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For the Mideast, a Code for Rising Democracies

(Washington Post) Tzipi Livni - In the best-case scenario, the wave sweeping across the region will enable democracy to take root in the Arab world - not merely as a government system but as a values system that embraces nonviolence, coexistence, freedom, opportunity and equality. But the negative scenario is that this opening will be abused by those for whom democratic values are foreign and who seek to use the democratic process to advance an anti-democratic agenda. Another possibility is the emergence of weak regimes that feel compelled to appease extremists at the expense of their own people. In the case of Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon, the international community limited its conception of democracy to the technical process of voting. The result was to give a measure of democratic legitimacy and power to armed radical movements that are plainly not committed to democratic principles, that maintain independent militias and that pose a danger to their societies and neighbors. Current events in the Middle East highlight the urgency of adopting at the global level a universal code for participation in democratic elections. This would include requiring every party running for office to embrace a set of core democratic principles: the renunciation of violence and the acceptance of state monopoly over the use of force, the pursuit of aims by peaceful means, commitment to the rule of law and to equality before the law, and adherence to international agreements to which their country is bound. The writer, a former vice prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Israel, is head of the Israeli opposition and leader of the Kadima party.
2011-02-25 00:00:00
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