The Democratic Piece

Just when you thought I was done blogging Canada’s PR movement.

According to the Ballot Access News, Saskatchewan’s Premier has pledged a Citizens’ Assembly if voters return him to office on November 7. And if the Assembly proposes proportional representation, he’s pledged to fund public education efforts about the proposal.

How might a Saskatchewan referendum end differently from Ontario 2007 (MMP) or British Columbia 2005 (STV)?

Premier Lorne Calvert is leader of the provincial New Democratic Party. New Democrats were key proponents of the Ontario measure. Though a viable “minor” party, the NDP regularly gets the short end of the winner-take-all stick nationwide and in provincial assemblies (from the perspective of strict seats/votes proportionality). And Saskatchewan is the NDP’s historical heartland.

A successful referendum on PR there would make an interesting point. Despite the above, the provincial NDP regularly wins seat shares far in excess of its vote shares. Is it naive to suggest the party would be ‘taking a hit’ at home to make a national rhetorical point?

Is Joaquim Chissano a modern day George Washington? Lead his country to independence? Check. Played a crucial role in resolving a civil war that lasted for 16 years? Check. Becoming the second president of Mozambique, a newly established country, and stepping down after 18 years of relatively successful governing even though you could have constitutionally sought an additional 5 years? Check. Once beat Chuck Norris in a fight by simply taking off his jacket in a threatening manner? Ok, well I do not know that for certain, but I just added it to Wikipedia.
(UPDATE : That didn’t take long - already off.)

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Mo Ibrahim and his eponymous foundation think that Chissano is a swell guy. In fact, they awarded Chissano with a $5 million dollar prize because of his “achievements in bringing peace, reconciliation, stable democracy and economic progress to his country”. Mo Ibrahim is a Sudanese billionaire who established this prize to acknowledge and reward African leaders who have practiced good governance. According to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation website, a committee of six “distinguished” experts evaluate all eligible candidate and select a winner. In order to qualify, a candidate must have left office within the last three calendar years. The official prize fine print states that Chissano will receive $5 million over the next ten years and then $200,000 annually for the rest of his life.

Mo Ibrahim states that his goal with the prize is to create and incentive for African leaders to govern better. The eligible candidates are assessed based on their scores from “The Ibrahim Index of African Governance.” According to the most recent Ibrahim Index, Mauritius was number one and Somalia was last. Mozambique placed 23rd.

Chissano was obviously not awarded the prize for being humble. After finally being notified during a trip to a remote section of Uganda while working on a peace agreement, Chissano reportedly replied:

“I am not surprised … I have received many other rewards for the same reasons. Even before I left power I had been praised on several occasions and I have the appreciation of my colleagues, other African leaders,”

Is this a smart plan? Does $5 million provide a strong incentive for African rulers to govern better? I dunno, but I bet that Idi Amin fled Uganda with a lot more than $5 million. However, Mo Ibrahim may has inadvertently provided me with an incentive to overthrow some African government and give myself a shot at winning the prize. After all, I sit here and talk about how I could do so much better than Mugabe, Al Bashir, or Qaddafi - why not put Ibrahim money where my mouth is?

The President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced today that following the referendum approving a new constitution, he would dissolve parliament and call for new elections under the new electoral code.

Jack posted some thoughts on Sunday regarding the constitutional referendum in Kyrgyzstan. Bonnie Boyd over at the Foreign Policy Association’s Central Asia blog also provides some good commentary (Note: Anyone interested in Central Asia should regularly read Bonnie’s blog. She provides great coverage and analysis of all things Central Asia - economics, culture, foreign policy, politics, environment, etc. She’s much more than the one-trick pony than I am.)

I am a bit more skeptical about this power play by Bakiev than Jack. I think this is a pretty blatant move by Bakiev to reconsolidate power within the presidency. Bonnie notes that perhaps attempts to increase transparency may be more beneficial for increasing both political stability and economic growth. I think that is the wrong approach because the lack of transparency is rooted in the political structures of Kyrgyzstan. Unfortunately, the changes in the new constitution do little to address this fact. Instead, the new constitution will probably result in the consolidation of power by Bakiev and a more authoritarian-style of government. An argument could be made that a more authoritarian government that is more stable will provide better growth, but I will not be the one making it and I doubt it will do much for transparency either (not that Bonnie is arguing this either).

I think that three important points have been underplayed in the coverage of this story: the sitting parliament was corrupt / illegitimate, the weakness of parties is one of the major impediments to further democratization in Kyrgyzstan, and the institutions and rules established by the new constitution could be used by Bakiev to establish his own single-party dominant pseudo-democracy.

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Three more days until Larry Diamond (NED, Stanford, Hoover Institution) lectures at Georgetown. The public is invited. 6 to 8 PM at the ICC building on campus. If you’ll be in the DC metro area on October 25 and are interested in democracy, join us.

Writing for Brookings, Georgetown’s Steven Heydemann notes that Arab authortiarian regimes are upgrading their survivability toolkit with implications for democracy promotion approaches.
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Kyrgyz voters today are considering a referendum to strengthen the executive and centralize legislative elections. President Bakiev aims to break gridlock by gaining control over the ousted Askar Akayev’s residuals in parliament.
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If so, the news is not necessarily good for proponents of winner-take-all systems. The direction of Bolivian electoral reform was from more to less proportionality - in particular, the addition of single-member districts.

A new study by Miguel Centellas finds evidence that Bolivia’s move from regional list PR to a mixed member system has destabilized the country’s party system. Destabilization has manifested most significantly in Andean voters’ migration to anti-system parties.

Why? One explanation is that the use of plurality SMD districts tended to tie parties closer to specific constituent, rather than national, interests. In a multiparty system, most SMD legislators were elected by small pluralities, not majorities. This seems to have encouraged parties to target their electoral message to a narrow base in order to better win SMD seats. The evidence also suggests that Bolivian politics (prior to 2002) had a centripetal tendency, pulling parties closer to the political center. In contrast, politics since 2002 has tended towards powerful centrifugal tendencies and a high degree of polarization (particularly regional polarization). Such a shift has negative consequences for political stability, as well as for future democratic prospects.

If this is the case, could implementing a majority requirement (and some form of runoff) in the nominal tier dampen the centrifugal tendency of the new system? Or would single-member districts trump?

A friend informs me that the Brookings Institution’s new website went live this morning. I like it. Web 2.0 meets NYT Home. Note the streamlined navigation bar with one-word menu items. More and more, less is more.

The People’s Governor tonight reaffirmed his reform credentials by vetoing AB 1294 (PDF), which would have let general law municipalities use proportional representation and instant runoff (also known as STV).
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For transitions theorists, Yemen is an interesting case that features a united opposition.  A couple years ago 5 opposition parties, led by the Islamist Islah Party and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), created the Joint Meeting Parties and signed onto a shared political program (Arabic).  I challenge any Arab political party members, particularly those in Morocco, to give me a good reason for why his or her organization cannot team up with other opposition parties to draw together a pact of a similar nature.  Islah and the YSP were lethal enemies during the civil war that raged from 1994-97; no other political parties in the region come from such a violent past.  In the most recent elections, the 5 parties even agreed upon a candidate to challenge President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Joint Meeting Parties’ platform, to which I have linked above, is an excellent example of the type of game that other political organizations that participate in elections in autocratic states can learn from.  Rather than focusing on the ‘big issues’ that Islamists and Leftists may never see eye-to-eye on, this document is geared towards finding common ground on more technical and/or basic issues.  In other words, much of this document is about things that nearly anyone could agree upon; combating corruption, reforming the bloated bureaucracy, the need to foster economic growth, etc.  Despite how simple some of the amendments are, the platform has allowed for an impressive amount of coordination among the signatories and has provided a foundation for the building of trust and even friendship to take place across ideologies.  I had the opportunity to meet the leaders of the Islamist and Leftist parliamentary blocs at a conference in May and their mutual admiration was on display as they held hands (a sign of friendship in the Arab world) on their way to grabbing a pre-dinner snack.

I raise this now because I’ve been meaning to and because of an interesting development over in Yemen.  On Saturday, at least 4 people were killed as police officers clashed with protesters on the anniversary of the 44th anniversary of Yemen’s 14 October Revolution.  Al-Jazeera is reporting that the Saleh regime has threatened to close down the sattelite network’s Yemeni office if it broadcasts pictures of the event (sorry, it was only printed on the Arabic site).  Interestingly, Reuters has reported that “unidentified gunmen” were responsible for the incident and not the police.  But I guess that’s the type of news you get when you take the word of the police in an autocratic country.  I can’t say definitively that Al-Jazeera is right and Reuters is wrong, but Saleh doesn’t have much credibility… He’s like an Arab Dick Cheney.  On the Yemeni president’s website, Saleh is quoted as having said that “dialogue is open with all except those who trying to damage unification, stability and security of the nation.”  The principle underscoring this statement is one that Cheney and other right-wing American demagogues know well: when your position is unjustifiable, invoke the ‘national interest.’