From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 10 2008 - 18:41:49 EDT
I think that this process that Gerry describes perfectly sumarises the undemocratic nature of pyramidal elections. No system is more suited to dominance by a party elite than this. The 'democracy' here is no more than it is in all electoral systems, a means of legitimising an elite. Here we see the same process that created the party state of the Bolesheviks. Paul Cockshott Dept of Computing Science University of Glasgow +44 141 330 1629 www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/ -----Original Message----- From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu on behalf of GERALD LEVY Sent: Mon 3/10/2008 10:25 AM To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu Subject: Re: [OPE] Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela internal ballot. Alejandro A: I question the meaning that you attach to the numbers. Who are the 87,000 people who chose the provisional executive? Aren't they, if I recall correctly, composed of 7 _elected_ people from each of around 12,000 battalions? (NB: the 5 million member figure for party membership was never a serious # and certainly doesn't represent 'registered party members'.) Where did the 69 names come from? If I understood the process correctly, everyone of the 1600 congress delegates proposed 3 names - hopefully, in consultation with battalion members. Of course, many of the delegates proposed many of the same names - especially the better known and respected Bolivarians. Nothing wrong with that. None of this sounds undemocratic, especially recalling that there will be general elections for public offices in which candidates from other parties and individuals who don't belong to or represent parties will participate. In solidarity, Jerry _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Mar 31 2008 - 00:00:14 EDT