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■ ■ ■ AUTHORITARIAN TESTAMENT OF DEMOCRACY AND INSUFFICIENCY OF ELECTIONS -THE CASE OF MACEDONIA
Author: CHUPESKA A.
CHUPESKA Ana, MSci/PhD; Assistant Professor at University Ss. Cirilys and Methodious, Faculty of Law "lustinianus Primus' - Political Science Department. Address: Bul. Goce Delchev 6b, 1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. Tel.: ++38971 60 48 57. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: The rational consensus and deliberative democracy (Rawls & Habermas) are under serious suspicions since presupposed institutionalized conflict of interests in today's democracies are out of order. Modus procedurandi (Shumpeter) seen as a benefit of contemporary democracy, too, many agree that doesn't have any valuable use. This occurs for e.g. because, such conceptions are offering strictly rational point of view and consequently they have a tendency to disguise real conflicts that exists in societies (Mouffe). Principally important, anyhow, for democracy is citizens "right to participate" completely in decision making. But, if we tend to build democratic political system just being dependent on elections this could be a one way ticket towards authoritarian populism or we will face "totalitarian testament of democracy".Younger transitional democracies could be seen as paradigmatic example of such particular deformation -experiencing their own democratic paradoxes and against background of a global crisis of legitimacy. Macedonia is a text-book example of such twist in democratic backside, an evidence - that for democracy to be established election are not sufficient. Unfortunately, the one is placed in a bind, whereby, on one hand there is declarative promotion of democracy [based just on elections!], while on the other hand, we are witnessing a de facto authoritarian populist regime. After elections in 2011, indeed, Macedonia faced its own authoritarian shadow because elections were not supplemented with other necessary democratic principles [rule of law, separation of powers, free media etc.]. Elections at the time, were fundamentally cheated and consequently the society experienced the greatest political crises in its history. In this line, some suggestions on electoral supplements as citizens symbolic "weapons" against authoritarian governments would be mentioned in order not to forget that "democracy has to be democratized in continuity". Theoretical as well as practical references would be exposed. Keywords: democracy, elections, legitimacy, authoritarian populism, authoritarian proceduralism, illiberal democracy, Macedonian crisis, civil disobedience.
On problems with democracy
Nowadays basic principles of liberal democracy are seriously contested having in mind the global crisis of legitimacy and on this issue - arguments differ. For e.g. Rawlsian overlapping consensus [1] or Habermasian rational one, as well as their deliberative democracy [2] are under serious suspicions,
since presupposed institutionalized and rationalized conflict of interests in today's democracies, especially in younger ones as Macedonia, it is "out of order". Shumpeter's idea of modus procedurandi [3], as well, seen as a benefit of contemporary democracy, doesn't have any valuable use any more and according to Shatal Mouffe this is because such conceptions are offering strictly rational point of view and consequently, with such visions they have a tendency to disguise real conflicts that exist in societies [4]. Additionally, the rational consensus is problematized in regard to harassing the inclusion principle, in line of what does it mean for citizens to exercise their citizenship in full capacity. Especially important for democracy, then, is the right to participate completely in decision making. To put it simple, in order to exhibit genuine rational consensus for a democratic political system, fundamental precondition is to have full inclusion and symmetry of different interests [a deliberative notion, namely]. But, today such conditions do not exist, many thinkers agree since there are evidences coming from political practice around the world. Therefore we have occasion to contest the "system" because there is a gap between its legitimacy and its legality, or to say between unfairly majority deciding and the rational consensus. There is a free space, namely, to challenge "non-legitimate" agencies as elections, politicians, even laws are.
To put it very simple: if we tend to build democratic political system relying just on elections, and if our democracies depend just on elections, for sure we will experience the above mentioned difficulty. Secondly, this can be one way ticket "for free" to meet authoritarian populism and to sign "democratic totalitarian testament". Younger democracies, especially, transitional and post-socialist as it is a case of Macedonia, in this line, can be seen as paradigmatic examples of such "dreadful meeting" making democracy deformed - experiencing their own "democratic paradoxes" and against backside of a global crisis of legitimacy.
We might say that this derives from inherent problems of democracy itself, bearing in mind its inherent tension with liberalism. As a consequence, the system has to deal with tension between freedom and equality, but, also, we may call this "demo-pathology", or simply populism, democracy's own autoimmune and natural deformation. Such deformation would be present, if democracy is not accompanied with liberal values for example. Post-socialist and transitional Macedonia here is post as prominent evidence of that kind of deformation and it is confirmation that for one liberal democracy to be established election are not sufficient.
Republic of Macedonia, namely, is placed in a bind, whereby, on the one hand, there is constitutional but declarative promotion of liberal democracy and while on the other, we are witnessing the unfolding of a de facto authoritarian and corrupted populist regime. Macedonian authoritarian populist government discursively trough propaganda intensively appeals that is governing "in the name of the people" and on "the basis on electoral general will". Consequently, on the basis of that "supposed" general will - by majority
rule the one is enacting laws, making legislative marathons and it is performing authoritarian proceduralism. Any decision, than, it is pronounced as it is "in according with the law" - nevertheless if law itself it is unjust, or if the one is anti-constitutional. By using this method of authoritarian proceduralism, the Government is even legalizing its own illegal activities. From practical and from theoretical point of view the notion of "volonte genral" is completely disputable because we cannot sum the one since we don't know what does it counts for. Democracy, then, it is a common sense today, if it is reduced just on elections, elections will became an agent repression. Elected officials, it they do not take care of basic democratic principles as: rule of law, inclusion, separation of power, checks and balances, independent media and so on, they can misuse the power and trough the forms of authoritarian proceduralism of sterilized legality will easily perform repression. This is the case with Republic of Macedonia where today there is permanent political and legal crisis and there is complete invalidity of its political system.
Macedonian Crises
Republic of Macedonia, indeed, is experiencing its hardest political, institutional, and legal crisis since its independence in 1991 and in 2015 has been dithering on the edge of a security crisis, too. This urgent state of affairs is direct consequence of previously tackled illiberal/authoritarian tendencies exhibited by governing political elites of the previous decade. A series of events constituted the triggers that turned an unstable situation into the current acute crisis.
First, Mr. Zaev - the leader of the largest Macedonian opposition party SDSM - presented the public with leaked audio materials showing the corrupt behaviour and criminal activities of government officials. He also stressed that at least 20,000 people were illegally wire-taped and placed under surveillance [including the author of this paper as a university staff and member of NGO]. He also claimed that intelligence units were controlled by government authorities and instrumentalised against ordinary citizens with opposition sympathies or tendencies for dissent. The leaked audio materials were promoted in public by a campaign entitled "Truth About Macedonia -Oppositional Political Bombs" [5]. One can hardly swallow all the audio materials, having in mind discussing talks between government officials that are played on tapes. The intention of the campaign was to demystify government's promotion of paternalistic morality, and its declarative demoChristian values, namely to show that behind this 'false' morality there is very much corrupted and criminal behavior. The leaked materials have been a real shock to Macedonian and to international public. Previously frightened and silent citizens, used their anger and started to organize public dissent. They began protesting every day, asking for the resignation of the Government.
The next crises trigger, an even harder one to handle, was an armed incident in the city of Kumanovo last year in May 2015, on the night of the 9th of May, when in a fire exchange, provoked by unknown 'terrorists', 8 policemen were killed and 37 wounded. The 'terrorists' are yet to put forward their demands. The fire exchange in Kumanovo - the second largest city in Macedonia, close to the Kosovo border, with an ethnically mixed population -occurred before a scheduled anti-government protest, planned for the 17th of May 2015. For many analysts and EU, NATO and US officials, this time-frame was rather suspicious; most of them saw the Kumanovo incident as a 'prearranged, artificial' incident, with the specific goal of preventing the planned protests of the 17th of May 2015, and with a dangerous mission to create the impression of brewing inter-ethnic tensions between Macedonians and Albanians in an attempt to distract from the mounting political tensions (the "political bombings") [6]. Indeed, after the Kumanovo incidents, although seriously traumatized, people showed greater connectedness regardless of their ethnic background and the big protest, scheduled for the 17th of May, 2015, (alongside the many small, everyday marches and rallies) went ahead despite the dreadful incidents. Yet, despite the non-violent nature of the movement, some of the protesters/occupiers have already been detained and held (without charge) for weeks [7]. On the other side, there are contra-protests and protestors, yet claiming that Macedonia is subject to an international conspiracy, while they are called to defend the democratically "e l e c t e d" majority. This is the referent mark of a clientelistic way of doing politics in Macedona - as many have claimed that this gathering was ordered by the party of government rather than a spontaneous movement. Last summer, after the huge protests indeed, Macedonia got its "Przino Agreement" - a contract between major political parties for ending political crises. Przino Agreement was constructed on the basis of the special experts report i.e. Reinhardt Pribe's report [8]. The Agreement was guaranteed by International Community (EU-USA, mainly) [9]. But, this agreement, today it is not valid, since for every particular obligation there the compromised Government have made obstructions1. Beside other important points in this Agreement the one stipulates urgent priority reforms that have to be done in order to for Macedonia to prepare credible elections.
Insufficiency of elections for liberal democracy
Giving special attention to Macedonian elections is prominent since Macedonian elections are seen as a symptom of serious illness of Macedonian
1 Another problem was illegal presidential "pardoning" for 56 persons - some of them were under investigation, others were in pre-investigation phase. This particular presidential decision bought a lot of people on the streets again to protest against selective justice and against presidential pardoning of corrupted politicians.
corrupted political system. Namely, electoral fraud done in 2011 it is a subject of investigation for Special Prosecutor Office, since from the wiretapped and leaked materials we found out that Macedonian Government have made a serious criminal harms in regard to electoral result. They have compromised electoral boxes and electoral votes lists, they made falsification of personal identity cards producing phantom voters, as well as, during elections the Party in office was guiding the Ministry of Interior in order to control this electoral fraud. Hence this is just a sequence on what we have found out from leaked materials and there are many other serious crimes and anti-constitutional scandals done, elections are in focus because they were not held - properly. Particularly, they were not accompanied with strong democratic principles as rule of law, anti-corruptive records, separation of powers, media freedom, independent judiciary and other important democratic principles - and -exactly because of such democratic reductionism, elections easily became a subject of fraud.
Today [2016], a second year of constant perpetual crisis, Macedonia doesn't have legal government, people are on streets protesting every day, there is unbearable tension since there are no juridical proceeding for organized crimes tackled in leaked materials. For a long time, indeed, there was no opposition in the Parliament (since December 2011), no political dialogue, no separation between Party and State, no rule of law, no freedom of the press, no independence of the judiciary, selective justice, violation of human rights. What is obvious there is a form of deformed democracy and liberalism or populist authoritarianism in the management of the state.
In this line, we could say that Macedonian crisis is a concrete consequence of such r e d u c t i ve understanding of democracy - and that is democracy without liberalism or simply authoritarian populism, grounded on "false" and corrupted elections. Pathological conditions, of this kind we can prove as well with many evidence coming from relevant reports published by the international community, whether it is individual governments such as the US, or organisations such as the EU and the OSCE, or independent civil society organisations such as Reporters without Borders and Freedom House, are all unanimous in their assessments of the rotten state of democracy, or what's left of it [10].
Elections alone, it is a common sense, even in consolidated democracy are not sufficient for total legitimacy, but in Macedonian case, elections are not contested as a question of legitimacy, but to the contrary- the problem goes far beyond the "legitimacy debate"- and their l e g a l I t y is seriously questioned. Yet, the compromised government officials repetitively appeal on elections and "popular" will. That is why suggestion is : for such perversion to be preventively escaped in process of launching democracy, beside elections, what is necessary- is to have complete exercise of rule of law, check and balance, strict power separations, very efficient and independent
anti-corruption bodies, free media, human rights watch dogs , strong civil society and so on. Macedonian case of deformed democracy, namely, proves that if there are not those additional democratic pre-requisites and if we reduce the one just on election - we can get illegal government, or system of authoritarian and populism - illiberal democracy.
From the other side, for consolidated and not well consolidated democracies, even more, there has to be also legal allowance for contesting and resisting the system with other more "symbolic citizens weapons" as civil disobedience and other non-violent resistance actions are. Such methods can limit authorities in power making them more accountable, and as democratic "accessories" are tools not significant just for authoritarian/ totalitarian regimes. In this context on line with Kateb, Smith saw namely, lets paraphrase them both, that for Hannah Arendt - civil disobedience has to be constitutionally guaranteed because it is a method for nourishing legitimacy [11, 12]. As well as, the same can be found in Habermas, when he wrote on civil disobedience that is a "litmus test for democracy" [13].
Contemporary political theory, namely, sees non-violent resistance as common sense in an era of legitimacy crisis. For younger democracies, particularly, this is even more relevant and might be necessary supplement for their continuous democratization, since authorities in power very easily can deviate: as we saw from Macedonian case. Hence non-violent resistance acts are not conventional political method, they are methods with very high legitimacy grade since they mobilize citizens against radical injustice, or against repression coming from laws, for e.g. For non- violent resistance to be expressed, it is not necessary to experience physical aggression by authorities, but, the one can be allowed as a resistance against unfair laws, or against non-legitimate decisions. Simply it can be seen as a "non-violent battle" for a better world and more justice. With such democratic methods, endangered "right to participate" convert itself in "right to resist" against any illegitimate and non-inclusive politics/ law/government of politician. As such a "right to resist" should be consider as "procedural appeal for inclusion", and not as an illegal act [14, 15]. Yet, such act, could be wrongly interpret as illegal, by contested authorities, as it is case in "Macedonian Colored Revolution" where protesters that are coloring facades of major governmental objects in order to represent their dissatisfaction with it, are constantly repressed and detained [16.]. With constitutional allowing of civil disobedience acts for the purpose of citizens to gain full representation and for the purpose of all conflicting interests to have a chance in exercising real rational consensus there has to be attempt in establishing "legitimate" government. In this way consolidation of liberal democracy has a better future. This is because in democratic environment it is expected for all "affected sides" to participate in decision making.
КОММУНИКОЛОГИЯ - COMMUNICOLOGY
Democracy to come
When speaking on democracy, we should consider the one in deridarian sense - as democracy a venire, or, as a democracy to come [17, 18]. The one and only continuum in regard to democracy, namely, it is its capacity to be improved. This is because there is no such democracy that is established ones and for all. Nether there is democracy that we can take it for granted. That is why when speaking of democracy it is always a question of democracy to come. In the same sense, election maybe - there were sufficient for some primordial times to satisfy democracy, but for today's world elections are just a small part in democratic game. And if we agree that representative democracy is in crises, and that a question of "crisis of legitimacy" is always a matter of currency, than, what we [or our political systems] would have to do is to try to perform such democracy that would balance between "radical notion of democracy" and "its elitist counterpart", or to balance between original and classical notion of democracy [as direct and immediate], from one side , and from the other, with its as elitist - efficient attributes. The main vector lies on horizon of diversification between classical/ancient democratic thought and contemporary/modern democratic thought. The first one, point with the ideas of direct democracy, immediacy, bonding ethics with politics and consequently promotes this public morality (for e.g. Athens democracy). Second one is more adapted to mass societies and asks for efficiency, effectiveness in decision making and representation. It does not promote any public morality (we know it as Procedural Republic). The first one has its origin in Antiquity, the second one in Modernity. First one is "popular", the other is "elitist". The first one easily deforms itself in populism, the other one in authoritarian proceduralism. Both are not perfect, but for the political system to be democratically valid and to be liberal or to say stabile there has to be a balance between both conceptions. There is need, indeed, to leave a space for continuous democratization. Such space could be located in between inherent and constitutive gap amongst legality and legitimacy of each democratic system- and that gap might be satisfied by allowing non-violent acts and performances as acts of civil disobedience are.
References:
1. Rawls J., "Theory of Justice", Cambridge, MA, 1974; "Political Liberalism", Columbia University Press, 1993; "The Idea of Public Reason" Journal of Philosophy XCII (3), 1995;
2. Habermas, J., "The Theory Of Communicative Action- Reason And Rationality In The Society" Boston Bacon Press , 1984; "Reconciliation Trough The Public Use Of Reason", Journal of Philosophy XCII (3)1995;"Between Facts And Norms", Cambridge MA MIT press 1996;
3. Shumpeter J., "Capitalism Socialism And Democracy", New York , 1974
4. Mouffe Ch., "Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism", Reihe Politikwissenschaft, 72, December 2000, Institut f r H here Studien (IHS), Wien, http:// users.unimi.it/dikeius/pw_72.pdf, ; "The Democratic Paradox", Verso, London, 2000;
5. Regular news on wiretapped scandal : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/ feb/27/fears-macedonias-fragile-democracy-amid-coup-wiretap-claims; and original audio archive with leaked materials: http://arhiva.sdsm.org.mk/default.aspx?articleId= 11768&mId=55&agId=5
6. Regular news on Kumanovo incident 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/may/11/macedonia-violence-nikola-gruevski-government
7. Reports on detention http://www.mhc.org.mk/announcements/294#
8. Recommendations of the Senior Experts' Group on systemic Rule of Law issues relating to the communications interception revealed in Spring 2015 /Special Experts Report i.e. (Pribe Report) http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/news_corner/news/news-files/20150619_recommendations_of_the_senior_experts_group.pdf
9. Przino Agreement : A. The protocol to the Agreement of 2 June 2015: http://europa. eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-15-5372_en.htm; B. The Agreement of 2 June http:// ec.europa.eu/enlargement/news_corner/news/news-files/20150619_agreement.pdf
10. Referent reports on democratic backside http://www.state.gov/documents/ organization/253085.pdf; https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/ macedonia;https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia/macedonia/ report-macedonia/;
11. Smith, W. "Recalming The Revolutionary Spirit, Arendt on Civil Disobedience", European Journal of Political Theory, April 2010 vol. 9 no. 2 149-166;
12. Kateb, G. " Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Evil". New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1984;
13. Habermas, J.,"Civil Disobedience: Litmus Test for the Democratic Constitutional State", Berkley Journal Of Sociology, 1985;
14. Фрчкоски, ЖД и Чупеска, А, "Граганската непослушност (civil disobedience) и Уставот", во "Избори и политички партии" Политичка Мисла, р.41, март 2013, КАС, Ско^е; accessible at : http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas 33939-1522-2-30. pdf?130328101320;
15. Thomassen, L., " With The Limits Of Deliberative Reason Alone-Habermas, Civil Disobedience And Constitutional Democracy", SAGE,2001,
16. Regular news on "Macedonian colorful revolution" https://www.rt.com/ news/345638-colorful-revolution-macedonia-protest/
17. Fritsh, M. "Deridas Democracy to come Constellations", An International journal of Critical and Democratic Theory , Volume 9, issue 4 p 574-597, 2002
18. Derrida J, . "Specters of Marx", Rothledge Classic, Rutledge , 2006; " The Politics of Friendship" Verso, London, 2005; "Rogues: Two Essays on Reason ", Stanford University Press, 2004;
