Democracy in Iran is better than the UK

Politics has been pretty front of mind here in the UK thanks to the lid being the politician’s expenses scandal.  Like millions of others I have been alternately entertained and appalled at just how arrogant and corrupt our politicians appear to be.  The trouble is – the furore has erupted just  their expenses.  To my mind it is a far bigger scandal that our vote in the UK counts for so little. 

 Now this week’s political focus has switched to Iran – where the turn out was 85%, some 60% higher than our own recent European elections.  Alas, not for the first time in a fledgling democracy – the wrong person appears to have won.  And with something approaching a landslide, just to rub salt into democratic wounds. 

 The Iranians are not alone in calling foul.  The UK media looks on and makes patronising comments of mind-boggling hypocrisy.

 

In case you missed the Iranian election, the admirably-named President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was widely expected to exit stage-left.  Polls seemed to suggest he would get as little as 30% of the vote, with his reformist rival Hossein Mousavi poised to win at least 58% of the votes. 

Imagine the surprise then, when Mr Ahmadinejad even managed to trump his main rival in his home town on his way to a landslide victory. 

 But to my mind, Iran is a pillar of the democracy compared to the situation facing us in the UK.  Here, we have a wholly discredited labour government that got in with a landslide just as impressive as Mr Ahmadinejad’s.  John Prescott memorably trumpeted the result as a ‘mandate from the people’.  But – and here’s the rub – Labour actually only won 28% of the vote. 

 Worse still, we have a Prime Minister widely loathed and perceived as totally ineffectual. Perhaps the worst this country has suffered since John Major.  And nobody cast a single vote for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  Effectively, Gordon Brown has become Prime Minister with only 24,278 votes from the good voters of Kircaldy & Cowdenbeath – some way short of the 23 million votes needed for a UK majority. 

 In their arrogance, the Labour party decided that being Prime Minister of this country was not really in the remit of the electorate and shoed Brown in as successor to Tony Blair without a vote.  Gordon Brown has since taken this contempt for democracy even further by appointing Peter Mandelson his deputy.

 Mandelson, whom most sane people find creepier than Friday 13^th parts 1 – 12 wasn’t even an MP and has been voted by absolutely nobody.  So who are we to cast aspersions at the Iranian election?  At least they had one.