Gen question: Are elections the best way for all countries to determine their leadership?

[rhett o rick]

What about for countries where the populations is mostly uneducated?

How about Gen Tito? Was he a good leader for Yugoslavia?

[inademv]

1. I would prefer a democratic technocracy

over a direct democracy or a representative democracy. One of my biggest complaints with a representative democracy is that it often leads to lay-people making decisions of a technical or scientific or medical nature about which they have no understanding whatsoever (read: most Republican positions especially climate change).

[fasttense]

2. I think there should be a lottery.

Where all able bodied citizen's names are placed and one name is pulled out of the hat, or 50, or 500 (depending on how the legislature, executive and judiciary is set up).

But they are only allowed a max of 5 years, one term.

You will be guaranteed that the make up of the government leadership would represent the citizens.

AND you would be forced to ensure adequate, maybe even excellent, education for all your citizens, because you never knew which one would become president/senator/governor/judge some day.

If your population is mostly uneducated, you should educate them. Not design a system of governance that by-passes the majority of your citizens.

[Drale]

3. Yeah maybe it should be like jury duty

everyone has to take their turn being a charge for a year or so.

[alc]

4. I want a lottery but not among everyone.

Have an election like we do now, but instead of the person with the most votes being elected, they get the best opportunity to win the lottery. The winner is elected by picking from 100 ping-pong balls (or some other random mechanism). If you get 51% of the vote you get 51 of the balls with your name. If you get 1% of the vote you get 1 ball. You'd need 100% of the vote to be guaranteed to win.

No more career politicians since they all need to count on loosing at some point.

Companies won't be as motivated to give lots of money to help someone "win".

Representatives will be more likely to represent ALL their constituents. Since they no longer need just 50%+1 vote, they should want to make as many as possible happy to maximize their vote count.

3rd parties will get represented. Out of 435 representatives, they are likely to have a few even with only 1% of the vote.

[rhett o rick]

5. Let me re-ask the question. Is having elections the best way to determine leadership

as compared to other methods. Like hereditary succession, or allowing the toughest dictator take charge.

Of course we all want everyone to have democracies, but is that the best for everyone? Are underdeveloped countries equipped to handle the requirements of democracy? We have removed many a dictator only to have the country fall back under the control of another.