Kate's Blog

It seems as if lately, the level of democracy in Canada has been diminishing. Perhaps this is relative to the definition of democracy one may have but the attack ads, the fact that the Conservative government fell on Contempt of Parliament, makes me question our democracy.

Another damaging effect to democracy in Canada is Harper’s election campaign. The Conservative party has turned away two students from their campaign-rally. Awish Aslam, a political science student at the University of Western Ontario was asked to leave by the RCMP at a Conservative campaign-rally where an official told her and a friend that “We know you guys have ties to the Liberal Party through Facebook and you’re not welcome here” (The Globe and Mail). According to the student, she has no affiliations with the Liberal party but did have a photo of her and Michael Ignatieff on facebook that was taken at a Liberal rally. The student received a Facebook message apology from Conservative campaign spokesman Dimitri Soudas.

“Awish, my name is Dimitri. I wanted to send you a short message of apology for the rally the other night. I’d like to offer to introduce you to Prime Minister Harper next time we are in London.” (The Globe and Mail)

Doesn’t this apology at least deserve a phone call? They are treating this situation as if the student came to the rally wearing a t-shirt with Ignatieff’s face on it. I find it quite ridiculous for the Conservative party to even be looking at attendees’ social networking profiles let alone turning students away from their rallies.

Another student at Guelph University was told that her name was flagged and she wasn’t allowed to attend the rally despite having preregistered. Apparently this was because she part of an Environmental Club at her school and had attempted to end the sale of bottled water on the campus. Guelph students surprised Harper with a “vote mob” when he attended their school and many were later not allowed to attend Harper’s talk “because party officials said they had participated in a protest.” (Maclean’s)

Despite being hounded for days for an explanation to these incidents, Harper only said that more people have been attending his events and that “It’s better when you’re turning people away than when you can’t get people to come” (The Star).

The news that we’ve been hearing about Harper’s campaign has been really outrageous but the party doesn’t seem to mind stepping all over our privacy rights and jeopardizing our democracy to get themselves back in power again.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/student-booted-from-event-buries-hatchet-with-tories/article1974816/

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/970029–rcmp-implicated-in-harper-s-closed-to-public-campaign

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/04/05/guelph-students-mob-harper/

As the pro-democracy sentiment sweeps the Middle East, anti-government protesters have begun gathering in Yemen.

They have been gathering in an attempt to get president Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign after three decades in power. However, on Monday security forces gunned down protesters in Taiz, killing at least 15 people and wounding many more. The opposition leaders have called this a true “massacre” which happened after protesters attempted to storm a government building.

The BBC reports that while security forces have shot warning shots into the air to calm protesters, this incident was different because many had injuries on their chests, necks and heads prompting a doctor who examined the protesters to believe they were deliberately shot.

In Hudaida, witnesses have claimed that they saw security forces with snipers on the rooftops as well as security officials dressed in civilian clothing shooting at the crowds. Many protesters have regarded the incident as increased aggression from the government but they do plan on backing down. The unrest in Yemen is escalating and it is a matter of time that Saleh steps down.

I’m wondering what will happen to the rest of the Middle East. Will more governments fall due to the pro-democracy revolutions? And will only some move towards democracy?

In my previous “Democracy in the News” post, I followed up on the first post I wrote on the revolution in Tunisia at the beginning of the term. This post examines the consequences of the revolution and the first steps towards democracy in Egypt.

On February 11th, Hosni Mubarak was forced from power in Egypt as a result of protest against the authoritarian regime. Al Jazeera reports that since then, the military has ruled Egypt by dissolving the parliament and suspending the constitution. The president will be elected by the end of the year, but until then, the military will exercise the powers of the head of state. The military will surrender the powers to a new parliament after its elected in September. A member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces also stated that the presidential election will take place a couple months after the parliamentary elections and he also announced a constitutional decree for the temporary administration. The decree will act as an interim constitution that allows a competitive presidential vote, restores judicial oversight over elections and restricts the future president’s time in office to two four-year terms. Also, it declares Egypt as a democratic state, allows peaceful protest, guarantees freedom of expression and a free press. However, once the parliament is formed, a new constitution will be written.

Despite this, the young protesters that caused the revolution fear “that the military could ultimately retain its grip on power, [therefore]”saving” Egypt’s revolution will require a liberal program for moving the country forward — and fast.” While they have ultimately received what they were protesting for, the masses are still demonstrating. They want Mubarak and his associates to be put on trial and to return the public funds they stole from the Egyptian people. On Friday, tens of thousands protesters rallied in Tahrir Square to make their demands heard. The turnout was a signal to the military that the “people” were still invested in the revolution. The Atlantic reports that many of the protesters were independents “[who] have no leader or even set of leaders who can channel their demands for a better future into a widely agreeable program, and nobody can credibly represent them before the military council. So for now, the masses can only unify against things.”

While the progress in Egypt is evident, many (especially the youth that started it all) feel that they are still being underrepresented in the regime they fought so hard to obtain. What could be done to change this?

As we heard in class yesterday, the Harper government has fallen but since a few people have already covered this piece of news, I chose to focus on the development of democracy in Tunisia.

The revolution that took place at the begining of this year in Tunisia has been the impetus for revolutions alike in the Middle East and North Africa. Since then Syria and Libya have also began protesting. Often when countries strive for democracies, they are preoccupied with the concept of attaining it. However, during this, people often forget to ask what happens post-revolution?

An article in The Washington Post suggests that for now “Tunisia is perched delicately between revolutionary exuberance and chaos” but steps are being taken towards the construction of a new democratic system. After 23 years under the authoritarian leadership of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are able to take power into their won hands, a concept they are not familiar with. However, Tunisians are ready to be an example for the rest of the Arab world that, to prove that Arab Islamic identities can go hand in hand with democracies. In July, Tunisians will have the opportunity to vote on a 200-member assembly that will elect temporary leaders and until then an interim government is in place, while coalitions of politicians, civil society representatives and lawyers write a new electoral code.

While Tunisia is still in a state of chaos, mainly because the economy has suffered, the country seems to be on the right track towards a democratic regime. Tunisians are well educated, have had a constitution, given women equal rights and banned polygamy unlike most other Islamic countries. Because the “nations wears its Islamic identity lightly” (The Washington Post), some suggest that Tunisia may have an easier time than other nations at assembling a democracy.

However, some Tunisians are still skeptical as former Ben-Ali supporters and associates have formed political parties. Mr.Chawki Tabib, a lawyer form one of the coalitions, has said that these associates of Ben Ali are “trying to create a void in security so as to say that this revolution is heading to chaos, so the Tunisian people will come and say, ‘We want security back and we want things back the way they were’”. Despite this, most Tunisians still see a bright future ahead and have taken steps to aid their neighbours and refugees from Libya during its revolution.

While writing this post, I was thinking about what we covered in lecture today about the emphasis of political culture in democratization.

Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, despite having democratized 13 years ago is still dealing with corruption and violence. However, Indonesians are grateful for the revolution that brought down Suharto, because of the freedom they have gained that has lead their country to blossom into an open society.

The government encourages Islam groups to help build the country and make themselves electable to the people. The Prosperous Justice Party is a political Islamist party that now has four ministers in the government. The article on Al-Jazeera suggests that “as the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia offers an example of how Islam and democracy go hand-in-hand”.

Thinking back to the lecture, we talked about which religious factors (and cultural factors) might be more or less likely to lead to democratization? We also noted that these factors should not be regarded in isolation but this seems to be the case in many countries trying to make the transition towards democracy especially in the Middle East.

An article titled “Attack ads hurt democracy” on thestar.com has Green party leader Elizabeth May urging other

“party leaders not to further suppress the voter turnout by resorting to mean-spirited ads that do not deal with policies and priorities but rather personalities”.

May argues that political attack ads like the ones used by the Conservatives to question the patriotism of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff are contributing to lower voter turnout as it paints a negative picture of politics. May also suggests that the vicious ads are a cynical strategy used by parties aiming for a lower voter turnout that could potentially be especially beneficial for the Conservatives.

Although the article only briefly refers to the subject of democracy when May is quoted saying that the cynicism of the party machines “is devaluing the whole business of democracy at a very fundamental level”, it does resonate a feeling of apprehensiveness with the talk of a spring election. Have voters been swayed since the emergence of the attack-style campaigning to not only vote for the party being attacked but to not vote at all?

Polling done after the 2008 elections suggest that 11% of respondents did not vote for any candidate due to the Conservative campaign ads attacking Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. More Canadians are becoming reluctant to go to the polls suggesting that attack ads lower voter turnout and ultimately lower voter participation in the democratic process. An ethical overhaul of campaigning strategies is needed to promote a more democratic process in Canada.

The Vancouver Sun, being one of the many news sources reporting on the recent demonstrations in Lebanon over a Hezbollah-backed prime minister-designate.

The U.S. is discontented with the news as they consider Hezbollah a terrorist group that acted with coercion, intimidation and threats of violence to bring down prime minister Saad Hariri’s government on January 12th.

Hezbollah, a militant party backed by Syria and Iran had been “pressing Hariri to disavow the [Special Tribunal for Lebanon], which it worries will implicate Hezbollah members. However, the U.S. claims that the tribunal will continue as its vital to the security and justice in Lebanon.

The coup staged by Hezbollah worries the Sunni population of Lebanon as the Shiite militant group’s dominance has increased in the already deeply divided country. A militant group who has managed to get many seats and support in parliament is plaguing Lebanon, which is considered a parliamentary democracy. If we subject Lebanese democracy to Schmitter & Karl’s conditions that make democracy possible, it would be tricky to measure the concept. The authors propose that a polity must be “self-governing; it must be able to act independently of constraints imposed by some other overarching political system”. Although Lebanon’s parliamentary system is there to keep the government in check, it seems as if Hezbollah is playing the part of an over-arching structure that could harm the government’s legitimacy.

The BBC reports that after 23 years in power Tunisia’s president has resigned and dissolved parliament. Since the country declared independence from France in 1956, Mr. Ben Ali has only been the second president.

The article states that Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, now 74, has fled the country after student-led protests over economic matters led him to resign. The protests turned grotesque when the police tried to calm the crowds with tear gas and open fire. Aljazeera reports that

“The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights has tallied 66 deaths since the protests began after a 26-year-old unemployed university graduate set himself on fire in protest in the town of Sidi Bouzid on December 17″.

A Toronto Star writer has suggested “Democracy as a fix” for the Tunisian crisis. The article suggests that “Tunisians deserve better: Genuine democracy, not the tightly managed kind they have grown used to”.

It goes without saying that Tunisia is need of not only a new government that meets the needs and demands of the citizens (such as lowering food prices and restructuring the economy in hopes of creating jobs for graduates) but also a reworking of their government structure. It seems that the protests have lead the people of Tunisia to not settle for subtle changes. Clearly the cries for change have been loud enough to make a president resign and now that the people of Tunisia have seen that change is within reach, they will most likely not settle for another corrupt government ran by authoritarians like Mr. Ben Ali.