What is a “valid democracy”…I suppose any demacracy that elects a Hamas is invalid…How about the multi-party democracy in Algeria that elected an Islamist party in 1990? How about the first multi-party election in Egypt in 2005 that re-elected Hosni Maburak for the fifth time? Or how about the elections in Iran(which has universal suffrage), they elected a president and 290 representatives, but the supreme leader is chosen by 86 member cousil of experts? Does this resemble our electoral college? How about the Iraq elections, the Shiites dominate, the kurds come in second, and the sunni’s don’t really participate? How about Jordan, where a monarchy provails but the people are allowed to elect the members of the house, they recently annouced that local leaders would be elected? How about the democratic government of Lebanon which has universal sufferage and all important political offices are elected by popular vote? Or how about in Oman, where the current sultanate has gradually been increasing the role of elections during his 30 year reign? How about Saudi Arabia when in 2005 they held there first ever elections, while only at the municpal level, is this not a step in the right direction? How about syria, where the president is chosen by the ruling party, and then the people vote on him, if he doesn’t get he majority of the vote, another person is put up for vote? The list goes on.
Perhaps I am looking at this wrong, and the only acceptable solution for any of these states is immediate Universal sufferage contingent on nothing, everything else being trade-unionist struggles. Or perhaps the idea of a “valid democracy” is some crackpot idealization of American policts drummed up by Republicans to deamonize non-Christian values. The rest of the world being composed of a balance between religious rule and democracy with the scale slowly moving toward the latter.
On the other hand, How about a country where the president and congress is elected, but the Judiciary, which has the final say on constitutionality, is chosen by the party in power, the same party happening to elect the vast majority of said judiciary. This same system has recently seen a reversion to fanatical religious zealotry that is trying to put into place state endorsed religous dogmas, and presents science as hostile. It is rolling back civil liberties, and is ignoring international law. Would this country be moving toward democracy too, or reverting to what the middle east seems to be moving away from.