Lack of Democracy Quotes

The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments.

The UN system is not very democratic, everyone knows that the Security Council is not democratic.

It's not mainland China that rubs me up the wrong way, it is the dictatorship that rubs me up the wrong way. It's the freedom that we Chinese people are not allowed that rubs me up the wrong way.

There is no real public opinion in Communist countries. They are ruled by an oligarchy.

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world – no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men

You feel sometimes when you hear analysts and knowledgeable people talking about Iran that they fear so much about the survival of the regime, because deep down it's not a legitimate regime, it doesn't represent the will of the people, it's kind of morphed into kind of a military theocracy.

When elections are not democratic, even the most populist discussions become superficial, disconnected from real power; they are theatre.

The American system is no longer a democracy. Democracy is based on accountability and it's not there now.

It is certainly not the most democratic way to proceed.

In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran's theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules.

The EU will face problems similar to the US: an increasing gap between the citizens and decision makers in Brussels and a perceived or even real lack of democracy.

The country is not a democratic state. Therefore we fear that they might carry a recorder in their pocket or there may be bugs in the walls, and you cannot be absolutely sure that you get a straight testimony.

It’s not that Egypt doesn’t have a recipe for a democratic transition. It seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients.

In Belarus, the government is a kind of presidential monarchy with no checks, no balances, and no rule of law.

In some countries that are darlings of the West, like Egypt, everyone knows the result of national elections years in advance: The man in power always wins. In others, like Saudi Arabia, the very idea of an election is unthinkable.

Authoritarian leadership and therefore a lack of democracy have led to a certain apathy among the people, to a sort of civil nihilism, a skepticism.

I should like to underline: no people, no country, in which a Communist dictatorship has been established, ever found its way out of it.

I don't trust a system where Putin makes all decisions.

And look at the mess that Russia is; most Chinese don't want to follow that.

There is one source of injustice in Cuba: The Castro regime. It is not United States policies and it is not the United States embargo.

The Cuban people do not live in freedom.

Gadhafi has established no national institutions, not even allowing a fake parliament of the Mubarak or Ben Ali variety that could perhaps be turned into something real.

The European Union has become a prison of peoples. Each of the 28 countries that constitute it has slowly lost its democratic prerogatives to commissions and councils with no popular mandate. Every nation in the union has had to apply laws it did not want for itself.

For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their 'freedom deficit' signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies.

The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything.