Campaigns in a Limited Democracy

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/180278/campaigns-in-a-limited-democracy/

Campaigns in a Limited Democracy
El Universal, Mexico
By Silvia Gómez Tagle
Translated By Adam Zimmerman
27 October 2012
Edited by Lydia Dallett

In the United States there are still notable deficiencies in the organization, supervision and function of the institutions in charge of organizing the election — so much so that in many ways, the Mexican electoral system is more advanced. To begin with, the Federal Election Commission has neither autonomy nor a permanent national structure which gives it legitimacy in all the states; nor does there exist a nationally issued photo ID that matches the electoral register.

The country is an indirect democracy, where state-wide electoral votes, without regard to the demographic weight of each one, have more weight than the direct votes of the citizens at the polls. It is a system where fraud is possible and not always punished, as was seen in Florida during George W. Bush’s 2000 election, where, in the end, the Supreme Court confirmed his victory.

~snip~

In the American model of campaign finance, public financing is optional. If the candidates choose private financing, as is the case with Obama and Romney, there is no limit on campaign spending. As in many countries, the candidate’s success depends on the resources he is able to raise, only in the United States this activity is carried out in the clear light of day because it is considered legitimate. The result is that in this campaign Barack Obama has raised 6.5 billion Mexican pesos ($500 million); Mitt Romney is approaching this figure in the final weeks of the campaign.

~snip~

Beyond these superficial reflections, there remain questions that we should try to answer for the future of our own democracy, because if the electoral democracy in the United States is so imperfect from the institutional point of view and the Mexican institutions are apparently more advanced, what is it that makes the U.S. democracy so stable? It seems to me that this could be due to the two-party character of the U.S. democracy, which has led to the elimination of positions on the extreme right and left — and even the moderate left — leaving only the center, where the alternation between Republicans and Democrats means very few changes at the end of the day. Is it the fact that Americans have resigned themselves to accepting only these two options which keeps their democracy stable?