English Blog

Democracy was defined by Abraham Lincoln as the government, of the people, for the people and by the people. If you search "democracy" on the internet, it states that Democracy is a system of government by which political sovereignty is retained by the people and either exercised directly by citizens or through their elected representatives. Exercising democracy in countries means the citizens can vote for parties to rule the country. There are many forms of democracy, mainly representative democracy, liberal democracy and direct democracy. I would be elaborating more on those later.

Many countries practice democracy, although they feel that this is benefiting the nation, there are pros and cons of democracy. The disadvantages of Democracy are that it does not guarantee social justice. Sometimes those in powers are corrupt. At the time the governing bodies keep their actions a secret and do not take the people into the confidence. It is slow in functioning and is incapable of coping up with emergency but in spite of all this defects democracy is the most effective form of government.

However, if democracy is to be effective for the country, the people must diligently take note of the activities of those to whom they have entrusted the power of government. They must to raise a voice and protest against injustice and atrocities. Democracy gives them this right and opportunity. But most important they must perform their functions as citizens faithfully and to the best of their abilities. If an individual is corrupt he cannot accept those in power to be free from corruption.

Representative democracy involves the choice of government officials by the people being represented. The most common methods involve election of the candidate with a majority of the votes. Representatives may be elected or become representatives by a particular constituency, or represent the entire party. A characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in their interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgment as how best to do so.

Liberal democracy is a kind of representative democracy where the ability of the elected representatives to exercise decision-making power is subject to the fact that no one is above the law and usually controlled by a constitution that emphasizes the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals, and which places constraints on the leaders and on the extent to which the will of the majority can be exercised against the rights of minorities

Direct democracies means people make their own personal decisions and don’t rely on representatives. Direct democracy is more than just voting, supporters of direct democracy feel that this should be for the benefit of everyone. An example would be Switzerland, where five million voters decide nationally whether a proposal brought up should be accepted and schemes to be implemented a few times a year. Towns also have their own meetings held annually to decide local problems and issues.