Maturity of democracy

AS IT IS supposed to be, political parties are supposed to hold their own conventions in order to choose their candidates for the coming national elections.

The practice in the United States to hold primaries prior to the conventions may not be required of all democratic countries, but it is actually a good practice because it enables the members of the party to have a process of elimination that would result in having the strongest and most winnable candidate from among their ranks.

While the primaries are actually part of the democratic process within the political parties, the formal exercise of democracy actually happens in the national conventions, even if these are just done for the sake of formalities.

The theory behind having a national convention is that there are real party members at the local levels who would actually nominate and vote for the candidates of their choice. In a manner of speaking, what should really happen is that the political parties must first practice democracy within their own ranks, as a way perhaps of setting examples of how democracy should be practiced in the broader society.

As an added advantage, the members of the political parties who vote in the primaries are actually given the chance to get to know those who are seeking the party nomination, to see the best and the worst among them.

After more than a hundred years of being supposedly a democratic country, it is sad to note that none of our political parties have gone through the motions of holding national conventions, much less to hold local primaries.

As a poor substitute for the national conventions, our political parties could have at least called for party caucuses, but it appears that they have not done that either. Assuming for the sake of argument that some of them might have called for party caucuses, none of them have announced it, and that leaves room for suspicion that whatever process they went through was not transparent, simply because it was not exposed to public scrutiny.

Seeing that our political parties have seemingly not gone through a transparent process of nominations, we could only presume that they simply went through a process of anointment by a chosen few or much worst, by self-proclamation by the strongest among their own leaders. If they only went through a process of anointment, it would be solid proof that they did not practice democracy within their own ranks.

Much worst, it would also be proof that there is a dictatorship of a few people within their own ranks. If they simply went through the process of self-proclamation, then that is even more than worst, because it would mean that there is a dictatorship of only one person among them.

As it is supposed to be, each political party should not only have its own ideology, but also its own platform of governance. That being the case, the people are supposed to vote on the basis of solid ideologies and platforms, and not on the basis of the individual personalities and promises of the candidates. (To be continued/PN)

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