Elections, Democracy, Consensual Government and Baseball
Islamists (no surprise) captured most of the seats in Saudi Arabia’s elections last week. From relatively liberal Jeddah to Buraida in the Wahhabi-dominated conservative center and on to Medina, candidates endorsed by religious authorities won. In Lebanon, Hizballah is making much of its role as a political party and much less of its role as an illegal militia as the overt Syrian presence ebbs and the country moves toward elections at the end of May. Hamas won local elections in the PA. They vote in Iran. Pundits ask what the President will do if Islamists are “democratically elected.”
Islamists (no surprise) captured most of the seats in Saudi Arabia’s elections last week. From relatively liberal Jeddah to Buraida in the Wahhabi-dominated conservative center and on to Medina, candidates endorsed by religious authorities won. In Lebanon, Hizballah is making much of its role as a political party and much less of its role as an illegal militia as the overt Syrian presence ebbs and the country moves toward elections at the end of May. Hamas won local elections in the PA. They vote in Iran. Pundits ask what the President will do if Islamists are “democratically elected.”
They may be “elected,” but they won’t be “democratically elected.”
The vote in Saudi Arabia was not democratic, nor was it in Iran; neither will it be in Lebanon with or without the Syrians. It wasn’t in the PA; it was closer in Iraq, but they still don’t have a government. Elections need context, and the context for democracy is a free and open society under the rule of law with multiple centers of legitimate power including secular and religious leaders, regional governments, unions, academe, journalists and businessmen. And women, who, after all, represent at least 50 percent of any country’s brainpower. And people have to know that if they “vote the bums out,” the bums will leave without reprisals.
Part of the blame for public misunderstanding about these things unfortunately accrues to the President. Mr. Bush was very clear in his June 2002 speech about the requirements for Palestinian democracy to emerge – new leaders, not compromised by terror, “to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty” and “transparent institutions that serve the Palestinian people” – only after which would elections be meaningful. But the administration prattles constantly about “democratic elections” and “democracy” in the Middle East. [The quotation marks underscore our belief that, outside of Israel, the region has neither, yet.]
Perhaps it would be better to talk about “consensual government.” In Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq and the PA – and soon in Lebanon – people have been given some voice in how they are governed. This is surely better than what they had before, and with careful nurturing can become a step on the road toward free societies and democratic elections. A long time from now. And after a lot of practice and probably a lot of mistakes. It took Ukrainians 13 years to have confidence in themselves as voters. We just read over Passover how the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years, until the generation of slaves had died off, before they were psychologically ready to enter the Holy Land. It doesn’t seem out of proportion to modern events.
And baseball? Baseball, like politics, is all about context. President Bush waxed positively poetic on the evening baseball returned to the nation’s capital. “If you go to a game, go with somebody you really care for because you’ve got plenty of time to visit; there are no time limits. And it should always be outdoors with wooden bats and grass.”
How can he get one so right, and make us cringe so with the other?