Does Universal Suffrage equate to democracy?

Universal suffrage is a method to represent the opinion of public. Voters can choose (a) representative(s) who has/have similar opinions in public policy or governing under a relatively fair and just procedure. The basis of this is to choose intermediates who collect public opinion and make their voice heard, in order to make measures or policies favourable to the public more likely being implemented.

However, standing for elections can be very costly because massive election campaigns must be held in order to address ideas of candidates and draw attention of voters. Actually, political groups receive most of donations from large, influential enterprises for expenditures of their daily opeations and election campaigns. That means wealthy fews can interfere with the agenda of politicians and orientation of mass media. Elected governments will become an apparatus of the major enterprises to control the society and thus the promises by politicians often render meaningless.

Also, most of the citizens only cast the vote to well-known personalities because they have to make their voting decision under limited information provided by mainstream media. That have effectively barred general public, including "real" independent candidates to participate the decision-making of public affairs and legislation process.

Worst still, most of election systems cannot prevent demagogues to seize the power and manoeuvring the governing structure and legal system to take advantage by themselves, or even implement repressive measures, like "suspending" or depriving the rights of citizens, especially under economic depression.

The original text was distributed on 4 July 2012, 10:07pm.