The Right to a Choice 207

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You may have to trust me on this, but the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is a terrific organisation that does remarkably good work, considering that it works for member states as diverse, and governments as severally ill-intentioned, as the United States, Russia, Uzbekistan and the UK.

When I was looking to leave the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I applied for a senior post at ODIHR and travelled to Warsaw for an interview. I believe my application was torpedoed by the FCO, who considered me far too committed to democracy and human rights to be allowed to work on the subject in a formal international body. There is a de facto – amd perhaps even an acknowledged – veto by member states on employment of their individual nationals in international institutions.

Yet somehow despite national governments ODIHR has managed to do its job credibly, and by and large OSCE election monitoring in particular has been very valuable, even where the result of the monitoring is not what some or even most member states on the OSCE Council want. All of Uzbekistan’s elections have been judged not free and fair, for example, with election monitoring missions generally not even being deployed on the grounds of assessment by ODIHR that the preconditions for free and fair elections simply do not exist.

Unfortunately ODIHR has no means to prevent member states from simply ignoring its reports, which they do, and the Heads of State whose election OSCE pronounced fraudulent immediately turn up as members of the OSCE council. But the rports themselves and the work behind them are good.

One important criterion for a free and fair election is that there should be a real choice offered to voters between genuine political alternatives. You find this expressed several times in the ODIHR guidance for election observers:

Genuine elections presupposes that the electoral process will be conducted in an accountable
and transparent manner and will provide a real and informed choice for voters,

A genuine election is a political competition that takes place in an
environment characterized by confidence, transparency, and accountability and that provides
voters with an informed choice between distinct political alternatives.

In Uzbekistan, for example, everyone has the chance to go and vote and there are several alternative candidates to choose between, but they all support President Karimov and his policies. In fact, this provision on distinct political alternatives and genuine choice has been repeatedly used by ODIHR and OSCE against elections throughout the former Soviet Union.

So what do we make of the EU – all of whose members are members of the OSCE – insisting that the leaders of all Greek political parties must sign up to an agreement to supprot the dreadful cuts in public spending, in imminent elections? With severe financial menaces, they are demanding that the Greek people be denied any real choice in the upcoming election. The EU members are thus in the most brazen breach of their OSCE commitments and obligations. It is appalling hypocrisy.

I am not sure in practice what mechanisms exist in Greece to keep independent candidates off the ballot or deny them access to the media. But the institutional advantages enjoyed by the main parties are massive throughout Europe, and having all the main parties campaigning on the same economic policy – due to direct foreign political pressure – cannot be a free and fair election.

I hope that the example of Greece will further open people’s eyes to what has happened in the UK, where the massive and growing gap between rich and poor is enmeshed with complete corporate control of what are now three neo-con main parties, whose policy distinctions are absolutely tiny. They all support bank bailouts, quantitative easing, public spending cuts and aggressive neo-con wars. The differences of degree are extremely marginal.

I published an article on this in The Guardian before our last general election – the rather foolish headline was not mine. But I am quite proud of that article, and believe there is increased understanding and support for the view it expresses.

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207 thoughts on “The Right to a Choice”

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  • nobody

    Uzbek,
    .
    Just quickly since I have to run, on the subject of North Korea as authors of their own misery: how would your country (my country, whichever) cope if they were placed under a complete trade embargo? No exports, no imports, nothing, a complete shutout. How long would it take before that country ground to a halt and was reduced to the direst of poverty?
    .
    And then there’s the repression. Have you ever read any William Blum? Were you to do so you’d find that the Berlin Wall wasn’t built to keep people in but to keep the saboteurs of the West out. Don’t scoff. So complete was the CIA-sponsored destruction of East German infrastructure (power stations, water, sewerage, etc.) that their agents were reduced to blowing things up twice.
    .
    How would your country, any country, cope with that? Would they roll over and play dead? I expect not.
    .
    Have to run. Ciao.

  • Jon

    @crab – thanks. I see they’re on Craig’s feed, but if they are also going to followers’ feeds, then it’s all good. I might be a techie, but I’m not a Twitter/Tweeter (yet anyway) so still figuring it all out!

  • crab

    Jon – ive not been twittering either i just signed up to have a look! So i cant confirm if followers get the tweets yet. However i expect if you follow someone then twitter surely assures that you get fed when they tweet… we shall see.

    Nobody – Not heard that about the Berlin Wall but seems sadly plausible.

  • Courtenay Barnett

    @JimmyGiro,
    You ask:-
    “In a free state, any individual can vote according to their choice. But what mechanisms, if any, exist to stop a democracy devolving into the tyranny of a fascist state?”
    I see things slightly differently.
    A. I believe that there are indeed freedoms within the UK governmental and political systems that are worthy of preservation.
    B. The “free state” in the UK is dominated by the parties, and when the parties dominate, they are supplicants to moneyed interests, which are not reflective of the majority and best interests of the populace. The use of the word “best” begs a much larger debate, but take it at face value for now ( otherwise we are into another huge debate, which will need a thread all of its own).
    C. Once the viable chances for success at the polls become delimited to one or two or even “liberal democrat” ( three) realistic choices of parties – why is this any true expression of democratic expression?
    Now, Cameron wants to keep Scotland this side of the ( political ) border. So, why is a referendum not the true “democratic” option? But, is that not in a certain way, similar to the politics of dominance? So long as a power can dominate the political process, then the process is sanctioned and sold to the public, through the corporate media, as a desirable and acceptable expression of a (the?) “democratic” process.
    P.S. “devolving into the tyranny” ( quote adumbrated) – and, thus your pun unintended – but now identified – and of special relevance to Scotland.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq

    Russia and China have voted against a General Assembly measure calling for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down and strongly condemning human rights violations by his regime, along with North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and others who heeded Syria’s appeal to vote “no.”

    Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari warned that the resolution will send a message to extremists that “violence and deliberate sabotage” are acceptable and will lead “to more chaos and more crisis.”
    .
    It seems to me the multinational New World Order, led by the Anglo-American axis and Israel (spearheaded by the UN), are preparing a final conquest of the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, with nuclear world war implications.
    .
    Russian military drafts options for responding to attack on Iran.
    .
    http://www.worldnewstribune.com/2012/02/15/russian-military-drafts-options-for-responding-to-attack-on-iran/
    .

  • felix

    @Mary Good reason to stay away – Jenni Russell – the most boring writer ever. Re Syria – as with Libya “has not been independently verified”. Code for lies and fakery. But good for massaging the Guardian reading sheep.

  • alan campbell

    With thanks to Private Eye. That draft SNP independence question in full:

    A) Do you, my fellow Bravehearts, want Scotland finally to throw off the yoke of our brutal English overlords who have raped and pillaged our proud land for centuries, as we reclaim our stolen heritage and restore pride to this great land?

    or

    B) Would you prefer to bow and scrape at the feet of spineless Old Etonian Sassenachs, who wreak poverty and despair across this proud Scottish land?

    Answer either “Och Aye” or “The Noo.”

  • evgueni

    No time to read all the comments so apologies if some have said this already. Free and fair elections do not a democracy make. But of course the majority have been duped to think that, including it seems, Craig Murray.
    .
    Party politics is an ultimately corruptible process, and therefore corrupting. Evidence is all around the world – name one ‘democracy’ in your sense of the word that you consider to be delivering real choice to its people.
    .
    Issue politics is clearly the democratic process that would get around the corruptibility of party politics. There is only one known practical means of implementing issue politics on the scale of a modern nation-state – Initiative and Referendum rights. It is the basis of the political system in Switzerland for over 150 years, and Uruguay more recently.
    .
    Mustn’t forget the media either, but again, the definition of free has to change from the Orwellian ‘free to be owned and controlled by an unrepresentative minority’. Because all that means is that the media are free to voice prominently opinions that do not make the owners, advertisers and other controlling interests uncomfortable, i.e. not much of consequence to the 99%.

  • angrysoba

    Nobody:
    .
    Just quickly since I have to run, on the subject of North Korea as authors of their own misery: how would your country (my country, whichever) cope if they were placed under a complete trade embargo? No exports, no imports, nothing, a complete shutout. How long would it take before that country ground to a halt and was reduced to the direst of poverty?

    .
    North Korea was repressive from the very beginning. It also chose to invade South Korea and continue waging war long after it could no longer possibly win. It received lots of food, fuel and material aid from the Soviet Union, China and even Cuba, yet it is still a basket case. It IS the author of its own misery and the author of the misery of Koreans who were duped into returning there from Japan. Also, I would imagine that the mystical “they” who rule world finance and world affairs are as interested in North Korea having its own “money policy” (and for what it is worth, I don’t think the government in North Korea controls the only economy which matters to most people there – the underground market) as they are in Antarctica or the Moon having its own money policy.

  • Mary

    Cross posting from medialens.
    ~~~~~~~
    UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office : “Reaffirming the UK’s commitment to Libya”
    .

    http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=731073982
    .
    “Reaffirming the UK’s commitment to Libya : 16 February 2012 : Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced further UK support for Libya, a year on from the uprising. Speaking today the Foreign Secretary said: “One year ago the Libyan revolution began on the streets of Benghazi. Libyans across the whole country can be proud of how much they have achieved and the hope they have given to others around the world living under the oppression of brutal regimes. Tangible progress has already been made in the transition to a peaceful and stable country. Libya’s future is far brighter than it was a year ago, but there are challenges ahead.”…”
    ~~~~~~~
    How much more crazed can Hague become? I am reminded of Pinter’s ‘It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.’

  • Louie Louie

    North Korea was repressive from the very beginning. It also chose to invade South Korea and continue waging war long after it could no longer possibly win.
    .
    This is relevant to NK’s problems today? You’re talking about the late 40s and early 50s, but NK’s economy was more advanced than the South’s well into the 1960s if not later. Besides, North Korea owes its very existence to the need of the USSR (and later China) to establish and maintain a buffer against the US encirclement via military presence in Japan (and SK). If it weren’t for the insatiable power-hunger of the Yankee Pigfuckers Korea need never have been divided; or if divided could have developed amore benevolent system in the North and in due course re-united.
    .
    If you don’t believe encirclement is a deliberate US policy look at Iran.

  • nobody

    I wonder if this thing takes Japanese script? Let’s give it a burl.
    .
    アグリー?　そうだな!
    .
    Ha ha ha, a Japlish pun, very good! You get it I’m sure.
    .
    Otherwise, how refreshingly dull you remain, Ug. But gags aside, I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Is it that were your country put under a total trade embargo – no oil, no fertilizer, no spare parts, no plastics precursors, no koltan, no computers, no technology exchanges, hell, I could go on and on really – (and for decades mind you!) that it wouldn’t revert to some kind of third world? That’s a neat trick. How would you do it?
    .
    I’m thinking that with knowledge like that, clearly you should be in charge of a large Western nation, as opposed to, you know… teaching English down at Nova or somesuch. But never mind, baby steps and one day, who knows? You could be it. Keep up the good work.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq

    I agree ‘Louie Louie’ thank-you, encirclement and trampling on anyone and anything in a relentless pursuit of the long term economic interests of Britain and the United States of America.
    .
    Soon after the inauguration I asked President Obama by letter to publicly offer remorse, a sincere regret for the lies and deception by the previous Bush administration that resulted in the Iraq war. I spoke of atonement for the immense loss of young life and the ongoing misery of maimed, paralysed and mutilated young bodies left scavenging to survive or die of malnutrition or treatable disease.
    .
    Since that time we have witnessed slaughter of the Bahraini people, the crushing of dissent and intimidation by Egypt’s ruling military council, massacre in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa by President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s thugs backed by Saudi Arabia, the carnage by rebels in Libya leaving a country in ruins, the murderous push for regime change by foreign intervention in Syria and the illegal embargo on Iran, effecting allied world trade, especially Russian exports. Last but not least we sit back and watch Palestinians slaughtered and their land stolen by Israeli settlers. All this while the world moves closer to nuclear war.
    .
    Why does Britain still deny it’s holocausts? The empire is no more and we must learn from the mistakes of the past…
    .
    The suppression of the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya, the Tasmanian genocide, the use of collective punishment in Malaya, the bombing of villages in Oman, the dirty war in North Yemen, the evacuation of Diego Garcia – these are the atrocities of empire burnt into intelligent inquiring minds providing reason and contention, resistance and opposition to the West’s modern day undemocratic agenda.

  • angrysoba

    Louie Louie: This is relevant to NK’s problems today? You’re talking about the late 40s and early 50s, but NK’s economy was more advanced than the South’s well into the 1960s if not later. Besides, North Korea owes its very existence to the need of the USSR (and later China) to establish and maintain a buffer against the US encirclement via military presence in Japan (and SK). If it weren’t for the insatiable power-hunger of the Yankee Pigfuckers Korea need never have been divided; or if divided could have developed amore benevolent system in the North and in due course re-united.

    .
    In some ways you are quite right. The Yankee Pigfuckers are to blame for the division of Korea. If it wasn’t for them then Kim Il-sung’s Soviet-backed army would have swept through the entire peninsula and everyone there would be living in abject poverty.
    .
    But you have already said that going back to the forties and fifties is illegitimate, in some way. Rather, we should talk about the sixties or, perhaps, the seventies. Any reason for the arbitrary-looking dividing line?
    .

  • angrysoba

    Nobody: アグリー?　そうだな!
    .
    Ha ha ha, a Japlish pun, very good! You get it I’m sure.

    .
    このギャグはちょっとわからへん！　ugly? agree? ugly so da na? 説明して下さい！
    。
    おれはＮＯＶＡの教師ではないよ！
    。
    I’m thinking that with knowledge like that, clearly you should be in charge of a large Western nation, as opposed to, you know… teaching English down at Nova or somesuch. But never mind, baby steps and one day, who knows? You could be it. Keep up the good work.
    .
    I don’t aspire to be “in charge of a large Western nation” but presumably you do or you have some dazzling qualifications that you want to amaze us with. If not, what is your point?

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq

    British private security companies, confirmed by my contact working out of Dubai are providing training to the FSA in Syria. This is now been officially confirmed by agent Cameron and sadly I will soon be ‘punished’ for leaking that information here.
    .
    [Second Link]British and Qatari troops are directing rebel ammunition deliveries and tactics in the bloody battle for Homs, according to an Israeli website known for links to intelligence sources.
    .
    http://rt.com/news/france-uk-syria-advisors-569/
    .
    {http://rt.com/news/britain-qatar-troops-syria-893/}
    .

    I have asked Prime Minister Putin in Russia to also supply ‘advisers’ to give diplomatic support and help to human rights groups in documenting alleged atrocities by the Free Syrian Army.

  • MJ

    Mary, your quote edited for accuracy:
    .
    “Afghan drug war triumph: Blair said restoring opium trade was a major reason to invade and 10 years on heroin production is up from 185 tons a year to 5,800. Job done!!”

  • Karel

    Nobody
    asking Uzbek “Have you ever read any William Blum?” adds nothing to the credibility of your nonsensical claim “that the Berlin Wall wasn’t built to keep people in”. I have not heard of Blum but have lived in Berlin for too long to be impressed by your mindless repetition of the official East German propaganda line, concocted in 1961, and never had I met a “Berliner”, as JFK so nicely pronounced, who would believe this nonsense. To refresh you memory. West Berlin was Stalin’s present to the allies (i.e. USA, UK and France) but soon after became a hole in the iron curtain erected around the eastern block. About 3 million East Germans used it to disappear and uncounted number of Poles, Czechs an Hungarians. That the wall served its purpose is documented by subsequent easing of travel restrictions to East Germany for citizens of other “friendly” nations.

  • Mary

    Sarkozeee has gripped Cameron by the throat, cancel that, by the arm in greeting. They are carving up a deal for EDF to construct nuclear power stations in the UK. 1,000 jobs will be created. WOW
    .
    The waste therefrom will be deposited in a field next to Cameron’s home in Oxfordshire. Only joking.
    .
    I hear that they are also discussing co-operation on construction of an unmanned aerial vehicle. Why?
    .
    Press conference just started on news channels.

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