6 Majority Rule — A Cause of War? Peter Emerson ln a plural society the approach to politics as a zero-sum game is immoral and impracticable. Words like “winning” and “losing” have to be banished from the political vocabulary of a plural society.‘ Introduction Democracy, as practised in most countries nowadays, is adversarial. The fact that presidents andlor policies are changed as the result of a vote rather than as a consequence of a bloody revolution or war is to be welcomed. Sometimes, however, the distinction between peaceful and violent change is muddled. Indeed, the use of divisive voting procedures has often exacerbated tensions in societies that have then tumbled into violence. Win-or-lose voting procedures — i.e. yes-or-no majority votes in decision-making and single preference systems in elections — along with a practice which is based on these voting methodologies, namely, that of majority rule, have often been part of the problem. An Historical Background In earlier times and in many cultures, the democratic process was rather more inclusive. In yesterday’s America, for example, ‘The tribes gathered and discussed the issue at hand, listening and speaking until common understanding had been reached. [a] practice of government by consensus Similarly, in parts of Africa, ‘Majority rule was a foreign notion’? and instead, to quote Tanzania-is first President, Julius Nyerere, ‘The elders talk until they agree. This “talking until you agree" is the essential of the traditional African concept of democracy’.“ The sub-Saharan attitude to conflict resolution was also rather different: to quote an example from Ethiopia, ‘If someone is quarrelling with someone else, then the court will set itself the sole task of ending the conflict while granting to each that he is in the right’? A more exclusive form of democracy emerged in Europe and America where philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Jeremy Bentham spoke of ‘le volonté général, the general will’ and ‘the greatest good of the greatest number’. Having seen the errors and horrors caused by various forms of minority rule, especially those of the absolute monarchs, it seemed obvious to them and many others that rule by a majority would be a huge improvement. Hence, today, we have statements such as ‘Democracy rests upon the principles of majority rule’.6 Few would disagree. There then came a huge mistake: it was assumed that a majority opinion could be identified by a majority vote. Despite huge advances in so many fields of science, including that of social choice, this assumption still holds. Thus many believe that ‘Democracy works on the basis of a decision by the majority’,7 and that ‘Democracy is based on majority decision’? The world — or at least the Western world — appears to be committed to the majority vote.9 In many countries, then, current democratic structures are based on a majority vote form of decision-making. As a direct consequence of this, most parliaments divide into two — government and opposition — either under single-party rule or in majority/grand coalitions. While some international organizations try to operate in consensus — and by that is meant a verbal consensus — many forums base their decisions on a (simple, weighted, qualified or consociational) majority vote. Such an adversarial democratic structure is perhaps adequate in some jurisdictions; elsewhere, however, it has been a recipe for division, violence and, at worst, war. This chapter will examine some of the dreadful consequences which have resulted from this Western, if not now universal, practice of majoritarianism,” first in decision- making, secondly, in elections. In addition, it will question the logic of such a polity with particular reference to conflict resolution work. Majoritarianism in Decision-Making There are a number of instances where simplistic voting procedures and/or inadequate democratic structures have at the very least exacerbated tensions in society. They include i) majority vote plebiscites on secession; and ii) majority votes taken in parliaments and international organizations. i) Majority vote plebiscites on secession ‘All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status ..."‘ But people cannot ‘freely’ determine anything if someone has already reduced that which should have been a free (i.e. multi-option) choice to a binary dilemma ofjust two options. Unfortunately, none of the international declarations on self- determination stipulate the particular methodology by which ‘a people’ should actually determine their status. In the absence of such, most politicians have resorted to the binary majority vote, not least because this voting procedure allows them to control the agenda.” A simple instance comes from Canada, where M. Parizeau decided that the people of Quebec should be presented with the choice of either the status quo or independence. In effect, it was a contest between the Anglophones and the Francophones, and the question all but disenfranchised the indigenous Cree Indians. In the 1980 referendum, Parizeau lost by 59.6 percent to 40.4 percent. So he waited for a few years before having another go: in 1992, there was a second defeat, this time by 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent. Accordingly, he chose to hang on for a little longer, and then he held yet another ballot in 1995 — the referendum process was rapidly becoming a ‘never-end-’em"3 — and he now lost by a mere whisker, 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent. He blamed the hapless Cree Indians - who voted for the devil they knew — so he had to resign. As this and other examples show, the right of self- determination, at least as currently defined, is a provocation. It might have been an adequate principle for those who wished to resolve the external problem of colonialism. As a means of settling internal disputes, however, it was and still is a recipe for mayhem. Consider the following: if a minority does not want the status quo, and if a majority of that minority chooses to opt out, then of course it may. If, however, a minority of that minority disagrees, and if a majority of that minority of the minority so chooses, then it may choose another path. The logic of this is as nonsensical as the consequences have often been bloody: there will be peace and tranquillity on this planet when every pair of individuals is an independent nation-state ofjust two persons. The British Isles This form of balkanization started in the UK in 1920 when Ireland opted out. So Northern Ireland opted out of opting out and opted back in again. The eventual consequence was violence, the thirty years of ‘the Troubles’. The Caucasus Lessons were unlearnt. When Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his policy of perestroika, the USSR started to break up. In 1991, Georgia opted out.“ Whereupon Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and very nearly Ajaria as well, opted out of Georgia: on October 3, 1999 in Abkhazia, in an 88 percent turnout, 97 percent supported independence; and on February 18, 2007, South Ossetia followed with a 99 percent margin. Hence more violence: in 1992, it was between the region and the nation; in 2008, it was outright war between Georgia and Russia.“ Meanwhile, in Nagorno-Karabakh on December 10, 1991, i.e. after its war, a majority of 99.89 percent voted for independence, and only 24 individuals bravely said ‘no’.’6 In today’s Russian Federation, the prospect of a similar chain of events has come to be called ‘matrioshka nationa|ism’,” named after the famous Russian dolls: lurking within every majority is another minority; within that, a smaller one; in every smaller one, a tiny one; and inside that again, a miniscule one. There is the fear, certainly among some Russian politicians, that if one part of the Federation were to opt out — like Chechnya — others would surely follow; which partly explains why the two recent wars in that Republic were so bitter. The Balkans In Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a major political question was the dichotomy, ‘Are you Serb or Croat?’ For many people in what is now Croatia, this closed question was of course unanswerable: the partners in or children of a mixed marriage; those who were neither Orthodox nor Catholic; those like the \/lahs or the Roma who were of another ethnic minority; and most tragically of all perhaps, those Slavs and others who were trying to move beyond any sort of antagonistic nationalism. Alas, the binary format was chosen for the Croatian referendum question in May 1991: independence, ‘yes or no?’ The Serb minority in the Krajina — three areas in Croatia which had a predominantly Serb population — organized their own ballot one week earlier. In the latter poll, a turn-out of 95 percent voted by a 90 percent margin to stay in Yugoslavia. The international community did not recognize it. In the other poll, 93 percent of an 84 percent turnout voted for Croatian independence. This result was recognized. The other consequence of both votes was war. In November 1991, the EU set up the Badinter Commission, a team of international lawyers to consider the problems of Yugoslavia.’8 It endorsed the referendum and, as a result, there was a spate of such ballots: votes in Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia (polls which preceded the work of the commission) and Bosnia were recognised; votes which did not produce the required result, as in Montenegro, were repeated; and votes which were not wanted were just not recognized — Republika Srpska, Herzeg-Bosna, Sandzak, and Kosovo — unless or until, of course, the West changed its mind.” The Commission did not, however, question the methodology of the majority vote. The final comment comes from Sarajevo’s now legendary newspaper, Oslobodjenje: ‘all the wars in the former Yugoslavia started with a referendum’.2° Rwanda In the 1930s, the Belgian authorities issued everyone in Rwanda with an ID card. The question was closed: ‘Are you Hutu or Tutsi?’ Now Rwandan society was quite unlike Kenya’s, for example, where different tribal groups speak different languages. In Rwanda, in contrast, they all live cheek by jowl and everyone speaks the one language, Kinyarwanda. The Belgians nevertheless decided to split everyone into two, and thus they converted a social distinction into a tribal one. Those who were tall were called Tutsi, the small were the Hutu (the Twa were ignored), and anyone of average build was asked if they had ten or more cows; in effect, another closed question. Those who said ‘yes were classified as Tutsi; the ‘no’s were Hutu?’ Having supported a form of minority rule — in which the tiniest minority, the colonialists, were on top — the authorities post-WWII changed their minds and argued for its opposite, majority rule. So the losers of yesterday could become the winners of tomorrow. Little wonder, then, that when the lnterahamwe launched their gruesome genocide in 1994, the slogan they used was ‘Rubanda Nyamwinshi’, ‘the majority people’.22 Sudan In all the words that have been written on the Rwandan genocide, few have questioned the practice of interpreting the principle of majority rule to mean the practice of majority voting. Instead, as in the Balkans, so too in Africa, the international community blunders on. In July 2002, British diplomats were present in Kenya when the two sides to the civil war in Sudan, the Khartoum government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, SPLMP3 signed the Machakos Protocol to end that war. Inter alia, this agreement promised a binary referendum in South Sudan on whether or not the latter could have independence. Here was the answer the South wanted. But if one part of the country could gain its objectives by waging a war, and then negotiating a settlement to hold a referendum, then why not another? In a word, balkanization. ‘[I]f the South were to secede, this would open a Pandora’s box in the whole of Sudan.’2“‘ The first consequence took place in what was already a very turbulent region: Darfur. Literally within months, in early 2003, another ‘movement’, the Sudanese Liberation Movement, SLMF5 again with an army to match, resorted to violence. The government responded with its now notorious Janjaweed.26 The South Sudan referendum was held in January 2011 and, on the whole, it passed off peacefully; the actual handover of power is scheduled for July 2011. A second consequence of Machakos, however, is that further referendums are already in the pipeline. Within Sudan, the oil- rich region of Abyei on the border between North and South is due to hold its own referendum shortly; there has already been some violence there. Meanwhile, South Kurdufan and Blue Nile are due to hold consultations on the initial basis of an eitherlor question. Consequences further afield may be even more traumatic. Somaliland now wants a referendum to secede from the rest of Somalia. They are the first. And elsewhere? Will the Moslem North try to secede from the Christian South in Nigeria, a land that has often seen violence in Kaduna, which straddles the two, including post-election violence in April 2011? Will something similar happen in Ivory Coast, a land which saw two rivals from a previous civil war participate in a win-or-lose election and which, partly as a result, descended into more violence? (see below). Consequences in the DRC could be even worse. In effect, the international community has now exported the right of self-determination and the practice of binary plebiscites to a continent of almost unlimited ethnic or tribal diversity. Little could be more unwise. South Sudan may be just the calm before the storm. I hope not; suffice here to say, however, that when Slovenia held its referendum in 1990, many people did not realize that there would very soon be ghastly consequences elsewhere in Yugoslavia. Multi-option referendums The referendum has been suggested and/or used in a number of other conflict zones, often with serious consequences. One was proposed for Kashmir in 1947, but never implemented; Northern Ireland held its border poll in 1972, to which the mainly Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party, SDLP, organized a boycott;27 and in 1999, East Timor’s referendum led to massive post-ballot violence. In contrast, some jurisdictions have used multi-option ballots: Newfoundland held a three-option poll in 1948, Singapore did the same in 1962 and so did Puerto Rico five years later; while in Guam in 1982, there were six options on the ballot paper, and just in case that was not enough, a further seventh option was left blank, for any other suggestion.” All of these polls were held under a form of two- round voting, TRS, and all passed off peacefully. Preferential polls could be even more inclusive. ii) Majority votes taken in parliaments and international organizations Majoritarianism was, without doubt, a major part of the problem in (Northern) Ireland: the Unionists claimed the right of majority rule in a six-county jurisdiction, while the Republicans wanted a 32-county structure. It was also ‘a major cause of ethnic conflict’ in Sri Lanka,29 in Cyprus, in the Middle East, and elsewhere. It is, indeed, a catalyst of division if not a cause of war, not only within the nation state, but also in international organizations. Take, for example, the UN Security Council vote on Iraq. In October 2002, the 15-member Council voted on Resolution 1441; it was another closed question, for-or-against.” France, for one, did not like the draft on offer; in particular, she objected to the inclusion of the phrase ‘serious consequences’.3‘ And yet she voted in favour. Now why would anyone vote for something they did not like? Well, in majority voting, this happens quite frequently. People and countries vote for ‘this’, either i) because they definitely support ‘this’; or ii) because they think, on balance, ‘this’ is better than the alternative ‘that’; or maybe iii), as in the case in point, because they are giving priority to some other consideration like the need for international solidarity. Sadly, as is now widely acknowledged, the passing of that Resolution was one more step on the road to war in Iraq. There are, in fact, many reasons why, both in parliamentary votes and in regional! national referendums, the two-option majority vote is an inaccurate measure of the collective will.32 Furthermore, there are other voting procedures by which decisions can be taken: apart from simple, weighted, twin and consociational majority votes, there are some multi-option forms: these include a) plurality voting (which is like first-past-the-post, FPP); b) the alternative vote, AV, otherwise known as the single transferable vote, ST\/, or instant run-off vote, IRV; c) the two- round system, TRS; d) a Borda count, BC; e) approval voting; and f) a Condorcet count. If one of these methodologies is more accurate,” and if therefore there is little justification for using majority voting, then the justification for the current practice of majority rule based on majority voting falls. Unfortunately, the ‘public is deeply imbued with the mystique of the majority’,3“ and there is a surprisingly strong and persistent tendency in political science to equate democracy solely with majoritarian democracy and to fail to recognize consensual democracy as an alternative and equally legitimate type’.35 Thus, for the moment, the international community tends to promote a majority vote interpretation of majority rule, and only when such a policy goes wrong does the argument swing in favour of that which in some ways is a complete opposite — power-sharing. The latter is usually considered to be an extraordinary measure and a temporary expedient whereas, if it were more widely practised, it could help to prevent that which it is only used to cure. The list of countries where such a polity is practised, or has at least been considered, grows longer by the day: Afghanistan, Belgium, Bosnia, Honduras, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe all come to mind. Of stable countries, however, only Switzerland uses such an inclusive all-party polity. Majoritarianism in Electoral Systems Electoral systems, too, can be a cause of war, especially if they are inaccurate. Such outcomes, and the divisive campaigns which precede the votes under the more adversarial systems, often promote competing antagonisms within a stable society, that or they exacerbate divisions in an unstable one. Indeed, many single-preference voting procedures often act as instruments of ethnic cleansing. Ukraine Ukraine consists of a predominantly Russian-speaking and Orthodox East, and a mainly Ukrainian-speaking Catholic or Uniate West. But there is no hard and fast line between the two. Both are Slav and both are Christian. To use a divisive electoral system to electjust one individual, with the possibility of a small margin of victory, would obviously be unwise. Yet such was the scenario in the final of a TRS election in 2010: \/iktor Yanukovich won with 48.7 percent to Julia Timoshenko’s 45.7 percent. Thankfully, Ukraine has not spilt over into violence, and nor did it do so at the time of the Orange Revolution in 2004.36 Kenya Other countries have not fared so well. As a result of the democratic process in many emerging democracies, ‘Ethnic parties developed, majorities took power, and minorities took shelter?” A recent example of this sort of chaos was seen in the violence that followed the December 2007 FPP elections in Kenya. In such a land, where the people are divided not only into various tribes but also into two ethnic groups — the Bantu and the Nilotic — a win-or-lose electoral system that pits one person against another would obviously be unwise. Needless to say, of the two main candidates contesting the presidency, one was a Kikuyu, a member of the dominant Bantu tribe, and the other was a Luo, the major Nilotic tribe. Eventually, a power-sharing settlement was negotiated. It could all have been so easily obviated if the electoral system itself had been of a win-win variety. This could still be done before the next contest, either by a system of PR or even by the very simple expedient that was used initially in the USA: the winner becomes the president and the runner-up becomes the vice-president. C6te d’|voire Not every divisive election leads to war. Indeed, Sierra Leone had a civil war in 2002 but a reasonably peaceful election under FPP in 2007. Cote d’Ivoire also had a civil war in 2002, but its story is now one of renewed violence. The 2010 TRS elections brought together two of the previous combatants: Laurent Gbagbo from the South and his old rival, Alassane Ouattara, from the North. As in Kenya, the results were disputed, and violence erupted. Eventually, after hundreds of deaths, Ouattara’s forces marched into Abidjan, albeit with outside assistance. For the long-term stability of the country, some form of power-sharing would again be advisable. Other electoral systems Some systems are more suitable for plural societies: the more sophisticated forms of PR-list, for example. But any system that allows the voter to cast only one preference — i.e. which thus restricts the voter’s ability to express his/her full opinion — is not much better than the majority vote used in decision- making. Elections under such a system in places like Bosnia and Kosova are often little more than sectarian headcounts.38 The same was true in elections for the Council of Representatives in Iraq and for the House of People (Wolesi Jirga) in Afghanistan, the former under PR-list, the latter under the single non-transferable vote, SNTV; again, both are single preference forms of voting. Therefore they are often inaccurate. Furthermore they are divisive if not indeed dangerous. Some countries have tried to devise a more inclusive, or at least a non-sectarian, electoral system. Lebanon uses a multiple form of FPP such that, in any constituency where there are say, 25 percent Maronite, 50 percent Shia and 25 percent Sunni, any party wishing to stand must nominate four candidates: 1 Maronite, 2 Shia and 1 Sunni. Furthermore, the voter must vote for 1 + 2 + 1 candidates, and the easiest way for them to do so is to just vote for the party ticket.39 Dagestan has devised another non-sectarian system: in one constituency, all the candidates of every party must be of one religion; in a second constituency, they are all of another faith; and so on.4° Of those other electoral systems which allow the voter to cast his/her preferences across the sectarian divide, the most inclusive are probably PR-STV and the quota Borda system, OBS, not least because they are not based on party labels or ‘designations’.“’ Conflict Resolution If the political process is to be a means by which disputes can be resolved peacefully, it should be one of mediation, just as it was originally in Africa. Now in seeking to arbitrate any dispute, domestic, industrial or political, professional mediators seldom ask questions which are closed. Rather, they talk to both or all parties, firstly to find outjust what options exist. Next, in a process that is sometimes called shuttle diplomacy, they try to improve on some of these options, to make them more acceptable to the other parties. And finally, they aim to identify that option which enjoys the widest level of support from all concerned. In any instances of violence, internal or external, the eventual resolution will often consist of a compromise. In other words, as in Africa, the mediators will treat both or all sides (at least initially) as if they were both or all (at least to some extent) right. In the Middle East, the best option on offer is probably the two-state solution, not least because neither Palestine nor Israel would contemplate the ideal — the one-state solution — for as long as either believes in majority rule. In other scenarios, too, the outcome must often involve a form of power-sharing. This should consist of the following: - decision-making which caters for open questions, i.e. multi-option voting, so that, as an absolute minimum, compromise options can be on both the agenda and the ballot paper; - elections that are both preferential and proportional; - power-sharing in governance which allows not only for post-sharing but also for compromise in decision- making. An inclusive polity In short, voting procedures should be ‘peace-ful’, that is, the democratic process should be a vital part of the peace process, and the relevant voting procedures should enable the voters to use the democratic process as an act of reconciliation, if of course such is their wish. In decision-making, the very structure of the ballot should allow the voter to cast a preference for those options that have been proposed by the erstwhile foe. If a negotiation relies on a majoritarian process, the various participants might well keep their cards fairly close to their chests. After all, ‘Once your fall-back positions are published, you have already fallen back to them’.“2 If the final vote were to be preferential, however — and this author would suggest the MBC — then those concerned could reveal and even adjust their own preferences at any stage of the debate.“ In elections, the voter in NI should be able to vote for both a Catholic and a Protestant.“ Likewise those in Bosnia should be able to cast their preferences across the gender, the party and the ethno-religious divides. As noted above, the Lebanese have an electoral system that could, in theory, take religion out of politics. Unfortunately, their system of governance actually entrenches sectarianism, just like the consociational decision-making in the Belfast Agreement.“ Finally, in governance, just as the people elect the parliament (and, if the electoral system is a good one, that parliament will represent all the people), so too parliament should elect the government, again by a system of PR, such that the government represents the entire parliament. The only methodology for a parliament to elect a cabinet in which each member undertakes a different responsibility and yet which, overall, represents the given parliament proportionally, is the matrix vote.“ In many conflict zones — Kenya and Zimbabwe, for example — negotiations on power-sharing have been both problematic and protracted. In Belgium, too, forming a government can involve seemingly endless negotiations, and on February 17, 2011, Brussels inherited the mantle previously held by Baghdad and before that Amsterdam, for the longest running talks on forming a government: 250 days.” Conclusions A voting procedure is inadequate if the choice of options/candidates and/or the ability of the voter to express a full opinion has been excessively restricted. In some conflict zones, the outcome of a vote has been different to that of the opinion poll. In Northern Ireland, for example, throughout the troubles, the public consistently expressed support for integrated education, mixed housing and power-sharing; alas, in elections, in large part, those same individuals chose politicians who at the time opposed such measures. Furthermore, while the British government realized that the choice of electoral system was very important — and hence, they reintroduced PR-STV in 1972 — they continued to use FPP elections for Westminster. In February 1974, the Unionists got 53 percent of the vote and 92 percent of the seats. So the FPP voting system was part of the discrimination that caused and then fed ‘the Troubles’. Likewise in Bosnia, ‘public opinion polls in May and June 1990, and again in November 1991, also showed overwhelming majorities (in the range of 70 to 90 percent) against separation from Yugoslavia and against an ethnically divided republic’."‘8 Yet the single-preference electoral system used in 1990, TRS, gave the voters little choice, and the result was an overwhelming victory for the three ethnic parties. Sometimes, then, the use of majority voting in parliaments and referendums, the use of simplistic single-preference electoral systems, and the absence of any voting mechanism by which a parliament can elect a government, have given results which, as a minimum, do not reflect the general will; and at worst, they have been a cause of war. There are, however, better more inclusive voting procedures. Appendix: Abbreviations AV alternative vote (= IRV = STV) BC Borda count DRC Democratic Republic of Congo FPP first past the post IRV instant run-off voting (= AV = STV) MBC modified Borda count NI Northern Ireland OSCE Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe PR proportional representation QBS quota Borda system SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party SLM Sudanese Liberation Movement SNTV single non-transferable vote SPLM Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement STV single transferable vote TRS two-round system UNESCOUN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation WWII World War II 1 Sir W. Arthur Lewis, Politics in West/llfrica (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1965), 66-7. 2 Keny Nerburn (ed.), The Wisdom of the Native Americans (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1999), 138. 3 Nelson Mandela, The Long Walk to Freedom (Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 1994), 25. 4 Paul E. Sigmund, The Ideologies of Developing Nations (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), 197. 5 Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun (London: Penguin, 2001), 315. 6 US Dept of State: httpzl/usinfo.state.gov/productslpubs/principleslwhat.htm. 7 Report of the Constitution Review Group, Government of Ireland, 1996, 398. 8 International UNESCO Education Server for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education: http:/lwww.dadalos.orglintlDemokratielDemokratielGrundkurs5l mehrheitsprinzip.htm. 9 By ‘the world’ I mean not only the political sphere of media, academia and practitioner, but also the business community. ‘The statutory contract succinctly lays down the basics of the legal relationship between the company, its members, and the members inter se. In consequence, a member agrees to be bound by the decisions of the majority taken at a general meeting of the company. just like in a parliamentary democracy when the cabinet has taken a decision a dissenting member will nevertheless be bound by it.’ Clement Chigbo, An Examination Of Majority Rule Principle And The Remedies Available To Shareholders, May 12, 2006: http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=135&a=8793. 10 The original Russian word for ‘majoritarianism’, by the way, is ‘bolshevism’. The word was coined in London in 1903 when the Social Democrats split into two: the bolsheviks (bolsheviki), the members of the majority (bolshinstvo) of that party, all 19 of them, and the 17 mensheviki of the minority (menshinstvo). There were three abstentions, while others, the Jewish Bund, had already walked out. 11 Article 1.1, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN in 1996. This ‘right’ was first devised by President Woodrow Wilson who, in his later years, reflected, ‘I never knew there were a million Germans in Bohemia’, quoted in Abba Eban, Diplomacy for the Next Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 38. 12 In like manner, many dictators, including Napoleon, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Duvalier, Khomeini, Mugabe and Saddam Hussein, have all used majority votes - Peter Emerson, Defining Democracy (Belfast: The de Borda Institute, 2002), 104-10. 13 The phrase was first coined by some wit on BBC Radio 4. 14 In 1990, the author gave a press conference in Tbilisi on the need for a non-majoritarian, more inclusive form of governance. The speech was well received. 15 The author was a member of the EU monitoring mission for South Ossetia from September 2008 to January 2009. 16 When the first post-Soviet ethnic dispute broke out in 1988, in Nagorno- Karabakh, the headline in Pravda was Hatu OTIBCTBD, ‘This is our Northern Ireland’. 17 Anna Reid, The Shamans Coat (London: Phoenix, 2002), 136. 18 On his first visit to Yugoslavia in 1990—1, the author had written on the possible benefits of a consensual polity and of the inherent weaknesses of any form of majoritarianism. At home, in October 1991, and one month before the commission under Robert Badinter was inaugurated, he invited a native of Sarajevo to a cross-community conference in Belfast, not least to warn of the dangers of using a majority vote referendum in Bosnia (Peter Emerson, From Belfast to the Balkans (Belfast: The de Borda Institute, 1999), 47). The Commission recommended use of the referendum for any people seeking self-determination, although it did suggest the outcome of the Bosnian referendum ‘would be valid only if respectable numbers from all three communities of the republic approved’ (Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy (Washington: Brookings Institute, 1995), 280). There again, it did not define the word ‘respectable’. On the day of the vote, March 1, 1992, the Bosnian Serbs boycotted and the barricades went up in Sarajevo; it was soon full scale war (Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin, 1992), 163). Nine months later, the author returned as a freelance war correspondent. 19 The 1991 poll in Kosovo — 99 percent in favour — did not qualify. Eight years later, at Rambouillet, the international community decided that it would now recognize a referendum in Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic refused to sign (just as Vojislav Kostunica would have done). As a result, NATO launched its 2000 offensive. Still he refused. So the Russian Foreign Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, went to Belgrade to negotiate a settlement, and he removed the referendum clause. Whereupon Milosevic did sign. So the war came to an end. In this regard, then, the war achieved nothing. 20 su svi ratovi u bivsoj Jugoslaviji poceli nekim referendumom’ (author’s translation), Oslobodjenje, February 7, 1999, 11. 21 John Reader, Africa (London: Penguin, 1998), 616. 22 In a brave attempt to overcome the legacy of that genocide, the Rwandan government has initiated a series of ‘mini Truth and Reconciliation Commissions’ called gacacas. A European company undertook a social survey on this policy and asked a series of binary questions. At a subsequent press conference in Kigali which the author attended, it presented its findings. In the questions which followed, one participant observed, ‘Asking yes-or-no questions is very unAfrican‘. Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (London: Hurst, 1995), 183. 23 Its military wing is the SPLA, the SPL Army. 24 Timothy Othieno, ‘Democracy and Security in East Africa’, in Challenges of Conflict, Democracy and Development in Africa (Johannesburg: EISA, 2007), 280-1. 25 This also has its military wing, the SLA, and has often had direct links with the SPLM. 26 The janjaweed first appeared in 1988, but only now did these ‘evil horsemen’ come to prominence. 27 In 1988, the same SDLP supported the use of a two-option referendum to endorse the Belfast Agreement, a document which allows for NI to hold a referendum every seven years or so on whether or not to join a united Ireland. If the poll is lost, NI stays in the UK for another seven years; if it is won, itjoins a united Ireland for ever! It is another instance of a ‘never- end-’em’. 28 Emerson, Defining Democracy, 119-20. 29 Rudhika Coomaraswamy, ‘The Politics of Institutional Design’ in Sunil Bastian and Robin Luckham, Can Democracy be Designed? (London: Zed Books, 2003), 146. 30 And this in the wake of another closed question, George W. Bush’s now infamous, ‘Are you with me or against me?’ 31 In Article 13, the Security Council ‘Recalls that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations‘. 32 Peter Emerson, Proportionality without transference: the merits of the Quota Borda System (QBS), Representation 46: 2, 197-209. 33 The most accurate measure of a majority opinion is a Condorcet count, while a similarly precise measure of the collective will is a modified Borda count, MBC. In many circumstances, a Condorcet winner is also the MBC winner. 34 Michael Dummett, The Principles of Electoral Reform (Oxford: OUP, 1997), 81. 35 Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (New Haven: Yale 1999), 6. Lijphart is talking here more of consociationalism, which though a huge improvement on straight majoritarianism, is still adversarial. Both in decision-making and in elections, voting procedures in a ‘consensual polity’ would be preferential. 36 The author was an OSCE election obseryer on both occasions. 37 Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 629. 38 On its own initiative, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, used a single-preference form of PR-list in both Bosnia in 1996 and Kosovo in 2001; admittedly, the latter system involved set-aside seats for the major ethnic minorities. The author was an observer for both of these contests. Véra Stojarova and Peter Emerson, Party Politics in the Western Balkans (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), 11-3. 39 Farid el Khazen, Prospects for Lebanon (Oxford: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1998), 15 et seq. 40 Anna Matveeva, The North Caucasus (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1999), 18. 41 The form of consociationalism prescribed in the Belfast Agreement requires all the elected representatives to ‘designate’ themselves as ‘unionist’, ‘nationalist’ or ‘other’; thus the very agreement entrenches sectarianism. 42 Abba Eban, Diplomacy for the Next Century, 81. 43 Peter Emerson, Designing an All-inclusive Democracy (New York: Springer, 2007), 15 et seq. 44 The present system, PR-STV, does allow the voter to vote for both the Catholic and the Protestant; unfortunately, in the count, the vote may be transferred, and thus it may go to either the Catholic or the Protestant. A more inclusive voting procedure is called the Quota Borda System, QBS (Peter Emerson, Designing an All-Inclusive Democracy, 39-60), and the two electoral systems are compared in Peter Emerson, ‘Proportionality without transference’. 45 Footnote 41 46 Peter Emerson, Designing an All-inclusive Democracy, 61 et seq. 47 Peter Emerson, Defining Democracy, chronology. 48 Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, 228.