Suchergebnisse

If there was a referendum in Mozambique today, an overwhelming majority of the people would vote against their government having anything to do with the current model of democracy. They know all too well that there has definitely been a considerable welfare reduction to them as a result of the way this thing called "Representative Democracy" has been being played out in their country during the past decade. There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the Mozambican people if not, most African governments would prefer to see fundamental changes in their countries' relations with this Western model of democracy. There is a virtual consensus among the general public, vocally expressed in the local media, as well as among officials, who naturally prefer putting forth their views in more private settings, that the relationship between citizen and the democratic institutions has been detrimental to the country, that far from helping it to become politically and economically viable, these institutions have been capitalising on, exacerbating and perpetuating Mozambique's crisis. The research was based on participant observation, and it also involved a bibliographic review of relevant documents in the area of political participation, philosophy and other documents such as the 2004 Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, Mozambican legislation, reports and research already published by other organizations.

Post-Soeharto Indonesia, known as the era of reform and democracy, has not been able to inhibit corrupt behaviour by state officials at the central and local government levels, in legislative and executive institutions, or in the judiciary as a judicial institution. This article discusses and analyses the corruption process carried out by state officials, especially those occupying legislative, executive, and special judicial institutions at the central government level in interacting with each other and with outside institutions. The public's hope that ongoing democracy will be able to limit political corruption in Indonesia is only an illusion, considering the democracy model that developed in Indonesia post-Soeharto led to a patronage democracy, namely the interaction of power between state institutions which is based on mutually beneficial considerations. Another consideration is that the institution that administers justice which serves as law enforcement agency is involved in corrupt practices.

Election remains the most peaceful means of instituting and institutionalizing democratic government. Liberal democratic theorists argue on the primacy of election as an essential element of democracy. Since the commencement of the Fourth Republic, Nigeria had conducted six successive elections to deepen democratic rule. However, election postponement is fast becoming a recurring decimal in the political landscape. Taken 2019 General election as a unit of analysis, this paper examined the implication of election postponement on the future of democracy in Nigeria. Data were generated from secondary sources, including Textbooks, Journals and Internet, to provide information on the concept of Democracy and 2019 elections. These were subjected to descriptive and content analysis. 2019 Election postponement had cost Nigeria political, economic and social fortunes. It had undermined the integrity of the electoral process resulting in voter apathy. Nigeria lost billions of naira as a result of shutdown of businesses. It resulted in additional financial burden in the conduct of the election. The paper recommends that Nigeria's Electoral Management body needs to be re-engineered to be able to cope with responsibility of conducting election on schedule. Private institutions should be strategically employed to engage in election logistics such as handling of sensitive materials and on-time delivery of these materials. Also, there is need to give a thoughtful consideration to electronic voting, that should take care of the logistics problem of conducting election in Nigeria.

Direct elections for regional heads by the people began after the issuance of Law no. 32 of 2004 concerning Regional Government. After the implementation of direct regional head elections by the people for 12 years, there were pros and cons regarding the implementation of direct regional head elections so that Law No. 22 of 2014 concerning the Regional Head Election in a representative manner by the DPRD which was later canceled through Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perpu) No. 1 of 2014 concerning Direct Regional Head Election by the People. The issuance of a Government Regulation in Lieu of a Law is intended so that democracy at the regional or local level can develop where regional people can directly elect their leaders at the regional or local level. This research is a normative legal research where the focus of the study is the norms contained in Perpu No. 1 of 2014 which returns the regional head elections directly elected by the local people. This research approach uses a qualitative juridical approach, namely examining from the legal side in addition to providing explanations regarding the considerations issued by the president's Perpu and the public's response to direct regional head elections. The purpose of this study is to determine the process of regional head elections that are directly elected by the local people so that the development of democracy at the local level can run well. The results obtained from this research are that direct regional head elections by the local people reflect more of a democratic nature than through representation and are in accordance with the wishes of the constitution that sovereignty is in the hands of the people.

"The Supreme Court is final not because it is infallible; but it is infallible because it is final" – this status quo of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and its application in various electoral cases, especially in the just concluded 2019 general elections in Nigeria has aroused mixed feelings and raised questions on the credibility of the Nigerian Judiciary and its capability of enshrining sustainable democracy in Nigeria. Meanwhile, according to the report of the Kayode Eso Panel on Reform of the Judiciary, the mindset of an average Nigerian is that "the Nigerian Judiciary hardly redeems itself from the unfortunate image it acquired during the military interregnum when it was described as a judiciary in patent chaos, riddled with corrupt Judges and in need of urgent and radical reform". This study which sought to explore the infallibility of the Supreme Court and sustainable democracy in Nigeria; the effect of the infallibility of the Supreme Court verdicts on sustainable democracy in Nigeria; and the effects of bribery and corruption of the Supreme Court Justices on sustainable democracy in Nigeria, is an exploratory research which employed qualitative method of research and adopted the Transitional Jurisprudence Model as propounded by Ruti Teitel (2015) to analyze these. The study found that the bribery and corruption of the Supreme Court Justices has significant effect on sustainable democracy in Nigeria; and that the infallibility of the Supreme Court verdicts have significant effect on sustainable democracy in Nigeria. The study recommends among others that there is need for the independence and accountability of the Judiciary with the other arms of the government in Nigeria.

Myanmar is currently faced with conflicts mainly considered as crimes against humanity that require resolution sooner or later. The conflict in Myanmar is closely linked to ethnicity, creating a cycle of violence that continues to escalate without any possibility of diminishing. The inability of the state to address ethnic minority grievances or provide adequate security to communities has created a literal arms race among minority groups. More action needs to be taken to finally resolve the situation and crisis unfolding in Myanmar, and that is where countries in Southeast Asia play a very important role for conflict resolution. This research was carried out using qualitative method with descriptive analysis regarding to the situation that occurred in Myanmar, especially regarding the Rohingya crisis and the Myanmar Military Coup which was the focus of the research. The escalation of the humanitarian conflict and the deprivation of democracy by the Myanmar people, requires joint handling in order to avoid further expansion of the conflict. In this case, neighboring countries such as Indonesia have an important role as a driver of mediation in regional forums to resolve conflicts in Myanmar. ASEAN, as a diplomatic platform in the Southeast Asian region, must be put forward and reach a consensus for finally intervening in the Myanmar conflict, which is taking more and more lives. The United Nations with the principle of responsibility to protect can also play a role in overcoming the conflict, considering that the conflict has resulted in crimes against humanity that cannot be tolerated.

Nigeria and Nigerians have witnessed different kinds of electoral frauds since the return to democracy in 1999. Counting from the 1999 general election in Nigeria, the 2019 general election is the 6th general elections conducted in the country. Unfortunately, none of these elections have been considered to be free and fair as there are always public outcries from one end to another against the results of the elections as a result of lack of transparency in the process. Drawing from this background, this study, examines whether heavy use of WhatsApp platforms by different political parties in the election encouraged popular participation and effective monitoring of the electoral processes. The study which examined a total of 318 respondents sampled from select WhatsApp groups of the two leading political parties adopted the survey research method with the social media engagement and technological acceptance theories as its theoretical framework to ascertain whether the use of WhatsApp platforms by political parties encouraged popular participation among the electorate and determine if WhatsApp platforms were helpful to parties in monitoring the 2019 general election as well as its processes. Findings revealed that WhatsApp use encouraged popular participation and electoral process monitoring. The researchers recommended that the political parties and the electoral umpire should engage more in the use of social media platforms in passing information during, on and after election to encourage transparency in leadership

The term "freedom of expression" is quite broad and holistic. It includes, within its ambit, not only the conventional freedom of speech and freedom of media, but also the freedom of thoughts, cultural expression, conscience, and intellectual inquiry. Freedom of expression ensures an individual's right to express his/her views openly within the domain of constitution, which also contains the right to be criticial of the prevailing injustices, illegal, anti-social activities, and incompetence and failure of ¬¬¬the government. All this is with a guarantee of safety and without any apprehension or fear of retaliation. Freedom of expression, in contemporary times, also embraces the right to be informed and seek information by the public, to express opinions, and advocate amendments, including changing the regime without resorting to violent means through peaceful measures available in the public domain, with reasonable restrictions. In the past decade and half, Turkish experience as a transitional democracy presents an interesting case study to explain as to how the state of freedom of expression is causally related to the failure of the EU-driven reform process undertaken by the ruling AKP (Turkish: Adaletve Kalkınma Partisi) since the year 2002, when the party won the Parliamentary elections in Turkey for the first time. The issue about the press freedom and freedom of expression in Turkey has for very long time, attracted a great amount of scholarly attention and provoked extensive debate both inside and outside Turkey. Although Turkey remains one of the rare democracy in the West Asia, a region with strong monarchic and semi-monarchic tradition of government, a series of development in the past years has raised several interrogations about the qualitative and quantitative aspects of democracy in Turkey under the AKP.

When Nigeria got her independence in 1960 there were high hopes that she would become one of the greatest nations in the nearest future. Those who made this prediction were not wrong because Nigeria has what it takes to become great. In terms of population, it is not just the most populous but also one of the most talented in the continent. In natural resources, very few countries in Africa can boast of the resources the country parades. However, when these endowments are placed side by side with development in the country, the result becomes discouraging. Currently, one may assert that Nigeria is or at the point of becoming the poverty capital of the world looking at the rate her citizens are fleeing to other countries in search of greener pastures. Using the method of documentation and conceptual analysis, this study examines why Nigeria has not been able to translate its potentials into development indexes. The investigation centres around two research questions: 1) what is the relationship between the lack of development in Nigeria and electoral malpractice and 2) is Nigeria's inability to translate its potentials to development caused by executive abuse of powers. The paper discovered that moral decadence in the form of electoral malpractice and executive recklessness are the root causes of Nigeria's political and economic backwardness. It recommended the formation of an enlightened populace who will not only reject but also fight these two ills through civil resistance as the philosopher's stone that will save Nigeria

Bangladesh is performing better in the growth of GDP and experiencing remarkable progress in development indicators such as poverty alleviation, maternal mortality, infant mortality and enrollment in primary education. However, despite the restoration parliamentary democracy in 1990s, political governance is decaying in the country. The present study, taking dynamics of Bangladeshi politics into consideration, seeks to explore the interplay between business and politics and its impact on governance with supplementary evidence from public transportation sector as case example. Among others, the principal question of the paper is how business interest creates crisis in governance? It reveals that business elites are involved in all decision-making process in the government institutions and they make pro-business policy undermining people's interest that leads to a confrontation between government institution and business elites which ultimately generates crisis in governance in almost all other section of the nation like transportation sector.

,Ex-convicts must wait for a five-year gap after passing their prison term and announce their background if they want to run for governor, regent, or mayor, according to the Constitutional Court's decision Number 56/PUU-XVII/2019. The election of regional heads is an activity in the context of implementing a government system in the form of democracy. In the implementation of regional head elections, to get quality regional leaders, it takes qualified candidates promoted by political parties as well as those who run independently. Among the requirements for a regional head candidate, both at the provincial and district/city levels, a candidate must not be in a status of an ex-convict. The research method in this research was normative juridical. This research shows that based on the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, ex-convicts are also citizens who have the same political rights as other citizens. The existence of a provision that is a requirement to run as a candidate for the regional head in the election clearly limits or even negates a person's right to participate in exercising their rights. The decision of Constitutional Court No.42/PUUXIII/2015 states that ex-convicts can participate in regional head elections with certain conditions.

Elections are the backbone of democracy. It is through elections that individuals assert their voice, their perspectives, and choose a person whose philosophies most complement them. Elections allow citizens to choose their representatives. They are also important for the people to express their resentment at the ruling government. When there is high voter participation, the election process is considered successful. Unfortunately, developing countries such as India are facing a decline in the turnout. People in rural areas move to metropolitan cities or other countries, in most developing countries to make their livelihood or schooling. During elections, visiting their hometown and casting their votes becomes burdensome for them because of their commitment to their workplace. Challenges in moving to poll places and sometimes adverse weather conditions, cause people to miss the chance to choose the candidate of their choice. People with disabilities and senior citizens also refuse to go to the polling station due to travel-related difficulty. Therefore, many elections record only 50-70 percent electoral turnout, sometimes, even less than 50%. Only when all eligible voters are granted fair opportunities to exercise their franchise then only such a democratic system is considered fool proof. The need for the hour is such a fool proof framework that enables all eligible voters to cast their vote by visiting Polling Station or doing so remotely. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for the Integrated, Smart, and Secure Remote Public Voting System (SSRPVS) that allows voters from any part of India to exercise their franchise without moving place to place and wasting time and money. To develop the Framework, emerging technologies such as IoT, Cloud Computing, Edge Computing, Blockchain, and Data Analytics are included. The system will guarantee security through four different levels, Smart Voting Card based on RFID, One Time Password, Thumb Recognition, and Retina Recognition. The only theoretical model of the ...