Author: M. Farahi Tujegi
Islam and Democracy (Part 10)
Investigating the people’s sovereignty in the democracy system and its obstacles
In the previous article, a number of obstacles to people’s rule in the democratic system were mentioned, here we will continue this discussion:
3. Funding the costs of election campaigns
To have a correct picture of this issue, let’s mention an example: in the 1952 US presidential election, both main parties spent something close to a hundred million dollars, and in 1960, these expenses reached 160 million dollars.
Currently, each candidate needs to raise $20 million to start campaigning. The need for an exorbitant amount of money causes other candidates or those who are thinking of running for office to withdraw. Because they cannot provide the required cost. Before doing anything, the eligible candidates must prepare a huge amount of money in order to satisfy the party and become one of the party’s candidates, and in this way they can get the government’s assistance, which is close to 60 million dollars.
Similarly, the cost of state and city elections is huge; For example: in 1929, the cost of New York City elections was more than two million dollars, that is, each vote cost two dollars and 26 cents. The lowest spending was in Salt Lake City, where 10 cents were spent for each vote.
In Britain in the 1950s in the present century, each candidate had to hand over £150, and if he did not get 1.8 of all the votes, all his money was wasted.
In those years, a worker had to work for 5 or 6 months to earn this amount of money. It was like this that low-income people could not be candidates, and it was not even in their imagination that they could play a role in this process one day. But even if this amount of money was provided, there were still two big obstacles for them:
A: It was not important for a candidate to win in one region, but this party had to have candidates all over the country in order to be able to send a large number of its candidates to the parliament, that is, it had to pay 150 pounds for each candidate; For this reason, smaller parties cannot nominate candidates for all regions or hope to win and play an effective role.
B: Even if this money were provided for all the candidates, the cost of advertising should be provided, which is more than the cost of candidacy, and it will make a hole in the money bag and take everyone hostage.
Today, because another theory has been implemented and all citizens can participate in the elections, and the necessity is that all eligible people vote; Therefore, they should conduct extensive advertisements with huge expenses. In other words, in order for the people to truly govern, it is necessary to widen the voting circle, but this wide-ranging process has increased election expenses and multiplied the height of the participation wall in the elections. This form of holding elections is one of the main factors of the lack of participation and large participation of the people in the principle of governance. This was the way that voting and going to the polling booth was not a source of hope and a wish for people to look at their future from the inside and be optimistic.
4. Advertising and election campaign
After the candidates are determined, the campaigning process begins. These advertisements caused more confusion and surprise to the citizens than before and mixed up lies and truth; Because many promises were made to the people, but some of them were covered with the clothes of action, not most of them, who were doomed in the darkness of the false promise and were endlessly buried in the closet of injustice.
Candidates talk about things that are people’s mental fodder and interesting, and they avoid issues that will not lead to good reactions; For example: for a long time, the candidates talked about finding a solution to the budget, but in the 1996 elections, because the people were disgusted with this issue, the candidates refused to approach this issue; While the budget issue is the biggest economic issue in America.
Discussing and talking about issues that are of interest to the people should be a sign of attention to the public will or a sign of the sovereignty of the people; Because the sovereignty of the people is not that their wishes are played by politicians and used for political purposes.
No matter how much the politicians consider the demands of the people, there will still come a time when, after winning, they will not implement these demands and ignore them… Also, considering that people are in groups and groups and the demands of the members of the society are not the same, there are a few cases that are called their demands, and it is not difficult to interact and play tricks with them.
It is very natural for candidates to change their promises after winning the election; Similar to what Tony Blair, the leader of the British Labor Party, did. When his party was not in power and his hands were short of government actions, he said about the trade unions law that the government had approved, that this law is disgraceful and undemocratic, and it is also in conflict with the interests of the workers. But when they themselves took the helm of governance, in response to the question of whether this law will remain the same? They said: Undoubtedly… this is a logical issue.
Another example of changing votes is because of interests… In the 1970 US presidential election, in which Richard Nixon ran on the right in the primaries to become the Republican Party’s nominee, he gravitated to the left in the general election. In 1988, Senator Jack Kemp of the Republican Party mocked his opponent, Senator Bob Dole of the same party, saying: “When Dole talks about the future, watch your wallet, lest he steal it.” When the “Doll” library caught fire and burned down, he lost the same two books he had in the library… He had not yet painted the second book, but in 1966, when Dole was the Republican presidential candidate and Kemp was the vice presidential candidate, he said: “It is the greatest honor of my life to be asked to work with this great American hero. to participate and cooperate.”
The result of the mentioned issues is that finally, at the end of the election campaigns, citizens participate in voting.
Funding the huge, unlimited and widespread expenses of election campaigns proves that the people cannot have a direct share in governance and actually be in the pit of governance and be its undisputed helmsman.
