Everyone in Mauritius is talking about electoral reforms right now, more precisely Rama Sithanen’s proposal for a dose of proportionality as well as the best loser system.
I was thinking about something today. Our population in Mauritius is more than 1 million. Our Parliament, because of its physical dimensions and practices set up by some Englishmen decades ago, is limited to around 80 members i.e. 0.0067% of the population.
Is it normal that 0.0067% of the population decide for 1,200,000 people? Is that fair or logical in the era of the Internet and Social Networks?
On Facebook for example, one can set up a poll and get hundred of votes in less that 1h (easily more that the 80 people we have in our Parliament). Now, one can argue that the 80 members of Parliament are more honest and more knowledgeable that the 1,199,920 others but we all know that’s a bag of crap! They are not more honest or knowledgeable that the rest of us…
A few years ago, I set up Ideas to make Mauritius better! and, for some time, it worked pretty well. The system, as used by Barack Obama during his first campaign, allows people to submit proposals which are then upvoted / downvoted by others. In the end, only the most worthwhile proposals prevail. Civil servants are then responsible to implement these proposals.
Can this type of absolute democracy exist? One where the whole population decides and civil servants implement without any need for any middlemen?
Seems utopic? What do you think?
With corruption prevailing in out country, i’ll not be surprised that the idea or ideas came from a political leader and is passed down to the commons of that same political party then in turn voted by the people adhering to that same party and accepted by a higher up, the very same political leader. They’d go to all this trouble to make it look like “Le peuple a decidé et le peuple a voté.” While, the idea might be the long awaited solution to the betterment of Mauritius it might also be another attempt to make money off our heads.
Been thinking about it. I guess it’s not up to the 80 members alone, there are other players who make the whole “democracy” thing work – members of the press, public sector workers (workers talk to their heads, heads to their superiors up to the top), private investors, consumers (with their money), worker and other types of unions, amongst others. That’s ideally. Now with politicians trying to muscle out others, with diverse tactics, public sector workers having their voices stifled, private monopolies etc, the whole game gets spoiled.
I do wonder if there is any way out. Like a way to fit public memorandums somewhere for uber important decisions.
All in all, given the challenges to stay alive (cost of living, transport issues, internet/communication costs, water problems…), I am afraid it is tough to find a spot on my agenda for a new political system. Sad, but true.
Its not utopic…in fact there is a country in the world where such type of democracy exist, also known as direct democracy (well not exactly votes on facebook…). You can always have a look at the political system in the Switzerland and ask yourself why our political reform cannot be like this, one that is truly democratic and in which the citizen have a say…
Very interesting, Adarsh.
I was not aware that Direct Democracy is already a reality in Switzerland and, for some cases, in the United States.
Those in the government would not be willing to do this since for them it will be a loss of power in the sense that the decision is left fully on the citizens where it might not be fully agreeable to those in power. The fear of losing power will prevent this evolution since most of those in politics are only concerned about their power and profits / advantage.
Well, if i am not wrong, in Switzerland, direct democracy became a reality after a revolution by the citizens…
That does not suprise me. Those whose interests are in danger will do everything they can to protect these interests.
Too many powerful people are involved in corrupting the system and this has been going on for a long time now that citizens have gotten used to the idea that there’s nothing that we can actually do. Those citizens who want to raise their voices are threatened or bought out. Remember that guy who was working at the airport and had to flee to Canada with his family because of death threats when he tried to stop the nonsense that was happening there? Or the anti-corruption unit that can never get to the bottom of major corruption cases because they work alongside politicians.
It ain’t gonna happen because we’re never going to get a significant number of people to start off a revolution and see it through.
Never? I am not too sure :-)
Well, we have issues:- the main one being the multiculturalism prevalent has made a number of ‘communities’ sensitive to their representation. This is a fact and ultimately we will have to work with this parameter. The BSL is an explicit way to represent this based on an old census. New methods, will represent it more implicitly and will probably be defined with respect to the ‘ghettoization’ of the mauritian community based on geography. Mixed environment are not that prevalent: think about it. Personnaly, i have two issues:- we need to make a reform whilst catering for the obvious – communal sensitivities and secondly i dont want a reform to cost a lot..I am taxpayer ! Icing on the cake, i think our legislative representative have too much spare time (approximately 4 months per year..). What i beleive is that the ‘ward/cisconscription’ have to be rationalised. i.e. the size of flacq must be equal to that of port louis say centre..one is nearly 60,000 persons, the other about 40,000. changing the boundary for a more logical representation will help in this process, some basic statistics on sample size will make it…But, will we require to have 40 wards with 120 deputies…No.. 40 wards with 80 deputies…no more..will it work..dunno…
hmm, maybe i need to do some excel simulation and publish that online…
Interesting comment.
You’re right. There is a need for more rationalised wards (circonscriptions) with similar population sizes. Please do the spreadsheet simulation and publish it.
I started this : http://www.grandunifyingfragmentsofeverything.org/ a while back but never seem to have had the time to expand on the ideas. still draft in writing, makes perfect sense in my head and would probably scare the shit out of people who are working hard for their pension. and “patriots”. and politicians too. and insurance companies. stock brokers would drop in a coma if it all came to pass. basically everybody with a vested interest in the current system would be against. Your grand kids would be be grateful except kids are such ungrateful brats these days.
today’s governments and “constitutions” come from eras where people had to rely on top down communication to function in a structure. and there was this sort of educated minority/elite. these days most people are educated. Intelligence is something else though.
This is bound to happen one day though. This will piss off all those with vested interests though (as you wrote) :-)
Just letting you know, Finland got the same idea as you. You may want to check it out if you are interested:
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Workshop+of+volunteers+is+building+a+website+to+facilitate+the+launching+of+citizens%E2%80%99+initiatives+/1329103525835
“Well, if i am not wrong, in Switzerland, direct democracy became a reality after a revolution by the citizens…”
Switzerland is not a direct democracy.
Seems that Switzerland is a direct democracy as citizens can veto any law. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland