George Ayittey Quotes

You can get together, you can talk as much as you want, but if there's not a decision-making process - that's where democracy really matters.

We always hear about the rights of democracy, but the major responsibility of it is participation.

Democracy means decision by those concerned.

Democratic government consists of listening, deciding, persuading.

Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority.

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.

Democracy is not theater - it determines life and death!

It's a democracy and if I am outvoted, I have to accept the majority decisions.

Democracy is about non-arbitrary decisions. Democracy is about spreading decisions; it is not about destroying processes.

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.

When everyone agrees to a single solution and a single plan, there's nothing more efficient in the world than an efficient democracy.

The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Democracy is about voting and it's about a majority vote. And it's time that we started exercising the Democratic process.

A full and fair discussion is essential to democracy.

As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy.

Democracy is more than a ballot box.

Everything, everywhere, shall be decided by majority vote.

Majority rule is not the norm for solving issues or problems.

Democracy is not elections. Democracy includes elections.

Dialoging is the first principle of good government.

That a majority of people can vote against a government, and yet that government still remains in power does not raise confidence in our democracy.

Democratic processes require time.

Democracy is not majority rule but rule by public opinion.

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.