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I was talking with a Bahraini acquaintance who was an admirer of Iran, debating various electoral systems. Him: "Iran is a democracy." Me: "Not fully, because
by ethbr0 3y ago
I was talking with a Bahraini acquaintance who was an admirer of Iran, debating various electoral systems.
Him: "Iran is a democracy."
Me: "Not fully, because the Guardian Council reserves the right to decide who can run."
Him: "Well, you can't have some sheepherder become president."
I thought about that for a long time. And still am.
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At its core, I think there can only be two unforgivable sins barring anyone from electability.
1 - There must always be as unbiased of an election process as possible, so that candidates can most clearly be judged on their merits and platforms.
2 - There cannot be any intent to change or remove the election process.
Other than that, let sheepherders compete fairly! But there are many world leaders of "democratic" countries that fail that test, precisely because they have mettled with one of those two principles: Xi, Putin, Orban, Erdogan.
Transgressions can be of greater or lesser severity, but at the end of the day any level of transgression should be unacceptable.
An authoritarian who submits to regular democratic elections is much less of a threat than one who removes that check.
- cogman10 3y ago> An authoritarian who submits to regular democratic elections is much less of a threat than one who removes that check. This all gets pretty sticky. Putin, for example, followed both rules 1 and 2 (at least publicly). It wasn't until he'd consolidated enough power that he attacked #2 "for the good of the people". He was in office at the time. That's where I think really healthy skepticism around "stolen election" claims needs to be in play. When someone claims the elections are unfair (even when they win!) that's a sign they aren't making those claims in good faith.