[Marxism] The Fallacy of Western Democracy (Zimbabwe Herald)

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

www.zimbabweherald.com/index.php?id=47840&pubdate=2005-10-14

Fallacy of Western Democracy Exposed
Posted: Friday, October 14, 2005

The Herald (Harare)
October 14, 2005

By Caesar Zvayi

OFTEN a myth is peddled that the western world has resolved democracy in all
its manifestations, be it popular democracy entailing the resolution of the
national question and the concomitant bread and butter issues; or elite
democracy that evokes smooth electoral processes.

This is why US President George W. Bush arrogantly dismissed the prospect of
observers from the developing world for his country's presidential election
last year saying the US does not need foreign observers as it is not a
developing country.

Over the past five years, events in the north have shown that Bush's
statement is a misplaced attempt to buttress the concept of western
supremacy.

The month of September was not kind to Germany and the United States, two of
the world's biggest economies.

In the US in particular, the world came to realise that democracy is a pipe
dream especially among dark skinned African-Americans and Hispanic people.

This class of people was left at the mercy of Hurricane Katrina in New
Orleans because they either lacked the resources to finance their own escape
or were ignored by State rescue teams that targeted white Americans.

After the September 18 elections in Germany, there was a three-week power
vacuum as both the winner and the loser, were separated by one percentage
point.

The then opposition leader Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
party won 35,2 percent of the vote translating to 225 seats in the German
parliament, a point ahead of former Chancellor, Gerard Schroeder's Social
Democratic Party (SDP) which managed 34,4 percent translating to 222 seats.

Schroeder, who had clearly lost, claimed the Chancellorship arguing that he
was more capable of forming a stable ruling majority than Merkel, because
his SDP had made a strong showing on election day in spite of having trailed
the CDU in opinion polls.

Schroeder accused Merkel of squandering a 20 percent lead to finish just one
percent ahead of him.

A defiant Schroeder appeared on BBC refusing to accept defeat, raising his
hands like a champion amid joyful scenes among his supporters.

"I feel myself confirmed in ensuring on behalf of our country that there is
in the next four years a stable government under my leadership. I do not
understand how the (Christian Democratic) Union, which started off so
confidently and arrogantly, takes a claim to political leadership from a
disastrous election result."

Schroeder told cheering supporters at his Social Democrat party
headquarters, adding that he would only accept a grand coalition if he were
the leader.

Merkel on the other hand rightly claimed victory saying the results showed
that she had a mandate from the people,

"What is important now is to form a stable government for the people in
Germany, and we quite clearly have the mandate to do that," Merkel told CNN.

However, Schroeder continued to refuse to concede defeat precipitating the
so-called "Chancellor war" the western media has been feasting on without
castigating Schroeder's lack of respect for the democratic process.

It had to take three weeks of endless meetings and Merkel's own magnanimity
for "mighty" Schroeder to stand down on Monday, after seven years in power
and 21 days of trying to subvert the democratic process.

Merkel had to agree to a grand coalition in which the defeated SDP will have
the lion's share of cabinet posts taking the key ministries of foreign
affairs, finance, labour and justice, as well as health, aid and
co-operation, transport and environment.

Merkel's CDU settled for the economy, interior, defence, agriculture,
education and family ministries.

The SDP and CDU are expected to hold party conventions to endorse the
agreement next month, but the new parliament begins office on October 18,
but is unlikely to vote on a Chancellor until the party meetings are
concluded.

In the intervening period, the power hungry Schroeder will continue holding
reins till a new Chancellor, most likely Merkel, is nominated by the
legislature.

It is important to note that it is the winning party that had to make
concessions, while Schroeder the vanquished made the demands.

Had this happened in Africa, let alone Zimbabwe, we would never hear the end
of it, as it would be likened to hanging on to power, but we never got to
read, hear or see such language in the way the western media described the
Germany plebiscite.

The debacle was couched in euphemistic language that described it either as
an "impasse, stalemate, deadlock or policy difference."

What has been riveting is the silence from the European Union and the United
States, two power blocs that always make so much noise about elections in
Zimbabwe or the developing world.

The EU did not even release a statement, though several European leaders
commented individually but only to the extent of expressing a wish for a
speedy resolution of the "impasse".

The problem can be traced to the German electoral system that elects, on a
federal level, a legislature with two chambers; the 598 member Federal Diet
(Bundestag) and the 69-member Federal Council (Bundesrat) that represents
the governments of the states.

Two different systems are used to elect the Bundestag.

Of the 598 members, 299 are elected in single-seat constituencies according
to a first-past-the-post system, while a further 299 members are allocated
from state-wide party lists to achieve a proportional distribution in the
legislature, conducted according to a system of proportional representation
(the additional member system).

On election day, voters vote once for a constituency representative and a
second time for a party, and the lists are used to make the party balances
match the distribution of second votes.

This is the system that produced the stalemate after separating the two main
parties by one percentage point.

But this is not the first time weird western electoral systems have produced
embarrassing stalemates that have also exposed western double standards.

It also happened on November 7 2000, when two winners emerged from the US
presidential election.

Democratic Party candidate, Al Gore beat Republican candidate and incumbent
president George W. Bush by 500 000, Bush on the other hand won more
Electoral College votes than Gore.

Neither candidate conceded defeat. It took a whole month of recounts and
court challenges before the US Supreme Court, dominated by Republican
Judges, ruled that Bush was the winner based on his 527 vote margin over
Gore in Florida, that gave him 25 electoral college votes.

The US system thus chose to ignore the national decision of 101 million
voters in favour of 538 electors who vote in the Electoral College system.

Bush's re-election last year was also marred by over 40 000 allegations of
massive fraud, including forging vote totals, vote stealing, widespread
voter intimidation, irregularities with the distribution of voting machines,
mishandled absentee and provisional ballots, malfunctioning or inaccurate
machines and/or apparent hacking and vote tampering.

But again on December 13 the US Electoral College vote gave Bush a 286-251
victory over Kerry, and the US Congress duly certified him on January 6 this
year, effectively killing all pending court challenges.

British Prime Minister, Tony Blair's re-election last year was also
characterised by irregularities that the right wing western media ignored.

The media instead chose to celebrate the fact that Blair had won a third
term which they hailed as historic, when elsewhere in the world they would
consider that holding on to power.

These are the allegations they pass regarding President Robert Mugabe's
re-election in 2002, in spite of the fact that Zimbabwe uses one system of
electing the head of state, the first-past-the-post system which saw the
President beating the western favourite, Morgan Tsvangirai by over 400 000
votes.

Zimbabwe's elections have never produced a stalemate, as the ruling party
has always emerged with a clear majority.

In election 2000 Zanu-PF had 48,83 percent of the vote whilst the main
challenger the MDC had 46,03 percent.

In the 2002 presidential elections President Mugabe had 56,20 percent to
Tsvangirai's 41.96 percent and in the March 31 poll, Zanu-PF walloped the
MDC by 59.08 percent to 40,04 percent of the ballots cast.

It therefore comes as a surprise that western countries, including Germany
and the United States, allege that Zimbabwean elections are flawed and have
produced a crisis of legitimacy.

We hope they soon realise the wisdom of the adage that says, "those in glass
houses should not throw stones."

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