The franchise and democracy – In theory and practice
by Dr U.Pethiyagoda.-May 13, 2016, 7:26 pm
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our Constitution declare the exercise of the franchise as a basic and inalienable right. Many writers have extolled it as a considerable virtue and a treasured right to be zealously guarded. Is it in fact so? Universal franchise is supposedly the ultimate blessing. This is presented as a self-evident truth – but as with many such, it could be grievously wrong. Practice, assuredly, should match theory.
The vote and democracy are inextricably linked. The latter, of course, is said to be the ultimate achievement in governance – in theory. This is the sanctioned management of our affairs. Churchill is reported to have remarked: "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried". A terse definition of democracy is "the control of an organisation or group by a majority of its members". This presumes that the majority of its members knows best what is good for it. Evidence may argue against such a presumption. As H. L. Mencken would have it: "Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
A majority is the consequence of a vote. What does this majority mean? If a population is assessed in terms of any attribute – height, weight, income, education, character, intelligence or any other and presented as a graph, the figures arrange in a bell-shaped curve – commonly symmetrical. This means that the extremes are poorly represented while the larger number occupy the middle. Thus, in an elected population, the chances are that the discerning and the irresponsible, the brilliant and the stupid are all small in number. The moderates are more. Therefore, a majority by itself does not reflect the ideal. More seriously, the representation veers towards the mediocre and will progressively tend towards deterioration.
Since capability and competence are not important considerations, educational and integrity levels are severely wanting in elected legislatures. Maybe, we do not yet have geniuses or lunatics as a result, but progressive deterioration is all but inevitable. Simultaneously by increasing the perks of office, significantly more obnoxious characters will be attracted.
As some remedy, the ideas of a Senate or of National List Members was conceived to bring in talented but reluctant worthies into the all important tasks of State Craft. Few worthy concepts have been so brazenly, vulgarly, opportunistically, selfishly and obscenely misused. The razor has been in monkey hands! Proffered excuses for this gross aberration are no more than feeble!
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