Direct Democracy

As I have mentioned before, I have a Google Alert on Direct Democracy which sends me an e-mail, usually on a weekly basis, of any associated material on that subject off the internet. Last week there were two links that caught my eye.

The first titled ‘DD through e-governance’ starts by quoting from Section 1, Article 2 0f the Philippine Constitution that declares “The Philippines is a democratic and republican state. Sovereignty resides with the people and all government authority emulates from them” 

However, if you read the link in full what becomes apparent is that once the people have elected a government there are no mechanisms for the people to do anything about policy issues, with which they may disagree, until the next election. This is actually no more than the Representative Democracy we have which is not DD.

So, the people of the Philippines, despite the words in their constitution, are only given sovereignty for a day at elections. That is only paying a lip service to sovereignty which is why our first demand sets out very clearly that the people and not parliament are the sovereign power in the land.   

This also shows the importance of our fourth demand ‘The People’s Consent’ which sets out the mechanisms for the people to he heard between elections and say no to government policy if the majority wish it.

Here is the link to the article:-

  https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/08/03/direct-democracy-through-e-governance/

The second titled ‘How Democracy Developed in Ancient Greece’ sets out how in the late 6^th century BC democracy was established in the Greek city-state of Athens.

The ingredient in the article I thought relevant is that it is suggested that the introduction of DD was motivated by an Athenian aristocrat named Cleisthenes who may have sensed there was growing public support for a system in which the city-state was not governed by an elite ruling class.

So, while THA will only progress if it develops into a mass people’s movement there is always a place for high profile figures to support the cause.

In that context I believe it is relevant to point out that the five of the six Chartists demands that were eventually enacted happened because existing politicians came to support them. However, this would never have occurred without the pressure from the people and the leadership of the likes of Feargus O'Connor, editor of 'The Northern Star', a weekly newspaper that promoted the Chartist cause.

Here is the link to the article:-   

 https://www.history.com/news/ancient-greece-democracy-origins

Finally, the fact that DD is out there being covered on a weekly basis is encouraging and we must hope that the people eventually wake up and support our agenda. This will then encourage our politicians and others to take up the cause. I’m convinced this will eventually happen as it is simply not tenable that our existing system of governance can maintain popular support without major reform.

Wake up people and demand change!