Fragility of democracy

In an interview with this newspaper, the French Non-Resident Ambassador, Nicolas de Lacoste, who is resident in Suriname, reflected on the recent attack on the Parliament there by mobs encouraged by the Opposition under the leadership of former President and convicted drug smuggler Desi Bouterse. The Ambassador highlighted the “fragility” of democracy and emphasized: “All the democratic institutions have to be defended by all means…You don’t attack, you don’t vandalise, the National Assembly; you have to take measures to defend democracy.”
Asked about our democracy, which came under attack when the Opposition supporters withing GECOM attempted to rig our March 2020 elections, he advised, “The most important is to have clear rules for the game, and to have the best of possible electoral codes. I think this is the best way to ensure stability: to ensure that when you have elections, nobody afterwards (is contesting the results); that you have a flow from team to another without any kind of turbulences.”
But this is easier said than done when you have an Opposition such as ours, where their MPs actually carried out an equally vicious attack on our National Assembly from within. They not only invaded the neutral space separating Government and Opposition MPs to prevent a Government Minister and MP from delivering his speech, but removed the Parliamentary Mace from its rightful position in a disorderly fashion, causing damage to the Mace, and injuring and assaulting a staff of the Parliament Office while attempting to remove the Mace from the chamber. Another Opposition MP destroyed the communication equipment of the Assembly. And when later suspended by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee, they actually had the temerity to file a suit in the Courts, knowing full well that such matters are exclusively handled by Parliament.
The Ambassador emphasized adherence to the “rules of the (political) game”, and, in doing so, identified the greatest threat to democracy in our country. The fundamental rule of democracy is that, in making decisions, the majority’s views are to be carried out. The task of all parties competing for office, then, is to convince a majority of the voters that they have a better plan for running the country to the betterment of all. There was a time when it could be argued that, with the voters choosing along ethnic lines, parties with ethnic majorities had a built-in advantage. But this is no longer the case, since no one ethnic group even approaches a majority on its own. This was demonstrated in the elections of 2011, 2015 and 2020, when the Government was respectively checkmated, removed, and then its successor removed. This politics of “in and out” quintessentially defines democracy in a polity, and any party where cleavages remain strong would do whatever is in its powers to attract “outside” votes. Which can be achieved via coalitions or articulation of equitable policies.
Our dilemma, however, is that by questioning even the most obvious decisions in the political realm, the Opposition is cultivating a victimhood mentality within its support base. Take the age-old Parliamentary tradition of the No Confidence Motion that had removed several Governments in Britain and India and other jurisdictions. After initially agreeing that “democracy had triumphed”, when such a Motion was passed when one of their MPs voted with the Opposition, they recanted and claimed, all the way to the CCJ, that 33 was not the majority of sixty-five, even though they were in office precisely through such a majority, and the CCJ was appropriately scathing in its judgement.
But the fragility of democracy is exposed as much when the Opposition is weak as when it is cantankerous. When any Government becomes convinced that it cannot be removed by the Opposition at the polls, it inevitably has the tendency, when acting unilaterally, to misuse its powers. A responsible Opposition must present itself always as a “Government in waiting” to keep the Government on its toes and to make democracy strong. It is our hope that our Opposition will “wise up”.