Democracy: Minority Rule and Rejection of the Majority
When we state that a ruling minority sits over the people and the mass of society, governing in the name of democracy, we are correct. The majority of people in society trust and believe in the facade and rhetoric of the candidates, swayed by their charming words, and cast their votes in their favor. However, once they have knelt before and leaned on the seat of temporary power, they forget their past struggles and the trust that the people placed in them. They act as if they have achieved this position solely through individual effort. Unfortunately, the end of this story often becomes dire, and the hopes of the people fade amid the tricks and deceptions of their representatives.
Minority rule in democracy has two aspects:
1. because of the people who are governed; As mentioned in the previous notes, a minority of people win the candidate election.
2. Governors and other forces of the country who are the ruling minority.
The first aspect of minority rule has already been discussed, the second aspect of which some examples have already been mentioned, will be discussed in future notes.
The minority forces are:
1. Parliament and the minority in it.
2. Executive branch.
3. Parties.
4. Pressure groups.
5. Economic powers.
6. The press.
First, each of them will be discussed separately, then we will talk about the issue of minority rule from the point of view of Western scientists.
*Parliament and the Minority Within It
Due to the fact that not all people participate in elections and the votes of participants are divided among several parties, in most cases, each party receives a small percentage of the votes—typically between twenty and thirty percent. Consequently, each of these parties represents a minority. From this perspective, the parliament is a minority in two ways:
1. Parliament is a minority because the number of its members is limited and small, with between 100 and 300 members.
2. Parliament represents the minority because each of the parties in the parliament has won a portion of the votes.
In addition to this, there are other minorities within parliament; however, since we have already discussed points (1) and (2), we will only focus on the minority representation in parliament here.
In the ancient Greek democracy, as stated by Aristotle, citizens formed several groups in the assembly and some of them gathered around a leader.
So it is clear that the formation of factions in any parliament has a long history which is to be expected; Because whether the parliament is big or small, all its members are not of the same opinion and don’t have a complete and one-sided opinion on every issue, therefore factions arise due to differences in opinions and ideas as well as interests and methods of action. We have already stated that every party in the parliament represents a minority, but these party members who are in the parliament, there is a small minority among them, some members of which have greater power and dominance.
The members of the party who are in the parliament form a preliminary congress and this congress forms an executive committee of a small number of members who have the right to determine the party’s position on issues and choose solutions and tools. In America, these committees are called preparatory committees or political policy determination committees. In the UK, if the party is the ruling party, these committees are called the leadership or ministry committees, and if the party is the opposition and critical party, it is called the shadow ministry or the shadow government.
The summary of the mentioned content is that the parliament is dominated by the minority. The parties in the parliament are also a minority in the minority (parliament). The executive committee is also a minority of the previous two minorities.
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