Democracy In Crisis?
With riots in Hungary and a military coup in Thailand, is democracy coming into a period of crisis? Despite Fukuyama claiming the “End of History” it is clear that democracy is not universally accepted, in it’s practical form at least.
Despite the Thai General Sondhi saying that sovereignty will be “returned to the Thai people as soon as possible”, the fact that the Thai army felt the need to stage a coup - and then actually carried it out - shows an underlying distrust in the democratic procedures of representative democracy. No matter what may happen - however fast the military may return power to a civilian government - democracy has been dealt another blow in Asia.
The Hungarian situation is different. The Prime Minister has been shown to have lied, with extracts of his speech including:
“[W]e f***ed up. Not a little, a lot. There is no other country in Europe that has shown such stupidity as we have … Obviously we lied throughout the past one and a half, two years … [W]e have done nothing for four years. You cannot tell me of any significant government measure we could be proud of … If we need to give an account to the country what we have done for four years, what will we say? … I almost died of having to pretend for the past year that we were actually governing. Instead we lied day, night and evening …”
Not a clever thing to say. And not a very clever thing to do, either! Why didn’t they do anythin over four years in power? Why is there nothing that you can be proud of during your government? If you believed this, why did you stay in power?! Opposition leaders say Mr Gyurcsany has jeopardised Hungary’s faith in democracy and must step down. And they are right. These sort of conditions bring nothing good to a country or to democracy.
The problem with democracy is that it needs to be fully entrenched before it works properly. It must be entrenched in “the people” and in the political elite. If either of these groups harbours doubts about democracy, it will be weak, ineffectual, and prone to breaking down. Transition of power through elections are the ultimate tests of democracy, and both in Thailand and Hungary it needs to be swiftly and well. Or it will all be swings and roundabouts yet again.
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