8.7.2012

first free national elections for 60 years in Libya

More than a 100 parties competed on the Libyan citizen's vote yesterday, in a surprisngly peaceful elections. As concensus is slowly discovered to be a target hard to reach, the elected Parliament shall not create the future constitution of the state, but a different panel, to be elected in the coming future.

This slow process of reinvention of the state by its citizens is a great proof of the great possibilites that lie in the democratic framework. Unlike others, I remain firm in my belief in the democratization process that is taking place in the middle east.

I am not naive to think that it will surely bring a peaceful reality to the region in the near future. Europe's democratization process brought the world through two international bloody conflicts in the forms of World War I and World War II, before a form of peace came upon its western part. It took another half of a century before the Cold War, a state of affairs which threatened the entire world came to an end. 

But despite knowing all that, we all know that societies which keep a living democratic process do not enter states of war lightheadedly. The process of consensus creation prevents that. 

And therefore, I believe that the more people in the middle east experience deciding through voting, the less violent the area will become. It may take a long time or a short time - we have no way to appreciate the true meaning of the information age on the societies taking part in this process. I personally believe it will be a shorter time frame than most experts suggest. 


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