Baldwin Spencer Quotes

Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.

Similarly, gender-equality, supremacy of law, political participation, civil society, and transparency are among the indispensable elements that are the imperatives of democratization.

With the right kind of institutions, starting with the rule of law, Burma could progress very quickly.

Elections alone will never be enough to ensure good governance.

Democracy is far more than merely participating in free and fair elections for a new government. It is about playing by a set of rules, respecting those rules and accepting the result even when it may not be what one had hoped for.

If the civil society is not transparent, honest, and accountable, then you cannot be a champion of social justice.

But I think we need to remember that democracy everywhere is by its nature incomplete, a work in progress.

What should be targeted is a concept of organic, and not just mechanic, democracy that preserves the rule of law, separation of powers, and that is participatory and pluralistic.

Openness and participation are antidotes to surveillance and control.

Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.

One of our most noble political tasks is to open up trust.

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.

I see corruption as a mortal enemy for young democracies.

We must remember that democracy works when given time to develop, mature and deliver. People must have access to information for informed debate. Government institutions must treat citizens fairly, and with dignity, while responding to their needs.

In Ethiopia, democracy is in its infancy and it must be nurtured along by its leaders.

The advanced levels which the democratic world has attained at the end of lengthy processes may have created the perception in the region that democracy is a distant concept; this perception can be addressed.

For me, democracy must deliver a better life for the people.

Nobody is immune to corruption. The difference is in how the society responds to corruption. Are the corrupt in jail as they are in Israel and most democracies. Or are they leaders in the government as in Palestine under the PLO.

Africa must develop a genuine culture of alternation and opposition, without which democracy in any country, including the West, cannot exist.

Free elections are only one part of democracy. Constraint on the power of government and the rule of law and the institutions of democracy are just as important.

For democracy to triumph, the natural predatory tendencies of rulers must be restrained by rigorous rules and impartial institutions.

You do not turn a country with no democratic tradition into a democracy by just having an election. You must also have democratic institutions like the rule of law.

I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill mend but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones.

I want to live … where the people who make the rules have to live by them.

Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.