The Effectiveness of Democracy

Democracy is considered as the ideal system for a government where everyone gets the right to vote and everyone can choose their leaders. It is a system where votes of the people are translated into representation. It is the only system where people have to the right to speak their mind and to express their opinion when it comes down to choosing their leaders. Every person’s vote is considered equal in this system and the opinion shared by majority of the population is used to administer the government. But it is not that simple. Democracy is a very complex system where translating votes by the people into representation has been an issue. Such complexity in the system is the reason why often votes of a large number of people of a state are not properly translated into representation. This comes as a disappointment to the population and discourages them from voting further because they think their vote does not matter and their vote will not make any difference. Apart from the complexities in the electoral systems, democratic system of the government as a whole has many flaws. Democracy does not last that long and with introduction of new governments come new laws in place. The economic structure of the state can be changed substantially which can destabilize the economy. With new governments come new global relationships with other countries and this point matters a lot especially if the previous government had signed a long-term agreement, which means the new government has to abide by the agreement. These different kinds of flaws in the system raises a question. Does democracy always work? If not, then why?

There are many reasons democracy does not always work. One the of the primary reasons is that candidates fool the population by making false promises and after winning the elections, exploit the population which leaves the population in complete disappointment. Exploitation leaves the state in a bad condition and becomes more difficult for the next government to mend it. Since governments have limited time in power, mending the damages done is also limited to an extent. The damage done is long-lasting and apart from that, the population is discouraged from voting since their needs are not fulfilled. Also, in some cases some candidates are in authority before the elections and coercion is used over their local population to vote for that candidate.