TRIBUNE – The bottom and the object of the decisions taken – which escape the people – and the behavior of the leading elites vis-a-vis the people, especially for 5 years, sometimes make doubt that one is still, in the facts, in democracy. Who wants the government to be that of the people, by the people for the people. Even though the said elites proceed from the election.
The considerations that were issued 2,500 years ago in Greece on the respective merits of drawing lots and election and on their practice, are again in fashion. And some are campaigning for the substitution of the drawing of lots for the election.
The drawing of lots apparently has advantages:
From a technical point of view :
– It eliminates professionalism, therefore the submission of deputies to the internal rules of the environment for the nomination and the renewal of the nomination (with what that implies on the relationship elected officials – voters).
– It removes the pre-election reliance on financial groups that fund election campaigns and condition voters’ minds with their media (see the fabrication and typical ideal in this regard, that of candidate Macron).
– It overcomes the obstacle of the money necessary for campaigning and which distances (a little like in the days of the tax on the property tax) the most modest from the material possibility of applying for office (caricatural example of the election to the presidency of the Republic).
– From a statistical point of view, modest people would be less likely to be under-represented.
But, still from a technical point of view (and among others):
– It does not exclude the divergences of personal interests between the draws.
– It does not prohibit haggling between those drawn by lot for the distribution of positions between them and struggles for the conquest of influence within the State.
– It does not prohibit the taking over by the financiers after the draw (lobbying and media campaigns to provoke the dismissal – if the dismissal is planned – of the non-obedient draws).
– It does not guarantee a better recruitment of the leaders, the proportion of imbeciles not varying according to the place where one finds them. Unless there are re-education workshops or the installation of reconditioning chains for the draws, who would then be able to know what is good for their fellow creatures. Not having come out of a “klèrôtérion” (a Greek drawing machine reconstituted by archaeologists – innovation fair, Marseille, May 17 and 18, 2017), they would remain in their own juice.
– It carries with it the weakening or suppression of political parties, which are nevertheless very useful to those who, traditionally, need to come together to organize the defense of the content of their plate. And which are very convenient for providing citizens with information and arguments that are not those of the financial and economic lobbies.
And then, draw lots, it’s the veterinarian’s remedy applied to the election: “Is the animal sick? We bite it! »
Half of the citizens no longer participate in the elections? With the draw, the voting half will no longer need to move…
So, should we give in to fashion, by sublimating ancient Greece as some people do?
NB: Ancient Greece in which none of us however lived, more than 2500 years ago, to be able to know, other than by rare writings with strong dogmatic connotation or by the deductions of archaeologists, therefore… without being able to seriously know the mode of functioning of the society of the time. Nor to pass an informed judgment on the latter.
All while forgetting in passing to ask why the Greeks of the draw have put themselves in the election.
Should we claim that the drawing of lots, because it is used elsewhere (often for circumscribed activities and limited territories) would be transposable throughout France and for the designation of the members of the decision-making assembly?
Or, to go in the same logic, could we argue that the “griots” since they are very useful and well respected in African societies, could replace the spokesperson of the government or the laudators of Emmanuel Macron?
The answer is obviously negative! (Although for the griots…)
The election allows citizens, through the choice of people, to determine the future content of the rules that will be imposed on them. Not the draw.
This is the “mandate” resulting from the election, whether it is imperative or, for reasons of convenience, representative (as Louis XVI perceived it in his letters convening the States General).
In the centuries that preceded us, the election of “representatives” called upon to decide was a great conquest.
Bourgeois who elect their representatives to the Revolution in order to govern in place of the king.
Right to vote extended to everyone in 1848. A few years moreover from Lincoln’s famous sentence pronounced at Gettysburg (1863): “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”.
If once elected, the representatives have a representative mandate, which technically “allows” them if they make this personal choice:
– to adopt stupid or scandalous measures,
– to distinguish among the people, “the populace” that we despise, that we are afraid of and that we protect ourselves (it is not the people of the Medef or the Davos Forum that we are blinding),
– to be at the service of lobbies,
– to follow like fools or cynics, everything that the government “swallows” them, whether it concerns the substance of the decisions, their real objective, or the way of making them,
– to make a career mainly to take advantage of the direct advantages that the said career provides or the indirect advantages of which it provides the opportunity,
… then you have to frame
– the election
et
– the elected.
…but not remove the election.
Because then the citizens would be deprived of the sovereignty of which they are in principle owners (principle that we have not yet dared to remove from article 3 of the constitution). But just like François Mitterrand caused citizens to lose use of it by signing Maastricht (and like Nicolas Sarkozy and the political class of the moment renewed the affair). And by adding, so that the judges do not ignore it, a new Title XV to the Constitution. Who transfers the powers of the institutions of France to special, tailor-made bodies, responsible for implementing a program of reforms over which the citizens no longer have control…
Drawing lots would deprive citizens of determining what they are still authorized to determine.
The drawing of lots is a solution which seems to us to have to be rejected.
And all the more so since nothing says that the people, more and more exasperated, will not recover their sovereignty one day.
– by taking it over from the Brussels institutions (and thereby giving meaning and utility to the use of the ballot paper).
– and saying to the Americans: “Enough! “. As with the French leaders: “It’s enough to drag us into the wars led by the Americans or the “dirty tricks” fomented by the latter”.
Since the electoral process is organized in such a way that the part of the people, the most modest and the most numerous, is always led by the economic-financial elite who manage society for their benefit, it is necessary to act on the “rigging” of the election
– which cause elections to reproduce social inequalities in a political form,
– and give a “hypocritical” legitimacy to the policy which is carried out when the latter is manifestly unfair for a part of the citizens, even if they are “nothing”, or to the decisions when they are obviously contrary to the interest of the nation.
Electoral constituencies, voting system, manipulation of minds by the media at the orders of those who have economic financial power and who “hold” the State and its leaders, conflicts of interest and corruption, etc…
This is clearly what needs to be done. After gaining technical knowledge on these issues. Which is not very “sorcerer”, especially since there are studies, parliamentary reports, which are immediately exploitable.
“It is up to us to decide that the government of the people, by the people and for the people, will never disappear from the face of the earth. (Lincoln to Gettysburg).
France is on earth.
Marcel M. MONIN is an honorary university lecturer.