The United States is a major player in global society as a producer, innovator and protector. So, the upcoming mid-term elections in that country deserve a full article. However, despite huge amounts of time and money being spent on the elections, whatever the result, little will change. The Republican Party in government is currently doing poorly at the polls, while the Democrats seem to lack focus and real significance in the political arena. Yet, even as both Houses of the American Parliament (‘Congress’) are falling under the control of the Democrats, with frantic investigations into issues like the justification for declaring war on Iran, there will be plenty of scope for ducking and diving by the present government. The election result will certainly be a strong indicator.
It seems more meaningful to take a fresh look at that political dispensation called ‘democracy’. There are only a few countries across the world that seem to be working comfortably and anywhere near achieving the equilibrium of integrity, fairness, consultation, commitment, consensus and implementation that should be found in a true democracy. Most of the countries claiming to be democracies are, in practical terms, oligarchies. That is, run by groups with substantial power who claim to be fully accountable to their electorate, but rarely are. Only countries like New Zealand, Australia, Scandinavian countries and Canada seem to shine well under the critical public eye, though there are many countries in the world that are too small in area and population to come for the reckoning.
Among other countries like France and Germany, democracy is struggling, where powerful right-wing influence in both countries is displaying itself in groundswells of deeply disillusioned citizens taking to the streets and burning everything in sight. You’d think they had enough of that with the bushfires of the summer.
‘Ladder of democracy’
Let us instead take a step down on the ‘ladder of democracy’. There is a country which is one of the biggest in the world. It has one ‘amaz-ing’ river and around 498 million hectares of wonderful forest which helps the world climatically; but it is under a huge threat. Deforestation is causing parts of the forest to change from a net carbon sink to a carbon source. That country also produced arguably the greatest footballer of all time, one who could play comfortably within the style of today, half a century later. Can’t remember the name, but it rhymed with ‘ballet.’
Yes, you got it. The footballer was Pelé and he could dance too. The country is Brazil. A vast domain that is by far the biggest in its continent of South America and the only one, for historical reasons, that has Portuguese rather than Spanish as its official language. Brazil rarely hits the headlines, but it did so last week following its national elections, when losing contestant Flavio Bolsonaro made a run for it. Having been instructed to surrender his passport, presumably in view of the ongoing money-laundering investigation, he arrived in the USA on October 28, 2026, at a private airport after prior landings in Argentina and Mexico. Direct flights will evidently soon go out of fashion! He and his family allegedly had US Government assistance in one form or another in his escape from Brazil. The US population should not be happy for this to happen, where the Brazil Supreme Court had passed a judgment effectively removing his passport.
But hang on, this is not the Bolsonaro I originally thought it was. The fleeing election-loser was Flavio Bolsonaro, a son of Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian President from 2028-23. That was a president certainly not a favourite of the forest conservationists and one clearly misguided in his non-quarantine policy for COVID, with bad results. Had Flavio won the election, it would be another example of ‘dynasty-democracy’, where either money dominates the election process, or excessive political influence provides succession to more than one member of the same family. It makes a farce of freedom in the vote. There are other examples. Furthermore, it says little about political eligibility and voter choice if they give a 4.4 million-vote majority to a winning president who was earlier acquitted of criminal corruption mainly on judicial technicalities.
Brazil considers itself a ‘federal presidential constitutional democracy’, but it tolerates much that is not consistent with the morality of true democracy. That is not to suggest that the country lacks accountability in its system. But it is hardly a role-model political system for democracy. Meanwhile, one democracy and sovereign State, namely Ukraine, which has recently brought senior corrupt individuals to justice, must fight on while so-called democracies sign self-serving agreements with a country that should be fully ostracised; that’s right, Russia.
Across the world, politics is generally a mess. Global society is a very complex entity with a huge mix of decency, skill, wealth, greed and corruption, empathy and determination to lead a good life. The three magic words that cannot fail to achieve continuing political success are ‘strong social welfare’. It falls on a government to motivate, attract and oversee real growth in its economy, since a strong social welfare system demands a strong economy with full tax compliance and big revenue from it. Simple, but not easy.
