by G O Kenya
In China, the President is elected by the National People’s Congress (NPC), which is the country’s highest state body. The NPC also has the power to remove the President and other state officers from office.
Elections and removals are decided by a simple majority vote, while following stringent rules to ensure that meritocracy remains the main criteria for choosing top leaders. Only the best of the best get the topmost leadership slots.
There is something really good in this stringent Chinese model of choosing leaders. The benefits of meritocracy by far outweigh those of the African model of democracy where the masses perform elections as a formality or regular ritual, but leaders are still imposed on them.
The gist of this Chinese model is; it ensures that idiots never reach anywhere near the top where important decisions are made on behalf of the masses. In many instances, the Western model of democracy is overrated.
The worst weakness of democracy is that it allows any charismatic idiot to rise to the top, through whipping of emotions and euphoria in the masses, without necessarily having his/her leadership skills and competencies thoroughly vetted.
Worse still, the weak systems in African governments allow despotic leaders to entrench themselves in leadership, through state capture and manipulation of all important independent institutions which are meant to offer checks and balances.
This is worse than the Chinese system of choosing leaders, which is commonly castigated and vilified as “undemocratic.” We seriously need to rethink our version of democracy and the way we choose our leaders.
In some African countries, including Kenya, more people are known to lose lives in elections related chaos than the lives lost in some coups d’etat elsewhere!
Is there need to keep subjecting the masses to deadly elections whose outcomes are eventually highly manipulated and fail to reflect the true will of the people?
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