Democracy is considered the ideal form of government because it is the people themselves who choose the politicians that can best serve their interests. But democracy is still rife with imperfections.
To function properly, democracy broadly depends on the mature behaviour of its two major participants: the people and the politicians they vote into power. Yet, people appear to be losing interest in voting – and that only deepens the disengagement that is one of democracy’s major flaws.
In Malta, a Eurobarometer survey found that the percentage of Maltese who think it is highly important to vote in national elections has fallen sharply to only 64 per cent – a drop of 17 percentage points from six months ago and the largest decline in Europe.
The head of the University of Malta’s public policy department, Mario Thomas Vassallo, has offered a counter measure to this growing trend of voter apathy – the introduction of politics as a subject for students in post-secondary schools. That would be an excellent initiative. The more versed the general population eventually becomes in democratic processes, the more intelligently – and the less emotively – it will be able to play its part.
On the other side of the fence, there is also a growing perception among voters that politicians are selling them out.
This can largely be put down to the influence on politics of special interests – people who are highly concerned about particular government policies for their own profit.
Because of their motivation to have things their way, special interest groups spend an inordinate amount of money trying to influence politicians to take decisions that favour their projects. And power-hungry politicians are ever in need of money for their re-election campaigns. So, rent-seekers have an effective way of getting what they want: offering campaign contributions to cooperative politicians.
Many politicians’ short-term obsession with being elected means they will choose to back policies and projects that have highly visible, and sometimes personal, short-term benefits even if far outweighed by the costs. Conversely, they will reject projects that promise benefits too far away on the horizon, even if the expected benefits supersede the costs. This is a formula to short-change the taxpaying voter.
Ethical political behaviour cannot be guaranteed through education. Even highly educated persons are prepared to tolerate corrupt practices in return for politicians turning a blind eye to the law-breaking peccadillos of ordinary people. The bartering of votes for special unearned privileges is another major cause of the failure of politics.
Politics needs to be viewed as a mission to serve rather than a career to serve oneself. Often, those who disengage from the political process do so not because they fail to see the importance of voting but because they want to send a message about their loss of faith and trust in those seeking their vote.
One way to convince citizens that it is worth engaging in the democratic process is to elect into office inspirational leaders of high integrity. While democratic disagreements and conflicts area necessary component of progress, democracy also requires the promotion of shared values and commitments that only genuine leaders can promote.
Politicians are well versed in using the tribal politics of ‘us and them’ to rise to power but a growing number of voters also believe in the value of honesty and integrity.
If politics ever becomes a school subject, it would need to incorporate a strong element of morals, values and ethics if there is to be real change in the way both citizens and politicians participate in politics.