Political systems Ethical and competent government
1. Many people believe that democracy is a good system to govern a country. It allows the citizens to choose the set of economic and social policies (as proposed by the political parties) to run the country and the people to implement these policies.

2. In reality, most voters are not qualified to make the right choice of the policies or to select the people who are capable to run the country.

3. The democratic system in many countries usually produce incompetent or corrupt leaders who make false promises to get elected and take the opportunity to enrich themselves.

4. Is there a better system?

5. The most important decision for a country is the set of goals to pursue. It is universally accepted that the goals should be:

a) peace and security
b) economic and social development
c) fairness and justice
d) freedom to pursue a happy life

6. The concept of "freedom and human rights" for the individual must be balanced against the rights of other people in the society. A person should not be free to carry out activities that are harmful to others.

7. If the national goals are agreed, the real challenge is to select the leaders who are able to achieve them.

8. The democratic system assumes that the voters are best to make that decision, based on the principle of "one man one vote". This approach is flawed and has proved to be the case for decades in most countries.

9. What is a better system to select the leaders?

10. I believe that it can be formed by a council of wise people. These are people who knows the problems and challenges faced by the country. They are likely to be present and past leaders in society and have demonstrated integrity in their conduct, based on their past record. They are probably more capable of choosing the leaders to run the country.

11. The selected leaders will be judged based on their performance and ability to achieve the national goals. If they perform badly, they should be replaced.

12. The system that I described will not be a perfect system. It will have its flaws and weaknesses. However, on balance, it should work better than the democratic system adopted by most countries.

Tan Kin Lian

 

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