Mediaboss Marketing

He who thinks he is a leader and has no one following him is only taking a walk Malawian proverb.

MY previous article on the Democracy Delusion was too long, too academic and did not reach my intended target audience. I was testing the waters to see how receptive the average reader would be to my ideas. Unfortunately, it would appear that what I was trying to feed the reader was neither edible nor digestible; I failed to adequately explain in Laymens terms what I was proposing through Inclusive Democracy.

In this article I will try to simplify the idea so that we all understand what Im proposing. Notwithstanding my own failure to articulate my idea, my previous article was met with the usual PhD (pull him down) mentality, the same colonial mentality that has us believe that we as Zimbabweans cannot solve our own problems, that we are bereft of any new ideas. When we fail to grasp the subject being discussed we are quick to call it high sound nothings. Its the same mentality that is quick to embrace, exalt and unquestionably proclaim as genius the exact same idea had it been repackaged and written by some professor from some overseas institute.

What may have sounded too utopian and too idealistic to work in the real world is actually a type of direct democracy that was first put in place in 1848 in some country called Switzerland, believe it or not. Switzerland is quite unique in that it features a system of government not seen in any other nation: direct representation. It is the closest state in the world to what I would call an ideal democracy. My idea was to adapt this type of democracy to our own situation in Zimbabwe based on the current government structure.

Now, Switzerland does share some similarities with Zimbabwe, it is a landlocked country, surrounded by Austria, Liechtenstein, France, Italy and Germany, has a relatively small population of 8 million and a land area of 41,285km2. Zimbabwe is also a landlocked country, surrounded by South Africa, Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique, has a relatively small population of 14 million and a larger land area of 390,580km2.

But thats where the similarity ends however, as Switzerland is the most politically and economically stable country in the world. It is not a coincidence that Geneva, its capital, has been chosen as the headquarters of the majority of UN agencies and numerous other international organizations. Switzerland has a GDP of US$650 billion and is the wealthiest country in the world per capita. The unemployment rate is 4% (lowest for the top 10 richest countries) and the economy is primarily made up of agriculture (3.4%), manufacturing (23.4%) and the services industry (71%).

Switzerland is neither an EU nor EEA member but is part of the single market. In a recent study which sort to verify where the wealthiest 1% live, it was found that the country with the largest proportion of its population in the 1% per capita was Switzerland. One in 10 Swiss residents - 800,000 out of 8 million - have assets worth more than US$798,000. They have no known natural resources to speak of, so what is it exactly that makes Switzerland so special? The answer becomes self-evident when you analyze their system of government which practices direct democracy.

So how does this direct democracy in Switzerland work, exactly? Well, the Swiss are quite unique in their outlook on life in that they believe that power should never be concentrated or centralized in one person. The reasoning behind this is quite simple, no human being is perfect and all of us are prone to errors of judgment due to our inherent human fallibility.

The Swiss dont have an all-powerful executive president (or prime minister) as they do in other western countries; they have a type of collective presidency called the Swiss Federal Council which is a seven-member executive council. They have a rotating presidency between members of this executive council whereby they change presidents each year and the president has almost no powers over and above his or her six colleagues, but undertakes representative functions normally performed by a president or prime minister in single-executive systems.

Switzerland is a multi-party direct democracy federal state made up of 26 mini-autonomous states, otherwise known as cantons. These cantons have far-reaching autonomy and are responsible for healthcare, welfare, law enforcement and public education; they also retain the power of taxation. Although Switzerland has a federal constitution, each canton also has its own cantonal constitution which determines the degree of autonomy accorded to the municipalities. This varies but almost always includes the power to levy taxes and pass municipal laws.

See the original post here:
Power to the People: Inclusive Democracy