Letter: Western democracy doesn’t suit Egypt

Leave Egypt alone, pleads Simon Jenkins ( Comment , 2 February). We should not only avoid any military aid/intervention, however; we should also stop preaching. Twenty-five years ago, the good news was from Russia. Unfortunately, the forces of reform quickly split into two, and the debate descended into a clash between two Nobel laureates, Gorbachev and Sakharov – a battle which, from the longer-term perspective, both lost. Why, then, this confrontation? To a large extent, it was because, both in London and Washington, we blundered, we gave the wrong advice. So the Russians chose to use our western interpretation of democracy. It was thus all win-or-lose in a single-preference electoral system; and win-or-lose again in an even more Orwellian decision-making process: the simple, for-or-against, majority vote. So back to Egypt. Many observers fear a takeover by one or other extremist group. The danger, therefore, is that, we might blunder again, and that Cairo might adopt an adversarial democratic structure which would allow for such an outcome. The wiser approach would be for the Egyptians to ignore any majoritarian model and to opt, instead, for a government of national unity. Decisions could then be based not on the majority’s more preferred policy from a choice of two options but, from a much wider selection, on the most popular option of every member in parliament. In a modern, plural society, concepts like majority rule and minority veto should really be obsolescent. Peter Emerson Director, The de Borda Institute Egypt Hosni Mubarak Foreign policy guardian.co.uk

Posted by on February 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry