Just what is this thing we call “Democracy”?
Do you consider a ruling party a democracy if it received 50% of the vote, or would it need the sanction of 50% of the total population?
South Africa is supposedly a democracy, I say supposedly because in the South African 2004 elections the ANC managed 10,880,915 votes or 69.7% of the 15,612,671 voters. This was from an conservatively estimated population of 40,000,000 South Africans. So 15million of 40 means 39% of the population actually voted and the ANC’s democracy is based on 69.7% of that 39%, so they actually got 27.2% of the populations vote. The NO vote was 61% of the total vote.
If the population is adjusted to 44million then 34.69% voted and the ANC got a measly 24.72% of the populace’s vote.
I include the total South African population because in a Democracy, everyones voice is supposed to be heard and part of today’s so called democracy’s is that those without voices ae not heard or truly represented.
If you want to only include those of voting age i.e. 18 or older, that is roughly 65% of the total population. Under these circumstances with the population at roughly 44million the ANC did a little better getting 38% of the vote.
In modern democracy’s the NO vote is the most powerful.