In a piece about proposed reforms of the United Nations, Steven Den Beste writes: "Democracy [in India] doesn't operate as well as it does here in the US or in some (but not all) of the nations of western Europe, but it's a hell of a lot better than in China or Nigeria."
I wonder if Den Beste has perfomed or read a study of India's democracy or whether he just wrote this sentence because India is in the third world?
Maybe he's right. Maybe in India, maybe democracy doesn't work that well. Perhaps they have a system where a candidate can receive 500,000 fewer votes than his competition yet still win. I don't think so, though.
Comments (1)
Vajpayee was elected as PM of India in the last election. His party got just 24% of the popular vote. It garnered 16 MILLION fewer votes than the INC.
Silly? Of course; you wouldn't judge a parliamentary system as if it were a straight plurality-rule election.
So why would you sum the votes from 51 independent elections and say that one candidate got 500,000 more total votes than the other? It's an absolutely meaningless number; trivia, nothing more. It's like adding the runs each team scores in the various games in the world series: it has nothing to do with the contest.
Posted by David Nieporent | June 17, 2003 10:39 PM
Posted on June 17, 2003 22:39