreed that the Board of Alders would likely have questions about the impact on the city budget if the proposal to extend the Democracy Fund to Board of Alders races were to pass.

Yesterday, Democracy Fund Chair Jared Milfred 16 suggested that a report he prepared last year, which includes an analysis of the costs of aldermanic races, could be utilized to supplement the funds presentation to ease any concerns about the increased costs of an expansion. In the report, Milfred found that the average amount spent on an aldermanic race was $3,367 less than 1 percent of the Democracy Funds current operating budget of $342,581 for the 201516 fiscal year. There are 30 members of the Board of Alders.

Heimer will meet with Mayor Toni Harp today to discuss the funds place in the 2015 budget. She said she does not foresee requesting any additional funding from the Board of Alders.

Meetings between the funds board and the Board of Alders will also help determine whether the Democracy Fund will extend only grants, only matching funds or both services to Board of Alders candidates, Milfred said. While grants are direct donations to campaigns, through matching funds, the Democracy Fund matches private donations from $10 to $25 on a 2:1 basis.

At the meeting last night, Heimer also proposed that the fund update its grant and matching fund amounts to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index. Although the funds by-laws call for a re-evaluation of these amounts every four years, some figures have not been updated since 2008.

View original post here:
Democracy Fund may extend services to Board of Alders races

The Statesman Thursday 29th January, 2015

Bangkok, 28 January

Thai junta chief and Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has said the coup staged by the army was aimed at saving democracy and made it clear that he will not lift the martial law as it could lead to political turmoil.

"Thai democracy will never die, because I'm a soldier with a democratic heart. I have taken over the power because I want democracy to live on," he was quoted as saying by the Nation newspaper today. He claimed that the situation in Thailand was unique, as nowhere else was a coup staged to restore democracy. "We are building democracy every day. I did not seize power to give money away to this or that person or take it as my own property," said Gen Prayut, who seized power last year ousting Yingluck Shinawatra, the country's first woman prime minister, in a bloodless military coup.

"Although this government came from a seizure of power, it happened because there was no (effective) government (at the time). Though there was a government, it was as good as not having one. Where was Yingluck Shinawatra? She couldn't perform her duty because she had been removed by the Constitution Court," Gen Prayut said.

Insisting that the people should recognise the fact that Thailand is still free, Gen Prayut said he could have exercised his power as junta leader and placed former premier Yingluck under house arrest or stopped her from meeting certain people, but he chose not to do so.

Prayut said 21 envoys had met wit...

Read the full story at The Statesman

Visit link:
Coup aimed to save democracy Thai PM

He who thinks he is a leader and has no one following him is only taking a walk Malawian proverb.

MY previous article on the Democracy Delusion was too long, too academic and did not reach my intended target audience. I was testing the waters to see how receptive the average reader would be to my ideas. Unfortunately, it would appear that what I was trying to feed the reader was neither edible nor digestible; I failed to adequately explain in Laymens terms what I was proposing through Inclusive Democracy.

In this article I will try to simplify the idea so that we all understand what Im proposing. Notwithstanding my own failure to articulate my idea, my previous article was met with the usual PhD (pull him down) mentality, the same colonial mentality that has us believe that we as Zimbabweans cannot solve our own problems, that we are bereft of any new ideas. When we fail to grasp the subject being discussed we are quick to call it high sound nothings. Its the same mentality that is quick to embrace, exalt and unquestionably proclaim as genius the exact same idea had it been repackaged and written by some professor from some overseas institute.

What may have sounded too utopian and too idealistic to work in the real world is actually a type of direct democracy that was first put in place in 1848 in some country called Switzerland, believe it or not. Switzerland is quite unique in that it features a system of government not seen in any other nation: direct representation. It is the closest state in the world to what I would call an ideal democracy. My idea was to adapt this type of democracy to our own situation in Zimbabwe based on the current government structure.

Now, Switzerland does share some similarities with Zimbabwe, it is a landlocked country, surrounded by Austria, Liechtenstein, France, Italy and Germany, has a relatively small population of 8 million and a land area of 41,285km2. Zimbabwe is also a landlocked country, surrounded by South Africa, Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique, has a relatively small population of 14 million and a larger land area of 390,580km2.

But thats where the similarity ends however, as Switzerland is the most politically and economically stable country in the world. It is not a coincidence that Geneva, its capital, has been chosen as the headquarters of the majority of UN agencies and numerous other international organizations. Switzerland has a GDP of US$650 billion and is the wealthiest country in the world per capita. The unemployment rate is 4% (lowest for the top 10 richest countries) and the economy is primarily made up of agriculture (3.4%), manufacturing (23.4%) and the services industry (71%).

Switzerland is neither an EU nor EEA member but is part of the single market. In a recent study which sort to verify where the wealthiest 1% live, it was found that the country with the largest proportion of its population in the 1% per capita was Switzerland. One in 10 Swiss residents - 800,000 out of 8 million - have assets worth more than US$798,000. They have no known natural resources to speak of, so what is it exactly that makes Switzerland so special? The answer becomes self-evident when you analyze their system of government which practices direct democracy.

So how does this direct democracy in Switzerland work, exactly? Well, the Swiss are quite unique in their outlook on life in that they believe that power should never be concentrated or centralized in one person. The reasoning behind this is quite simple, no human being is perfect and all of us are prone to errors of judgment due to our inherent human fallibility.

The Swiss dont have an all-powerful executive president (or prime minister) as they do in other western countries; they have a type of collective presidency called the Swiss Federal Council which is a seven-member executive council. They have a rotating presidency between members of this executive council whereby they change presidents each year and the president has almost no powers over and above his or her six colleagues, but undertakes representative functions normally performed by a president or prime minister in single-executive systems.

Switzerland is a multi-party direct democracy federal state made up of 26 mini-autonomous states, otherwise known as cantons. These cantons have far-reaching autonomy and are responsible for healthcare, welfare, law enforcement and public education; they also retain the power of taxation. Although Switzerland has a federal constitution, each canton also has its own cantonal constitution which determines the degree of autonomy accorded to the municipalities. This varies but almost always includes the power to levy taxes and pass municipal laws.

See the original post here:
Power to the People: Inclusive Democracy

The Speaker #39;s Commission on Digital Democracy - Report launch
The Speaker #39;s Commission on Digital Democracy has published its report #39;Open Up #39;. The report recommends how Parliament can use digital technology to help it to be more transparent, inclusive,...

By: UK Parliament

See the original post here:
The Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy - Report launch - Video

Democracy 3 Let #39;s Play - Part 1 - Canada O #39; Canada
Democracy 3 Let #39;s Play - Part 1 - Canada O #39; Canada Subscribe For Daily Videos! http://bit.ly/Join_Mal Click Here For The Playlist http://goo.gl/9JYfs9 ...

By: Mal

See original here:
Democracy 3 Let's Play - Part 1 - Canada O' Canada - Video