BBC Defines Democracy
According to the BBC, Ahmadinejad is the democratically elected President of Iran. Perhaps the BBC doesn't have access to the Wikipedia entry describing the Iranian Presidential electoral system? To summarize - the 'Council of Guardians' must authorize potential candidates (male muslims aged 25-75) to stand for election. In 1997, this resulted in 234 out of 238 candidates being disqualified. Needless to say, all 12 members of the 'Council of Guardians' are directly or indirectly simply appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Surely no definition of 'democracy' can escape the notion of rule by the people.
Surely no definition of 'democracy' can escape the notion of rule by the people.
- sheikh X at 10:28 PM
4 Comments:
the israeli media and intelligentsia use a similar, albeit somewhat inverted definition: when hundreds of thousands of haredim rally to protest the judicial activism of the supreme court they are shouted down by scores of counter-demonstrators in the name of "democracy." Similarly, the increasing power of the haredim in the knesset- a result of their demographic weight in the electorate- is decried in the press as a "threat to democracy." At the same time, defenders of the court from this populist onslaught will openly and publicly declare that rule by unelected jurist is "our" (i.e. Israeli) democracy.
Eh, I remember when I first listened to BBC in Romanian, circa 1984, in Communist Romania. I stumbled upon it by accident. After listening to it for a half an hour, based on the content and tone, I decided it must be Radio Moscow.
Then the hour struck and I found it had been BBC.
This was not an accident.
Another example: my sister gave me a CD with speeches by Winston Churchill 1930-1946. Circa 1934 Churchill, then in opposition, was complaining how the BBC was censuring him whenever he talked against the enemy of Britain - Adolf Hitler. The BBC called him a warmonger and jingoist.
I can't undestand how this institution has any credibility in the world. It is pure propaganda, Pravda or Al Jazeera-style.
This means the Iranian "democratic" system is stronger than America's in one crucial respect: It grants men ages 25 to 34 the right to be president, while America does not. That means 13.6 percent of men in America could be president in Iran, but not in the US of A. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0101&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_
That's 10.8 million people, including this American.
yes but matt, in the iranian system 234/238 (98.3%) of potential candidates are eliminated. thus of the 10.8 million men in the 25-34 range (a key demographic as they probably read your column), only 181,512 would qualify. this is almost exactly the population of samoa. thus, to ensure we remain as democratic as iran, i propose that the US constitution be amended to allow any citizen of samoa to be eligible to stand for election to the presidency of the united states.
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