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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 1
(19 of 20 pages)
Chris Holman: This has actually been quite interesting as I work in a small
country, Lucitu (ph), in Southern Africa, and despite having clean elections there, the opposition which has lost
very badly, refuses to accept the results and what essentially is a real problem is that the government is one
of the sole sources of employment, so you're really competing only for jobs and that is one issue that wasn't discussed
much here, and how can you have real political party development in democracy when there are no jobs besides the
government.
Margaret de Boer: Okay, the highlights.
Chris Holman: The highlights. I had to say it.
Margaret de Boer: Yes, I know you did.
Chris Holman: Okay, it would appear that you cannot separate economic reforms from the social impact, as
I think you said, democracy needs social credibility.
Two, the public opposition parties and unions all need to be part of the process and educated, preferably beforehand.
And part of that is because there is a danger of unrealistically high expectations and better to bring people into
part of the process to alleviate that.
It's important also to educate civil servants on the reforms, not only to strengthen the institutions, but to help
motivate civil servants to enact the reforms.
The reforms must consider the impact on youth, on women, and in particular on the newly unemployed or those likely
to become newly unemployed.
Five, it's important to have political patience and determination and to follow through with the reforms.
Six, education and consensus building are necessary, but ironically often more difficult under a democracy.
Next, while education is not a prohibition to democracy, it appears very necessary to compete in the new global
economy.
And next is the importance of political capacity building. Well, maybe the number of parties are not as important
to democracy, they are not as important as the substantive party platforms that the parties try to push and develop.
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