Democracy! Can it exist without Elections?

Essay by mugzy_87University, Bachelor'sA-, March 2007

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Democracy is a term that comes from the Greek word "domos kratein" domosmeans "the people" and kratein means "to rule", if we put them together we get thedefinition the rule by the people. Democracy existed long time ago in ancient Greece andRome. The people back then were able to represent themselves in the senate and theywere able to give out their votes. Voting in other words elections and democracy are twowords that do not separate nowadays. People often say that in order to have democracypeople should be given the right to choose who wants to rule them and this is done byelections. There are many kinds of elections for various things. In some countries (mostof the western world) the president or prime minister is directly elected from the people,some times people choose members of the parliament and they vote for the president.

These elections are done according to different kinds of electoral systems according tothe country the elections are taking place.

We have two kinds of electoral systems themajoritarian and the proportional and this will be discussed later in the text. But thequestion is that is it true that whenever there are elections and many parties then thecountry would be considered a democratic one? Then what about Syria and Iraq in thedays of Saddam Hussein? These countries had elections and the president would win with99 percent of the total votes does that mean that these are democratic countries and that99 percent of the people want that president and that system? No the people want thecomplete opposite of that! So we see that elections don't always represent what peoplewant and it is not always followed by democracy. Elections can exist in dictatoriccountries just as a play or so. What about democracy can it exist without elections andcompetition between parties? It...