Electoral democracy is a system of government in which every citizen of the society votes to the representatives who has been elected themselves for the election in the society in order to pass laws for them and represent them in the government. For instance, in Afghanistan where the citizens participate in the election and elect the president and members of the parliament so both electing the president and parliament members represent electoral democracy (History, 2019).
There are some conditions that needs to be fulfill for the electoral democracy to work. Firstly, free and fair election is very important in the selection of leadership there must be an opportunity for the real competition. If big part of the citizens who voted thinks that elections are fake or are unhappy with the result, then it means that the election result was not fair.
Secondly, freedom of speech which means there must be freedom of speech between people so media and people can freely talk and express their opinions. Thirdly, citizens who votes must believe that a meaningful choice exists between representatives (Caramani, 2019).
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Advantage of electoral democracy: Electoral democracy gives power to the people because people have elected their representatives in the government so whenever an issue comes up the representative sent the voice of people to the higher authority of the government and accept the complaints of people if it does not work how the people want then they can out vote the representative in the coming elections.
Electoral democracy encourages people to participate if the citizen are happy and know that the government hear their voice and changes are coming then the citizen shows up and take participation if an important decision is presented for voting (Caramani, 2019).
Disadvantage of electoral democracy: Representative in electoral democracy represents the voice of people, but most of the time it does not work because the voice of the people end automatically with the election, citizens can go on demonstration, write to the government officials, trying to make appointment, but it does not work most of the time.
Because the representatives lie instead of working for their people whom they promised during election now focused on their own personal benefits and gains and are very busy in stealing the available resources of the government. To be said that electoral democracy open way to corruption (Caramani, 2019).
To sum up electoral democracy it is a form of government that can be beneficial because that gives power to the people, everyone see him or herself in the government, there is equality between citizens and everyone in the society feel that they are counted.
But on the other hand electoral democracy opens ways for corruption and citizens are put out of favor instead high authority are busy in looking for their own benefits and gains and use the power for illegal activities and their own gains which has a direct negative effect on the life of human beings in the society.
Chooses one not free country from the freedom House database and explain why it does not quality as a democracy.
I have chosen Afghanistan from the freedom house database and will explain it why it does not qualify as a democracy and what are the threats that makes it difficult for it to qualify as a democratic country. All the reasons are discussed below.
After the fall of the Taliban government by the USA in 2001, Afghanistan made some great steps toward democratization, rebuilding everything from the beginning including the political system, different democratic institutions, freedom of speech and are still working for the better democratic future, but there are still different insurgent groups such as the Taliban and IS who are against democracy and current Afghan government which is elected by the people through fair election despite many securitythreats from Taliban.
We hear daily what is going on in Afghanistan, that journalists are been killed or threatened, bombs explosions, attacks on schools and government places by Taliban and IS(Council on Foreign Relations, 2019).
People have some political rights but they are limited Afghanistan current government was elected through electoral only four million people participated out of 35 million because of security threats by the Taliban which threatened to punish the citizens for voting, women participation has been declined from 41 percent to 34 percent because women face most of it.
There is freedom for people to organize in different political parties and political parties have been free to seek registration. Every party and its leader seek power through election but cannot believe on the election system and see the system full of fraud (Freedomhouse.org, 2019).
Government is not functioning the way it should because it is heavily dependent on economic and military support from the United States and its allies. The government sees it very difficult and full of problems to operate and enforce its laws and decisions in the areas under the Taliban control.
The government has many times failed to prison all those highly ranked government authorities who are involved in corruption because they have strong relation inside the government. People are appointed inGovernment positions not on the base of knowledge but on the base of relation, ethnic background, personal and political ties and so on (Freedomhouse.org, 2019).
If a project is presented for bidding only this can win it if you are a government official, parliament member, or having any kind of relation with the government. So the competition for the getting contract of the project is not announced freely and honestly among the people.
Religious faith in Afghanistan works well if you are a Muslim but if your related to any other religion except Islam you can receive threats, and feel unsafe in most of areas government try to take security guard in many religious events but still explosion takes place in different religious ceremony which shows that there is only specific freedom for religion connected with some areas not whole Afghanistan.
Individuals in Afghanistan are free to express their views on politics and any other topic related to politics especially under the areas of government but still receive threat or feel unsafe (Freedomhouse.org, 2019).
