What if the ‘people’ don’t want democracy?

What if the 'people' don't want democracy?

Published by NewsNow Online on Feb 20th, 2012 12:42 PM, No Comments

What if the ‘people’ don’t want democracy?

A survey has revealed that the people of Libya may not be keen on democracy after all.

The “Arab Spring” has been celebrated in the Western world as a struggle of democracy against dictatorship. Often the implicit assumption was that what the revolutionaries who were trying to overthrow their authoritarian regimes wanted was a Western-style parliamentary democracy.

So when only 15 per cent of those surveyed in Libya say they want democracy established in a year, compared with 40 per cent who profess a preference for a “strong leader”, it’s a bit of a let-down for Western cheerleaders of the upheavals in the Arab world. Moreover, apparently only about a third of those polled wanted democracy even in five years’ time.