Democracy 102

By Prof. Alex Magno
This is a continuation of last Thursday’s discussion on the problems confronting our practice of democratic politics.

Considering all the structural constraints on the full blossoming of democratic practice in the country, how do we proceed?

Time is running short. The 2010 elections is fast approaching. It will be a severe stress test on our institutions and our democratic faith.

If we become path-dependent, continue with politics as usual, the next government will be as tenuous as this one. It will continue to be besieged by hostile political factions trying very hard for the established authority to fail. There will be more political circuses, more scandal-mongering and more unseemly alliances among opportunists.

By 2010, the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo presidency will be the second longest-serving administration in our Republic’s history. The longest one was Ferdinand Marcos’. But that was unduly extended by martial rule and dramatically terminated by means of an uprising.

The fact that this administration survived is a feat by itself.

The constitutional structure within which we operate is designed to doom the presidency. The single-term provision makes the incumbent a lame duck on Day One. The multiparty electoral system condemns every winning candidate to the top post to the status of minority president, vulnerable to being held hostage by every political bloc that could muster votes in the Congress for an impeachment or mount a sustained campaign to diminish the President’s popularity and political capital. Read more...

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Democracy 101

By Prof. Alex Magno

Bear with me.

In preparation for an international meeting on the future of democracy in the Philippines, I have been focusing my thoughts on what works, what doesn’t and what is likely in our democratic practice.

The interest of other nations in our glories — and our follies — is understandable. We are Asia’s oldest democracy. Which is not to say that we are Asia’s most mature.

We know, from observing people around us, that age and maturity are two very different things.

Our practice of democracy has had its ups and downs. The democratic edifice has been accused of concealing oligarchic rule. As a form of government, democracy has not enabled us to be our best. Our spotty economic record attests to that.

Once before, the democratic culture was unable to resist a long period of dictatorship. But then again, the dictatorship was terminated by a flamboyant democratic uprising. A regime armed repression was overthrown by the solidarity of a people daring to mount an unarmed resistance.

The grand hopes sparked by a spectacular uprising were dashed by inept and corrupt government. A facsimile of the first uprising was again launched in 2001. The same grand hopes were sparked and then dashed just as quickly.

Two years from now, we will hold critical elections for a new president using the same antiquated and vulnerable electoral process we have kept that way for decades. There is some potential for the whole process breaking down and the continuity of our democracy put in peril. Read More...

Democracy

Primaries
By Alex Magno

My own students in political science are a little confused about what is going on in American politics at the moment. They could quite grasp the exercise of party caucuses — or what the Americans call “primaries.”

The confusion, I think, begins from using our own electoral practices as reference point. Here, since the death of our party system 35 years ago, candidates simply throw their hats into the ring and expect a faction of loyal followers and a bunch of financiers to gather around presumptive (and often presumptuous) candidacies.

Since the death of the stable party system we once had, there has been no such thing as a candidate-selection process. Aspiring politicians do not have to work themselves up the party hierarchy. There is no systematic filtration process to vet candidates and hold them accountable to some party platform.

Instead of being loyal to their parties, our politicians expect their parties to be loyal to them. They herd in electoral investors, raise a war chest and dispense funds on their own. In exchange for helping finance the campaigns of local candidates aligned with them, “presidentiables” ( as we call them) expect a certain degree of feudal obligation from their barons. Read more...