The story of democracy from around the world

There is just one thing that has been talked about this previous month and, most probably will continue to be talked about in the next couple of weeks as well.

The Indian General Elections 2014 has made its buzz and impression in news around the world. One of the star highlights has been the impressive number of Indians preparing to vote this time around – 815 million. Morgan Stanley's Ridham Desai declared this would be the "biggest election in world history!”

So what is the story of democracy from around the world? Are elections and democracy universal? The answer, I’m afraid is not a yes. Even though 80% of countries on this planet are democratic – there are still a handful of countries that are autocratic. 

Even the quality of many of these democracies remains deeply flawed. Only 15 percent can be described as "full democracies," with 31 percent counting as "authoritarian regimes." Another interesting fact about democracy is that the wealthiest countries tend to be democracies: outside the petro-states, the top 25 richest countries in the world (as ranked by the World Bank) are also fully established democracies.

It all began way back in the 1900; New Zealand was the only country with a government elected by all its adult citizens. By the end of the century, there were ostensibly 120 electoral democracies in place!

Here in India, the story of democracy will take a new turn when the new government will be decided next month based on the majority of votes from the current electoral process. For good or bad, only time will tell.

Hope each of you exercised your voting power this time around. Why? Read my post on the importance of voting here: http://sandeepsonisays.blogspot.in/2014/04/one-citizen-one-vote.html

Source for all the amazing facts and the picture in this blog: World Bank  

Elections in the World’s Biggest Democracy

“Power to the people.”

That’s what democracy promises to deliver. The positives and negatives of this system can be debated over and over again and we can end up in an endless loop of discussions with no perfect alternative. That’s the brutal reality – there is no perfect system and the same can be said of the current electoral process. But, we have to make the best of what we have, quoting Winston Churchill here, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

India, the behemoth of cross-culturalism, has been busy this week with one of its biggest electoral activity in the recent past – General Elections 2014.

I’ve picked up some interesting facts and figures that’ll give you an astute picture of how big the elections in India really are this time around.

·      This process will see more than 814 million Indians voting in the polls. That’s roughly 100 million more than the last general elections in 2009!

·      168 million, or about 20%, will be eligible to vote for the first time.

·      The election will cost about $5 billion or 300 billion rupees!

·      919,000 polling stations have been set up with approximately 3.6 million electronic voting machines. 

The logistics of the electoral process are mind-boggling. Man and machinery have been in constant action to make this happen. 10 million people have been working to make sure that every eligible Indian voter makes it to the polling booth within 2 km’s of their residence.

Incredible, isn’t it?

Hope each one of my readers and followers went out to vote for their respective candidates and parties. After all, your, mine and the country’s future depends on the choices we have made this week!

Source for all the amazing electoral facts: Business Insider – 8 incredible facts about India’s massive elections.