Democracy and UK election

By Tom Plate
Former Professor at University of California, Los Angeles,
Director of Asia Pacific Media Network

LOS ANGELES ― Democracy is not always decisive, and even when it is it doesn't invariably produce results that optimize the public good. We all know that, right?

And elections are certainly no panacea. They can even be a disaster. Or produce a debilitating muddle at a time of economic nerve-shaking uncertainty.

Trot such cynical thoughts by British voters right now and you will find them to be a rather easy sell. By producing one of the higher voter turnouts in the history of the United Kingdom, the residents of the planet's oldest functioning democracy clearly wanted change, of some kind ― and now.


But the lock-jawed result ― with no one party winning a parliamentary majority ― appears not to have cleared the air but fogged it further.

Perhaps the only clear winners from last week's British national election are those of us who have refused to be cheerleaders for democracy ― of the British and American kind ― for every place and for every situation.

We still don't like it for Iraq, for example, and never did. For Afghanistan? Maybe in 100 years! You like democracies that can elect absolute idiots?

We will leave all of Latin America and Africa out of our argument (too easy ― like shooting fish in a barrel). How about the Philippines, a democracy, with all its elections, a total mess? You happy there?

The democracy fundamentalist is, in one sense at least, are as narrow-minded and as dangerous as the Muslim fundamentalist. They would impose their will and their preferences on others, if not by force of arms then by other means. But people don't like to be told how to live their lives. Isn't that something?

The Scandinavians have more or less fine democracies but they tend to be classy about it and not go around the world telling everyone to be Swedish.

They accept graciously that well-achieving countries like Malaysia and Singapore have gotten to where they are by devising their own tied-to-local-conditions political approaches.

Why can't we? Ideological approaches to world events work better in the academic world where they are of little consequence than in the real world where they can do actual damage.

For their part, British voters may well wonder how often they will have to go to the polls to get some sort of conclusive change of direction.

The minority government that will now have to be formed via some slapdash patchwork coalition will not last long, if British history is any guide.

And what's the guarantee that the next election ― perhaps sooner rather than later ― will prove any more decisive than the muddle the Brits now have before them?

The problem is that the incumbent Prime Minister ― Gordon Brown ― has been discredited but his Labour Party held on to just enough seats to prevent the Conservative Party from moving into Number 10 Downing Street all by themselves.

In a statement that actually rose to the historic occasion, for once, Brown said: ``I understand, as I know my fellow party leaders do, that people do not like the uncertainty or want it to be prolonged. We live, however, in a parliamentary democracy, the outcome has been delivered by the electorate, it is our responsibility now to make it work for the national good.''

Good luck. But Brown could start that process off by immediately stepping down as party leader ― and therefore as prime minister ― and let a fresher man or woman take up the job.

This might encourage the third party ― the Liberal Democrats ― to tack their won votes in parliament onto those still held by the Labour Party and form a temporary governing coalition.

Whatever happens, American and Asian interests will not be immediately threatened. For Asia, Great Britain has long devalued itself as a serious world player, though culturally its influence remains immense as the originator of one of the two most important languages on the planet.

And the so-called ``special relationship'' between America and Great Britain has, for some time, been more like a too-long marriage that would have broken up years ago save for lack of viable re-mating options.

Sure, we still need each other ― we share a common language, after all, and have veto powers on the United Nations Security Council that can come in handy. And increasingly our security services are bonded more tightly than ever in the face of the Islamic terrorist threat against the ``white nations.''

The latter is no joke. Seriously. Times Square almost blew up the other day, but the terrorist bomber, apparently acting on extremists instructions from Pakistan, was wonderfully incompetent. Thank Allah ― or God, or the Higher Power, or whatever you want to call Him or Her ― for that.

Terrorism, of course, doesn't always come from them: the Islamists. Hardly. They come from inside our own home-grown nut cases.

In this just-past British poll, one parliamentary seat in North Ireland could not immediately be counted because of a bomb scare from radical anti-London elements. It was a timely reminder of how little evil even the world's oldest democracy can cleanse away.

Veteran American journalist Tom Plate once worked on Fleet Street, in London. A recent archive of his columns can be found at:pacificperspectives.blogspot.com. He can be reached at platecolumn@gmail.com.


Originally published May 9, 2010 in the Korea Times.