Democratic Legitimacy Quotes

Democratic regimes may be defined as those in which, every now and then, the people are given the illusion of being sovereign, while the true sovereignty in actual fact resides in other forces which are sometimes irresponsible and secret.

I was democratically elected leader of our party for a new kind of politics by 60% of Labour members and supporters, and I will not betray them by resigning. Today's vote on Brexit has no constitutional legitimacy.

That issue has been resolved for years now, and it's been resolved for at least two years in Donald Trump's mind. And to bring that up as justification for John Lewis questioning the legitimacy of a democratic activity that is - has been around since the beginning of our country is wrong.

My critics always forget to mention that I was democratically elected, the others were not. Everyone in Uganda can challenge me, everyone can vote, the elections are free. Not many countries have achieved what we did.

For citizens to become fully engaged in holding their leadership to account, accurate information is required to see where action is needed, to measure the results of policies and programmes, to build support for courageous decisions and to consolidate political legitimacy.

A popular government wields a moral force, which is infinitely superior to the physical force that the foreign government could summon to its assistance.

The report produced by my commission, the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security, in 2012 showed the corrosive impact of money in US politics, for example, which undermines the legitimacy of the democratic system in citizens' eyes. Such perceptions partly explain the rise of a phenomenon like the success of Donald Trump.

It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU.

Public opinion is not always mistaken; sometimes even it chooses the right man.

Today, parliaments are more important because of the need of legitimacy, of the popular legitimacy, of public opinion legitimacy of politics. Parliaments are, at the end of the day, the only true legitimacy.

In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions.

In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the people. If we don't make government responsive to the people, we don't make it believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning democracy.

Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud.

Under the French system, you have to take into consideration that every five years, the president is directly elected by the people. He's the one that has the legitimacy.

Selection [of UN delegates] by governments cannot give the peoples of the world the feeling of being fairly and proportionately represented. The moral authority of the UN would be considerable enhanced if the delegates were elected directly by the people. Were they responsible to an electorate, they would have much more freedom to follow their consciences.

From the standpoint of democratic legitimacy, it's a problem if half the electorate, or close to it, declines to vote, not least because they may not feel much of a stake in the whole process.

Continued legitimacy for today's democracies will depend on their 'being able to maintain an adequate balance between strong state action when necessary and the kinds of individual freedoms that are the basis of... democratic legitimacy and that foster private-sector growth.'

The first thing I'll do if elected is demand a recount.

The most important thing is who counts the votes.

People feel anxious, especially when we have to wonder whether the president, Taiwan's democratically elected president, will be addressed as president. If he cannot even defend his own title, what can he defend for us?

There's certainly an attitude in some measure of the conservative movement that I believe won't accept the legitimacy of any Democratic president, and I think Obama did fall victim to that - witness the 'birthers.'

All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligarchy that governs, finding ways to give to'the will of the people'the expression which the few desire.

You are never wrong when you have voted because you've acted in accordance with your conscience and your beliefs, and you've exercised your democratic right, which is, you know, perfectly legitimate in our democracies.

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.