If a candidate advocates curtailing human rights for a minority, say Ahmedis, and upon finding himself elected to office, carries out his plan . . . are not the voters also responsible in some degree? Which makes me think, accountability in democracies is pretty complicated. Where it makes me think, it also makes me worry. Election to office isn’t all about your snazzy resume or your academic wisdom, but rather to a large degree, about your ability to connect with the emotions and feelings of millions of people. Especially if you’re running for office in a country like Pakistan where almost half your population is illiterate; how would that population be able to absorb your elaborate economic policy? Just jump atop a container and throw some curses—voila you’re the popular kid in school!
Not to be derogatory, but ‘the best argument against democracy is a conversation with a common man’. That common man builds a thick opinion based on what is fed to him through the mainstream media. Then that common man becomes a town, then a constituency, then a city, then a country deciding its own future. Who hasn’t heard the infamous quote, “Majority is authority”? As ridiculous as it would seem to some, this same quote in essence, is one of the foundations of democracy—all votes are equal hence assuming that all opinions are worth the same, which is quite a big leap of faith, since we are putting the same value on the opinions of the educated and the ignorant, and the law-abiding citizens and crooks.
Moreover, then as we learned in class, humans have a natural inclination to support something they are invested in. In countries like ours then, tribal mentality may be a massive con of democracy. We will vote for our distant chacha even if he represents a party whose ideology we may absolutely disagree with. Why? He is OUR chacha, he’ll probably get my photo on his poster(among 6758 others) and I’ll be popular!
Then rises the issue of machine politics. In countries like ours where political parties aren’t really political parties but private enterprises where one man atop the throne makes all the decisions, the nature of our political parties becomes such that all decision making power and influence revolves around just one person. In that case, the boss can just dole out rewards in exchange for a vote. Or maybe a seat in the senate for some favours, sire.
Finally, the idealistic assumption that if the people choose what is right for themselves, everyone will be better off is a little flawed. When people are accountable to, actions aren’t taken in the light of long term goals but immediate appeasement of the people; is that good?— a good example to answer that is the infamous ‘minimum wage’ dilemma in economics.
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