JDG wrote:
>
>> Ok, why not Venezuela? Even if you consider Chavez a
>> dictatorial type, he is still the elected power in
>> Venezuela, and, if nothing weird happens,
>> he will pass the power to the next elected power
>> in a few months.
>>
>> [BTW: neither Argentina nor Paraguay are currently
>> being ruled by an elected president: the elected
>> president was either deposed by the constitutional
>> rules or resigned]
>
> Venezuela would be an admittedly tough call.... as
> would be including the Phillipines (unelected leader)
>
I am not familiar with ph politics, except that they
have a very violent islamic separatist gang killing
philipinos
> and not including Russia (elected
> leader)..... but I think that for such an organization
> to work, it would have to err on the side of caution,
> not of inclusion. Russia can't really
> be called a democracy until it truly has an opposition,
> and the opposition succeeds in getting elected.
> (This will probably eliminate a few other
> candidates I "included" originally - but that was
> more of an outline, really, than anything.)
>
<serious>
This "opposition" criterium will exclude the USA - for
all non-USAns, the Democratic and Republican Parties
are clones, so there's no opposition in the USA for
the past 150 years :-P
</serious>
> What I'm driving at is that elections do not make
> the democracy. They are merely one characteristic
> among many, and it is the existance of a sizable
> plurality of these characteristics that makes a
> democracy. In other words, identifying democracy
> is a bit more art than logic.
>
I agree - and it's this ambiguity that suggests
erring in the side of _inclusion_ and not of
_exclusion_.
Alberto Monteiro
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