CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACGROUND OF THE STUDY
Democracy in its simplest definition means government of the people, of the people and for the people. It its often referred to as government of popular participation, even though sound schools of thought will argue that democracy in the contemporary society cannot accommodate every member of a society, what can be possible is representative participation. However, in its original form and as practiced in ancient Greek city stated and approximated of New England town meetings and swiss contions, Democracy simply means full participation of all citizens in the daily routine of administration of community affairs. Literally however, democracy means government of the people, by the people and for the people. This is derivative from two Greek word that make up the word “Democracy” which literally means people to be ruled. Yet. Some western political theorists for example, kotler how holds the view that democracy is only a system of government that guarantees direct maximum popular control over the decision.
From the foregoing, it is clear that democracy as the ancient Greek developed it entails the participation of every member of a society. Meanwhile, the participation will be difficult to obtain or guarantee in modern societies or state, in its purest form. What could be obtained is therefore representation. To this and Robert Dahl and others, believe that is safe only in the hands of popularly elected elite whose powers are limited and who can be removed while in the officer by the people whenever their wishes are not being not. Thus, the focus of the thesis is on effective popular control over the elected representative of the people as opposed to direct participation, which is in modern control, neither desirable nor attainable. Invariably, what we call democracy today is representative government. If means that the citizens should choose those they feel could represent their interest and government on their behalf according to the principles of majority rule. In other words, the philosophical basis of representative government is the idea of popular sovereignty.
Essentially whatever may be the difference is important to note that ideal democracy, guarantees the government that will be in the interest of the people. The government that will be responsive to popular wishes and guarantee that every citizen must have some share in the decision –making process either by way of directs participation, by way of electing the decision makes and popular control. Indeed, democracy must hold certain common promises that makes it 50 attractive to all who profess or aspire to practices it. In its quality, shunning all forms of class differences. In its economic sense, it attempts to level inequalities in wealth. And in total and political sense, it aims basically at securing the consent of the governed, protecting his human personality and achieving the well. If it is agreed that these are the goals of democracy, to how than can a governmental system achieve the goal ? Or if any goal system claim to level itself as democratic, what features do are look for a system. Perhaps, an answer to these questions would help in quintessence of democracy.
ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF DEMOCARCY
POPUAR SOVEREIGNITY: For a democratic system of government, it is necessary that sovereign power resides in the people. If the ultimate command of fill and exclusive legal power, command of fully and exclusive legal power, what we have is autocracy or dictatorship and if it is on the hands of a few people , we have oligarchy, aristocracy and not democracy.
EQUAL OPPORTNITY FOR ALL: This implies that the equal access of all members of the society to the political decision making process must be guarantee. It also requires economic independence and job security. More importantly, it means one man, each vote weighted equally with another. Every individual must not only have the right to vote but also the right to be voted for in any election.
AVAILABILITY OF CHOICE BETWEEN ALTERNATIVE
In democratic setting it is compulsory opportunity to choose from competing alternative, political to complement the peoples right to political equation, genie alternative policy programmes must be presented to the people at elections to enable them make real choices. This is than achieved by organizing the political elite into factions or parties with different political prgrammes.
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