Democracy: Does the people really hold the true power?
Democracy, a political system which originated from ancient Greece, has been adopted by most of the countries around the world. The name is derived from the Greek language, which simply means ‘people rule’. But do the people really hold the power?
Some basic characteristics of democracy include the ‘majority rules’, Freedom of political expression, speech and press. 1 So let us look at these basic assumptions of democracy and see if democracy is truly what it is supposed to be.
Most liberal countries adopt the majority rules, where the government is elected by the people. However, despite the fact that the majority does get representation through the election of government, the minority in some cases stand to lose. They are marginalized as their political rights have been overlooked, most of the time intentionally, by the majority, which forms the government. Examples include The Australian Aboriginals, whose status was only really recgonised after the 1967 Australian Referendum.2 It was only after that that laws could be made to benefit the aboriginals. Another overwhelming example was the Ainu people of Japan, who were indigenous Japanese. They were only officially recgonised on 6 June 2008, where they were officially governed by Japanese laws rather than hereditary chiefs.3 Hence it can be seen that even though governments were elected by majority, not all people were represented fairly. There is always a constant need to review if democracy did really give all people representation power.
Another fundamental of democracy is the freedom of political expression. Sometimes, there are a lack quality political oppositions and political means for the people to express them. This is due to the tight control of the already in-control government. Strict regulations are in place to ensure that opposition parties do not form easily. This also diminishes the power of the oppositions as there is a lack of people willing to step up to oppose to the government. Hence, many people ‘elect’ a representative government which do not have qualities oppositions to keep them in check and decisions made might not be the best for the people. Oppositions to these decisions are inadequately represented.
Linking to the above point, due to the strict regulations, there is also a lack of freedom in press and speech. Some countries have strict regulations and control over their press, where all publications would be strictly censored. The freedom to speak has also been regulated strictly and damaging speeches made could result in arrests. An example is the Internal Security Act of Malaysia. It was established in the 1960s to arrest communists without trial and to be detained for an unspecific period of time. Recently, it has been used to tackle the problem of terrorism. However, the ISA was infamously turned against politicians and reporters. They were suspected to have incited racial unrest through their reporting and hence arrested under the ISA. Datuk Zaid Ibrahim of the Prime Minister’s office resigned over this matter. He said “At the same time, my views (on the use of the ISA) cannot be compromised”4
With these strict measures in place, it sometimes proves that freedom of press and speech is indeed difficult. Speech and press releases might no longer be the means which people can make their views be heard, which is a fundamental of democracy.
With all these being said, these problems seem to occur in Asian countries, which are not exactly fully liberal about being totally open. The government might fear that once challenged, they might lose their footing in the political stage, which they could have dominated for very long. To achieve full democracy- would likely to take at least a decade or two.
1 A .Barak,The Judge in a Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 27, ISBN 069112017X, Google Books link
2 L. Lippmann, Generations of Resistance: Mabo and justice, Longman Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne 1994
3 Fogarty, Philippa (2008-06-06). “Recognition at last for Japan’s Ainu“, BBC News, BBC.
4 “Zaid criticises use of ISA, prepared to quit“, Sharon Tan, TheEdgeDaily (2008-09-15).
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