The Democratic Piece

I’ve been pretty quiet cause of school work, work and vacation. The Bhutto assassination, while not surprising, is obviously depressing. Some how though, this made me even more depressed.

Who is chosen to lead Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party? Her 19-year old son and her husband. Apparently it was in Bhutto’s will that her son should take over leadership. Although her husband will act as a caretaker until he is older and finished college (he’s a student at Oxford).

This is one of the main short-comings of “democratic” politics in Pakistan. The nepotism aspect of really hampers the development of independent institutions that a stable democracy needs. The judiciary branch was beginning to establish itself as that, but that has be derailed. Real political parties need to be more than one person or one family. Otherwise they just become vehicles for patronage and corruption.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber today shortly after leaving a rally for her People’s Party of Pakistan in Rawalpindi, a military garrison town near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.  The Washington Post reports on the attack and its immediate aftermath:

Bhutto, 54, was shot at close range as she waved to supporters from the rooftop opening of a bulletproof car, witnesses said. Seconds later, a suicide bomber detonated explosives just behind Bhutto’s car. The explosion killed at least 20 people, and injured many others.

…

Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital, where a surgeon worked in vain to save her. Thousands had gathered by the time an official emerged from the hospital to say Bhutto was dead; the announcement triggered a roar of rage and grief.

Devastated supporters smashed the glass doors of the hospital and stormed the building to try and view her lifeless body. Even as ambulances continued to arrive bearing dead and wounded from the bombing, the crowd outside the hospital tore down and burned campaign posters showing candidates from Musharraf’s party. Yelling “Musharraf is a dog,” they blamed him for Bhutto’s death.

President Bush responded to the attack in a brief statement from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, condemning the attack as a “cowardly act by murderous extremists.”

The scene in Rawalpindi has become chaotic in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination, with supporters burning vehicles and demonstrating in the streets.  Whether this unrest will spread to other cities in Pakistan remains to be seen.  So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but President Pervez Musharraf has blamed the attack on extremist Islamist forces based in the tribal region along the Afghani border.

The implications of this attack for democracy in Pakistan remain unclear.  Parliamentary elections are still scheduled for January 8th, but it remains to be seen who will take up the mantle for democracy in the remaining weeks of the campaign.  If the situation continues to destabilize, it is likely that Musharraf will reimpose martial law and postpone the elections.  We will continue to follow updates coming out of Pakistan as they unfold over the next few days.

If you’re interested in a broader look at the negative impact the Russian elections may have on Eastern and Central Europe–and suggestions for how to counter that impact–check out a short piece I wrote for the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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DemoChoice.org is a useful website where you can conduct STV (and IRV) elections among pre-defined electorates. They’ve just released an application you can add to a Facebook profile. To find it, log in, and search “demochoice.”

They offer two levels of security. For general use, feed DemoChoice a list of e-mail addresses for the voters you want to allow. For more “serious” elections, request that site keys be sent to your voters.

Or just run a public poll for fun.

Every year the LA Times faithfully does a story about the Oscar nomination process. Here is this year’s.

This is an interesting application of the single transferable vote. Next year I should pay more attention to movies so I can write something intelligent about the preference flows.

Does anybody know what surplus transfer method they use? One reader is asking that question in the comments.

Kyrgyzstan had a fraudulent parliamentary election on Sunday, according to the OSCE. As in Russia, the strongman’s party won a lion’s share of seats under a new list PR system (5% threshold).

Russia dumped its mixed system for list PR before elections earlier this month. Kyrgyzstan recently passed constitutional amendments, one of which abolished a single-member district plurality system.

Like Russia, Kyrgyzstan also made it harder for small parties to get on the ballot.

Unlike in Russia, the supreme court is reviewing changes to the electoral law.

Breaking news: Lieberman (independent D) might be crossing the political divide to support John McCain (R) in his presidential bid.

Just thought it’d keep you up to date on a bit of domestic politics.

Lots of conflicting news from Nepal lately. Do people agree on MMP or not? If so, what formula? Is there or is there not a date for the next election?

According to the Himalayan Times, the SPA has agreed to hold elections in April. And they’ve agreed to increase the size of the constituent assembly, sticking with a mixed-member format. But the Maoists still don’t agree.

A tight summary of what the SPA most recently agreed on, from the Hindustan Times:

The parties also arrived at a consensus on the voting system for CA election. As per the agreement, in the 601-member constituent assembly, 335 seats would be filled up in a fully proportional system.

The number of seats elected under first-past-the-post will be 240 while the number of CA members to be nominated by the Prime Minister has been increased to 26 from 17.

The parties have also agreed to amend the interim constitution, incorporating ‘democratic republic’, and would be endorsed by the first sitting of the CA.

But the Himalayan Times in a separate article points out disagreement over the sizes of the tiers, the Maoists seemingly willing to accept MMP if the proportional tier is large.

Although the ruling parties agreed in principle to increase seats on the proportional system, they could not reach understanding on its actual strength. The CPN-UML has proposed 60-40 ratio for the PR and the first-past-the-post. Nepali Congress today came up with a fresh proposal of 55-45 ratio, and the Maoists are insisting on 80-20 ratio if all-out PR was not acceptable to other parties.

More demands are emerging on the Maoist side; they want cabinet portfolios:

On the issue of power-sharing in the government, the Maoist and the UML leaders urged PM Girija Prasad Koirala to share some of the powerful ministries such as Home, Defence and Finance among NC, UML and Maoists. The Maoists are learnt to have said that the NC must give up one of the three ministries if the interim government were to run on coalition culture. Maoists are learnt to have insisted on the finance ministry in the to-be restructured government.

The election date needed to be postponed by constitutional amendment tonight if PM Koirala’s government didn’t want to operate illegally:

The parties are also staring at a possible constitutional crisis if they do not find a compromise by Saturday evening. The interim constitution states that the CA election will be held by December 15. The parties need to amend that provision in the constitution through the parliament, which is sitting in the afternoon at around 4 pm on Saturday.

New Jersey’s lower house has passed the National Popular Vote plan:

The Assembly voted 43-32 on Thursday to approve legislation delivering the state’s 15 electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote, although the measure could result in the electoral votes going to a candidate opposed by Garden State voters.

The apparent warning reminds me how much this discussion is mired in a state-by-state paradigm. No other consolidated, presidential democracy uses an electoral college, and our government certainly would not set one up in any autocracy it overthrew.

Though some congressional districts near New York City have gotten gradually more Republican-leaning since 2000, there’s little chance New Jersey would see its electors go to a Republican candidate any time soon. That would require seismic movements in the major parties’ coalitions.

One letter writer implores voters to “listen to and respect the wisdom of the founding fathers” who intentionally designed the system to protect small states and check mob rule. Yet another reminder of how misinformed the debate is.

The electoral college was a last-minute compromise in the spirit of keeping perfect’s hands off the good. In the final days of the convention, delegates could not agree on how to elect a president - whether one should be elected at all, in fact - so they threw the matter to the individual states.

The electoral college moreover does not protect small states, depending on the observer’s time horizon. It protects “battleground” states like Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio. Everyone else doesn’t matter.

According to BAN, the state senate votes on the bill on Monday.

I don’t know how many of our readers follow the events in Afghanistan and Iraq, but here is a great article about the developments (and potential problems forces still face) in both these countries. The stories linked within the article are also great briefings on the individual situations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I highly recommend reading all three articles

As it’s finals season, I don’t have the time to give a thorough analysis of the piece. I disagree with a few of their conclusions and recommendations, but the facts they present alone are worth spending the time working through the articles.

Enjoy.