Democracy before Stability

[Ivo Skoric]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/17/international/europe/17SERB.html?th

Serbia sounds like an unlikely place to search for lessons in 
democracy. Yet, the three consequently failing presidential 
elections, without meddling of judiciary, are, oddly, putting Serbia, 
a freshmen student of democracy, ahead of the US in terms of 
electoral fairness.

Both societies suffer from the voter fatigue syndrome, with less and 
less people showing up at the ballots for each new elections. In the 
US that lead to a couple of presidents voted in the office by less 
than a 1/4 of actual US population, because the voter turnout was 
hovering around the meager 50% mark.

In Serbia, a law was passed requiring at least 50% voter turnout for 
the elections to be valid. The third attempt to elect the president, 
however, got only 38% of electorate to turn up, causing the elections 
to fail.

Maybe, the Otpor! movement needs to go out in the streets again 
urging people to vote, as they did when they lead the nation into 
ousting Slobodan Milosevic. Hopefuly, the Move-On movement will 
produce the same results in the US in 2004.

With recently dissolved parliament and with no president, Serbia is 
effectively a country without a government today, yet with more 
freedom and economic stability than under the rule of president 
Milosevic and his rubber-stamp parliament.

The necessity for a government at any cost is a grossly over-rated 
myth promoted by various ruling classes globally. What is necessary 
is for government to be truly democratically elected. This lesson is 
pertinent for all global societies, including the largest ones.

ivo

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Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org