As a political scientist, I sometimes have to refer to the Aristotelian conception of democracy as a deviant regime, a regime above which the dangers of demagogy and populism are constantly looming, and yet, as Aristotle made it clear in the Nicomachean Ethics, democracy is the “least worst” of all deviant regimes, all the more so because the ideal form of government, polity in the Greek philosopher lexicon, is midway between democracy and oligarchy, and unfortunately does not come into existence very often — at least it did not in Aristotle’s time. I would argue that representative democracy of today fits the description of that ideal and ancient polity. Ultimately, although potential deviances serve as a reminder that the best necessarily has the potential to engender the worst and thus prompt citizens as well as political parties to consider vigilance as a duty if not a virtue, the practice of modern representative democracy by humankind over the past two hundred plus years in all corners of the planet does seem to confirm Churchill’s now famous verdict that “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
That does not mean representative democracy can be reduced to a simple and magical formula whose mere invocation allows for a perfectly legitimate exercise of authority in all human societies. Today still the debate as to whether precedence should be given to formal rights — the political rights guarantied by liberal democracy — or on the contrary to substantial rights — the core social rights cherished by socialist and communist models — has yet to be settled. The demise of the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes brought to an end the folly of the bureaucratic totalitarian incarnation of communism but the Marxist challenge to classical liberalism has not been obliterated, and patterns of domination and exploitation remain all too salient in our modern world, on the global stage and within most societies, the ones claiming to be economically developed and the least pretentious others alike. The current global economic crisis and its root causes to be found in unrestrained financial markets have given rise to political movements across the supposedly opulent democratic world that have challenged the tyranny of the univocal promise of ultra-liberalism along with its twisted and unsustainable support of the pursuit of wealth without fairness. The Occupy Wall Street movement targeted the Moloch itself whereas the indignados on Puerta del Sol offered a vision of self-regulated and consociational exercise of power far more respectful of individuals — yet, proofs of efficiency beyond the protests themselves have yet to bear fruits. Whatever the ultimate consequences on the deviant tyranny of the majority turned safeguard of the happy few, the role of the state in democratic society is as of now being massively reappraised: Bill Clinton’s passionate rebuttal of “30-year [of] antigovernment obsession” in his Back to Work book at a time of weariness regarding public spending is just the latest symptom!
Yet, in the Arab world, popular movements have toppled dictators of all hues in the name of democracy: in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, dictators had to let go after decades of unrestricted domination, on the mere assumption that power over the community had to be shared, and that enlightened autocracy, if it had ever existed more than a few years, was bond to fail on the long run. In Bahrain, the fight was short-lived, but in the process people from all around the world discovered a deeply divided society whose government was not even paying lip service attention to equality of treatment for all citizens. In Syria, the struggle continues and rebels in Homs are paying with their lives the challenge to Bashar al-Assad’s rule. True, democracy has allowed for the An-Nahda (Renaissance) Islamic Movement to win the elections in Tunisia, and in Libya rebels dressed in battle outfits are administering justice, but then nobody ever claimed that democracy was as much a goal as a tortuous process — yet difficult to disengage from as soon as it has become the horizon of reference. Wen Jiabao, the People’s Republic of China Prime minister who will relinquish power in March 2013, made the headlines in October 2010 when he stated during an extensive interview to CNN that the Chinese people’s “wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom [were] irresistible.” More recently, in September 2011, Wen Jiabao declared that the Chinese Communist Party had to act in accordance with the constitution and the law and that “to do this the party must not represent the government, and [had to] change the phenomenon of absolute power and excessive concentration of power.” This is of course a far cry from Zhao Ziyang’s wishes to separate the party from the state at the end of the 1980s, but still, democracy appears to be a common aspiration all-around the world… except for the Macau government!
At least that was the impression until November 2011 when the Chief Executive of the Special Administrative Region made it public during his policy address that political reform was finally on the agenda. Although rumors kept disturbing the reassuring assumption that there was no pressing need to amend the existing system, Florinda Chan, the Secretary for Administration and Justice, went from mere denial of such an intent before the Summer 2011 to pointless excuses grounded in the supposedly “lack of consensus” regarding democratic change in Macau. These declarations are absolutely contradicted by our own survey on civic values in the SAR that showed back in 2009 that 51% of the people in Macau considered universal suffrage to be the best way to select the Chief Executive and a majority of them (37%) acknowledged “having a majority of the members of the Legislative Assembly elected via universal suffrage” as the priority in terms of political reform. Aspirations for democratic changes were even confirmed in a survey published in 2011 by the somewhat conservative journal of the Macau Polytechnic Institute “One Country, Two Systems” in which a good quarter of the Macau people anticipated that bringing democratic elements to the political system of Macau was “extremely necessary.” Vested interests were nevertheless relentless. A member of the Legislative Assembly who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress brought to the foreground the difficulty of such an amending process (thus contradicting the annex of the basic law) and the fact that the central authorities in Beijing would be reluctant (thus contradicting the spirit of the Basic Law). A well-established lawyer argued that “corruption” was too pervasive in the system to allow for democratic reform to be significant: a quick glance at the Taiwanese experience demonstrates to the contrary, as added meaning to elections are the best recipe for vote buying to disappear. Fortunately enough, the government of Macau has realized that inaudible consultation processes and biased deliberative polling will never replaced collective decision-making through free and fair elections. In accordance with its Basic Law, Hong Kong will see universal suffrage prevail for both the elections of the Chief Executive by 2017 and the members of the Legco by 2020. Democrats in Macau have been asking for a fully elected Legislative Assembly by 2017 since 2009. Adding seats to geographical constituencies for 2013 (at least half the seats), scrapping legislators directly handpicked by the Chief Executive (a gross intrusion of the executive into the legislative) and effectively changing the electoral system (to prevent the present-day dispersion of seats) will for sure be milestones and necessary incremental changes towards a more empowering political system for the citizenry at large. Ultimately, if Macau is to move beyond a gambling plutocracy, universal suffrage only — and the sooner the better — will allow for sound and well-established accountability to settle-in, for the selection of the members of the Legislative Assembly as well as the Chief Executive. Anyone who argues to the contrary has a conservative reading of the Macau Basic Law and clearly misinterprets the spirit of a “high degree of autonomy” that Macau is supposed to enjoy until 2049.
Published in Macau Daily Times, March 1st 2012.
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