Democracy isn’t perfect. I just don’t know a better system (Winston Churchill). Do you agree?Democracy, or ‘people-power’, as a political ideology has been embraced since time immemorial, with the first democratic government established in Athens, Ancient Greece, and is practiced widely throughout the world today. Churchill was astute in stating that democracy, highly glamorized and perpetrated in today’s globalised world, is not perfect. After all, in a fallible human society, what is? However, while I agree that democracy is not perfect, the essence of political ideologies lies not in the relative superiority of any one political system, but it is the examination of a country’s specific history and socio-political and economic needs. Any political system that is able to meet those needs is thus the ‘better’ system for them.

Democracy as a political ideology is an elegant concept that appears to be perfect by many because it seeks to uphold freedom, equality, fairness and practicality. The Athenian democracy in Ancient Greece encapsulated the virtues of democracy, as it was a political system developed to combat corruption like bribery, and promulgate equality through a lottery system that elects adult men into office in a completely random fashion, thus preventing the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Today, many countries around the world practice a pseudo-form of democracy. Thailand progressed from a monarchy in the 1990s into a democracy today. Once colonial countries like Singapore and Nigeria embraced democracy soon after independence was gained. The citizens of democratic countries were struck by the amount of power and say they had in policy-making. Their newfound authority to evoke changes they wished to see, which was absent in other political systems, was what made democracy so attractive.

However, democracy put into practice is by no means perfect. One of the most ruthless opponents of democracy, Plato, argued that freedom is the supreme good but freedom is also slavery. People are free to do whatever they want and chaos ensues. This is when democracy degenerates into tyranny, where a tyrant will seize power to restore order. While situations are certainly not as dire as Plato has envisioned, it is nonetheless important to note the philosophical underpinnings of this argument. To illustrate this, Thailand was once celebrated as a democratic oasis in a region awash with authoritarianism. Today, the nation is reeling from its worst political crisis since a democracy movement toppled a military regime in the 1980s. The streets of Thailand have been convulsed by mass protests mainly by the poor, against the incumbent administration which drew its ranks from the middle class and the elite. Even in India, the terror attacks in Mumbai uncovered a deep well of anger against the democratically elected government for its failure to protect its citizens from harm. Democracy has definitely brought power and freedom into the hands of many, but that power is inevitably abused by those who wield it through the use of violence and protests against a new government that brings ramifications like instability and turmoil to a country. If the outcome of democracy undermines the very virtues that democracy promulgates, it is onerous to say that democracy is the best form of political. Churchill was right to say that democracy is not perfect.

Some may argue that in a way, the challenges of democracy that are mainly seen in Asian countries are a reflection of its nascence. Asia and emerging democracies, for the most part, have raced through the democratization process in just a couple of decade. Given enough time, democracy will soon evolve and stabilize into a system that best serves the needs of the country. They often cite the example of United

States, one of the most mature democracies around, who epitomizes the ideals of democracy such as freedom and fairness.

However, Western-style democracy is not a one-size-fits-all political system that should be imposed on every other country just because it worked well in America. The utter failure of this imperialism can be seen in Iraq’s example, where the US has coerced Iraq into adopting democracy as its political standpoint, but democracy has yet produced any good to Iraq’s perpetual unrest and instability. It is spurious to argue that time is needed for young democracies to mature and succeed like the US who prosper by democracy, because it flagrantly disregards the unique history, social, geopolitical and economical settings that demands a specific political system that will best suit these needs, rather than adopt a political system from another country and apply it to theirs just because it has flourished in that country.

At the core of this issue, it is useless to argue which political system is the best for a country. Instead, it is the way in which each system suits the needs of the state that ultimately determines the suitability of that system. A more fundamental question to ask is: What entails good governance? Ultimately, the ‘success’ of a political system depends on the symbiotic relationship between the government and the people. The government must question the compatibility of democracy and his country, and examine closely the needs of the people and the country to come up with a political system to complement the socio-political and economic faculties of their country. Good governance requires that the government shapes his political doctrines around needs of the society arising from multiple aspects snugly. The merits of a political system lie not in the ideals it promotes, but how the system is being interpreted by the government to best fulfill the circumstances of a country. Just because democracy is being popularized and adopted by many does not mean that it is the best political system. It is dangerous to equate popularity with universalism. Churchill may be right when he talks about Great Britain. The same cannot be said for the world.