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Badie Conferences this week on democracy and elections

Thursday, January 20 in a cat on the MOnde.fr Bertrand Badie gave his analysis of events in Côte d'Ivoire and Tunisia, excerpts:

"(...) An election does has meaning only if it is approved as a mode of political regulation by all those involved. other words: no elections without democracy established, no democracy without a state installed, and no conceivable state without a nation built around a social contract. It is clear, for example in the Ivorian case, the real challenge of an election is to ensure that the minority's failure to beat yours legitimate. (...)

In short, the physical organization of elections in countries that do not reach the end of their civil war and where the public is not well structured and legalized unlikely to achieve meaningful results . Now, if elections are contested and, as in Côte d'Ivoire, the defeated candidate deemed refuses to admit its failure, the "international community" can she make him change his mind? And how? A candidate who obtains 47% of the votes can not be considered a single dictator. It has a social basis. In the Ivorian case, it represents almost half the country. A commando operation to Noriega would not be sufficient. The real question is whether a foreign army can restore by force a social contract torn. (...)

The main mistake of the United Nations is thought to have an electoral process in the context of demilitarization and demobilization unfinished : UNOCI has failed to do what 'had succeeded in UNMIL in Liberia or Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL. The main role of the acting UN is to create the conditions for genuine political competition. Côte d'Ivoire, the election appeared only as an extension of the internal war that began in 2002 in mobilizing other resources.
It is not surprising that the election results are also an extension of the civil war by other means . (....)

It is in fact faced, through this experience, the danger of trying to meddle or confuse the role of the judge and the mediator. Being a mediator requires occupy an intermediate position and equidistant between two protagonists being a judge is to give reason against one another. It is well, therefore, two roles distinct. The UN, in the case Ivorian trial. We can not afford to settle here if they have accomplished this task correctly. But having installed, they now refrain from playing the role of mediator. Hence the emergence of a whole new set of players who strive to play the role left vacant: of Heads of State of ECOWAS, Prime Minister of Kenya, or at the very beginning, the Former South African President .(...)"

Of Tunisia: "(...) First, the dictatorship has overshadowed the democratic culture, political life has shaved, broke opposition forces and eliminated the public debate. An election is not legitimate nor possible without all these elements are previously restored. Moreover, this revolution has a remarkable feature: it is perhaps the first true revolution post-Leninist we know. That is to say, without leader, without organization, without contact, then, who can speak for the social movement or confiscate it. However, the election is fundamentally elitist institution, which involves a personal political party, in short, an oligarchy that will reach the ballot box. Latency becomes essential that this will constitute another prerequisite .(...)

Take it [democracy] as an ideal, that is to say doing a value shared by all, c ' is to say, rebuilt by the very people whom it is meant to address. Its weakness lies in its procedural drift in its naive universalism, in its formalism, in the desire to tackle and to impose external models of any facts which we do not even try to join those whom you want the be addressed. Maybe the real problem is there, we forgot that in our democracy was an ideal, we do not retain more than the appearance of easy technique of government: it exports it as is and we want to make a technique more diplomatic action, then it all wrong.