AEC PDF
Australia has been waiting since 21 August for the results of the federal election held that day.
The election resulted in a 'hung parliament', which means neither of the major parties was able to secure a majority of seats in parliament. Not dissimilar to what happened in the United Kingdom's last election, when Conservative leader David Cameron needed to form a coalition with Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) to have government, it is now down to a small group of Independent - and one Green - politicians who have won seats to be persuaded (or not) by either the Centre-Right (Liberal-National) or the Centre-Left (Labour) parties in Australia.
I recently attempted to download an Electoral Enrolment form from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) website and got the message above. It seems an apt metaphor for this election as a whole and perhaps also for the state of supposed democracy at large - not only in Australia but globally. When so-called 'Western democracies' are getting indeterminate national election results, perhaps it's time to question what sort of 'democracy' we live in. When the choice of leadership is - at best - 'the lesser of two evils', I would have to ask whether we can call it democracy at all.
The election resulted in a 'hung parliament', which means neither of the major parties was able to secure a majority of seats in parliament. Not dissimilar to what happened in the United Kingdom's last election, when Conservative leader David Cameron needed to form a coalition with Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) to have government, it is now down to a small group of Independent - and one Green - politicians who have won seats to be persuaded (or not) by either the Centre-Right (Liberal-National) or the Centre-Left (Labour) parties in Australia.
I recently attempted to download an Electoral Enrolment form from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) website and got the message above. It seems an apt metaphor for this election as a whole and perhaps also for the state of supposed democracy at large - not only in Australia but globally. When so-called 'Western democracies' are getting indeterminate national election results, perhaps it's time to question what sort of 'democracy' we live in. When the choice of leadership is - at best - 'the lesser of two evils', I would have to ask whether we can call it democracy at all.
posted by Nor at 13:04
1 Comments:
coalition governments are the most democratic of their kind! wish canada would have had the balls to go that route...
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