Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused in a time when totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships alike have attempted to claim popular support by pinning democratic labels upon themselves. Yet the power of the democratic idea has also evoked some of history's most profound and moving expressions of human will and intellect. The Fact that every human being wants to be free but yet suppresses others when given the opportunity will forever remain a mind baffling scenario in the history of mankind.

In the dictionary definition, democracy 'is government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.”

Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not the same. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often winding history. In short, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom. For this reason, it is possible to identify the time-tested fundamentals of constitutional government, human rights, and equality before the law that any society must possess to be properly called democratic.

Is The UP Government of Ellen Johnson a Democratic Government?

The reason for which I am writing this article is that time and time again I have heard and read in the print and electronic media people referring to the current Unity Party (UP) led government in Liberia as a democratic government or some times referring to our current state of affairs as a democratic era. But upon careful reflection and after scrutinizing the current government and its ways of conducting the affairs of our country, can we deduce without any smidgen of doubt that the government is operating under democratic principles and that the Liberian people are currently enjoying all the remunerations of a democratic society?

What I have come to realized is that most Liberians are using democracy and the democratic process interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Just because a government came to power through a democratic process, which is holding of election in which the electorates have the opportunity of choosing between alternative candidates does not mean that the government is a democratic one. A primary example of this is the current government of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe who came to power through a democratic process but has become Africa’s most tyrannical ruler.

In order for a government to be democratic, it does not just have to say it is but it has to demonstrate that it is adhering to certain principles which include:

Equality before the Law and the Rule of Law

The right to equality before the law, or equal protection of the law as it is often phrased, is fundamental to any just and democratic society. Whether rich or poor, ethnic majority or religious minority, political ally of the state or opponent, all are entitled to equal protection before the law.

As most of us know by now, Liberia is one of the most lawless places on earth. The first thing that will greet you when you step out of the plane at Roberts International Airport is a complete state of lawlessness. You can not tell the difference between immigration, police, custom officers and common criminals. People who have been away from their country for a long period of time and are happy to return are harassed, intimidated, and extorted by thieves who call themselves government officials. Numerous stories have been written about this but the government has taken no action to remedy this awful situation.

People are being charged three to four times the regular fees at the Free port of Monrovia and sometimes containers disappear over night making Liberians to loose their properties purchased with hard earned money in the states and leaving them with no option of seeking redress.

The false accusation, arrest, and detention of Charles Julu and Andrew Dorbor just because they are Krahns and the torturing of Dorbor while in government custody, a chief justice who has the power of arresting people without going through the court system, the death of SSS officer Williams at the hands of close confidants of president Sirleaf which has never been investigated up to now, and many more raise a serious question as to if there is rule of law in the country.

Rights

Every Liberian has inalienable rights that are God given natural rights. These rights are not destroyed when civil society is created, and neither society nor government can remove or 'alienate' them. Inalienable rights include freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of assembly, and the right to equal protection before the law.

SSS officer Williams died at the hands of Ashley Pearl and Chris Massaquoi but both Pearl and Massaquoi were never prosecuted in fact they were promoted to more lucrative positions while others like Hanks Williams are being pounded for crime they are suspected of committing.

Officials of the transitional government of Gyude Bryant are being hounded everyday yet corruption is running down the streets of Monrovia like a mighty river and not a single individual in the Sirleaf government has been brought to book for their corrupt practices. Where is the equality before the law?

Majority Rule and Minority Rights

All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic: No one, for example, would call a system fair or just that permitted 51 percent of the population to oppress the remaining 49 percent in the name of the majority. In a democratic society, majority rule must be coupled with guarantees of individual human rights that, in turn, serve to protect the rights of minorities--whether ethnic, religious, or political, or simply the losers in an election. The rights of minorities do not depend upon the goodwill of the majority and cannot be eliminated by majority vote. The rights of minorities are protected because democratic laws and institutions protect the rights of all citizens.

Contrary to the above, the current government has adopted a winner take all attitude and has committed itself to seeking the wellbeing of only its followers and those that pledge loyalty to it. For this reason, people have to cross carpet from other political parties to the ruling party in order to survive since government is the major source of employment in our country.

Vibrant Opposition

On of the vital organs of any democratic society is a vibrant opposition that will keep those in power on their feet by pointing out their faults and reminding them of their responsibilities. In a democratic society, there is always a competition for power in which all parties involve do everything they can to win the hearts and minds of the electorates. Political competitors however do not necessarily have to like each other, but they must tolerate one another and acknowledge that each has a legitimate and important role to play. Moreover, the ground rules of the society must encourage tolerance and civility in public debate.

When the election is over, the losers accept the judgment of the voters. If the incumbent party loses, it turns over power peacefully. No matter who wins, both sides agree to cooperate in solving the common problems of the society. The losers, now in the political opposition, know that they will not lose their lives or go to jail. On the contrary, the opposition, whether it consists of one party or many, can continue to participate in public life with the knowledge that its role is essential in any democracy worthy of the name. They are loyal not to the specific policies of the government or their parties, but to the fundamental legitimacy of the state and to the democratic process itself.

This is not the case in Liberia as we can see. During the last general elections, the political panorama was flooded with political parties who all but disappear right after the election leaving the people with no voice to challenge the government if they are not content. Opposition parties are broke and lack the necessary funds to keep the wheels of the parties turning well after the election.

The UP government on the other hand, is using state funds to finance the day to day running of the party there by giving her a huge advantage over the other parties in the country. Beside this factor, the government also started doing things such as accusing the opposition of plotting to subvert the government and arresting perceived enemies and falsely accusing them of treason in order to silence the opposition.

Checks and Balances

For authoritarians and other critics of democracies, a common misapprehension is that democracies, lacking the power to oppress, also lack the authority to govern. This view is fundamentally wrong. Democracies require that their governments be limited, not that they be weak. One of the most important contributions to democratic practice has been the development of a system of checks and balances to ensure that political power is dispersed and decentralized. It is a system founded on the deeply held belief that government is best when its potential for abuse is curbed and when it is held as close to the people as possible.

As we can currently see in Liberia, the idea of check and balance is none existence as everything is concentrated in the hands of the president and the executive. Money which is the key element in all basic operations of every branch of government is controlled by the executive so that means that everyone has to say yes sir, in this case yes ma’am, if they want to survive.

Most of the members of the house and senate are poor leaving them scrambling for the left over on the plates of the executive. How can our law makers keep the executive branch in line when they depend on this very executive for their daily survival?

A prime example of this is the case when the executive mansion was able to use a mere five thousand U.S dollars per person to oust former speaker Edwin Snowe. Another example is where government prosecutors were able to used eight hundred dollars per juror to secure a guilty verdict in the first treason trial of Charles Julu and Andrew Dorbor when all evidence, that is if there was any, pointed to the contrary.

The Road to Democracy

When we look at the United States of America, Western Europe, and other African countries such as Ghana, Bennie, Mali, and others that are thriving under democratic atmospheres today, we as a people want nothing less but to be like them. What we fail to realized here however, is that these countries did not just become what they are today overnight but it took a long and often winding and tortuous road to get to where they are.

It is very difficult however, to ask the people to exercise patient and to give the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration time because she and all those in power with her today did not give others the benefit of the doubt in the past. They wanted immediate change in and so they demanded that a country that was under one party rule for one hundred and thirty three years with over eighty five percent illiteracy rate be transformed into a democracy overnight when Samuel Doe and others took power in 1980. When that did not happen, they spent all of their time outside the country plotting to overthrow any government that did not include them. Now that they are in power, they are asking the Liberian people to be patient and give them time in order to improve things in the country. The big questions here is why they weren’t patient with others and give them time to see if things would have improved instead of putting Liberians through what took place in our country? The answer is simple; greed. All they wanted was power and not to change the country for the better and improve the lives of the people as there has been no such thing since they came to power.

Long way to Go

If supporters of the Unity Party want to continue to pin the democratic label to the current government in Liberia, I want them to know that there is still a long way to go. Democracy, as we know, is more than a set of constitutional rules and procedures that determine how a government functions. In a democracy, government is only one element coexisting in a social fabric of many and varied institutions, political parties, organizations, and associations. This diversity is called pluralism, and it assumes that the many organized groups and institutions in a democratic society do not depend upon government for their existence, legitimacy, or authority.

There are certain principles that a democratic government lives by and adheres to. Ideas such as sovereignty of the people, government based upon consent of the governed, majority rule, minority rights, guarantee of basic human rights, free and fair elections, equality before the law, due process of law, constitutional limits on government, social, economic, and political pluralism, values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise are the pillars upon which a democratic society rests.

If this government stops falsely accusing and imprisoning people for crimes they did not commit, if the chief justice will stop taking the law into his own hands, if there is equal instead of selective prosecution, inclusiveness, accountability, and liberty and justice for all, democracy may be a long way off but at least we will be walking towards it.

---

© 2008 by The Perspective
E-mail: editor@theperspective.org

To Submit article for publication, go to the following URL: http://www.theperspective.org/submittingarticles.html