Essential elements of democracy are listed below:
1. Equality:
The democratic societies emphasizes the principle that all the people are equal and all the individual valued equally, have equal opportunity, have equal rights and have equal prestige without any discrimination on the bases of casts, creed, sex, religion, ethnic group. In a democracy individual and groups still maintain right to have different culture, personalities, belief and languages.
2. Accountability:
In a democracy elected and appointed officials have to be accountable to the people. They are responsible for their action. Officials must make decision and perform their duties according to the will and wishes of people not for themselves.
3. Citizen participation:
One of the most important element democracy is citizen participation government. As participation is key role of citizens in a democracy. It is not only their duty. The citizen participation may take many forms including running for election, voting in elections, debating issues, civic meeting, becoming unformatted paying taxes, being member of private voluntary organization, form an association, criticize the government. The participation of citizen is one essential element of democracy as participation brings better democracy.
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4. Rule of law:
In democracy no one is above the law, not even elected president. It means that everyone must obey the law and be held accountable if they violate it. If anyone violate it, then culprit will punished by law. Thus, democracy insists equally, fairly and consistently enforce.
5. Political Tolerance:
Democratic societies are politically tolerant. This means that while the majority of people rule in democracy, the right of minorities must be protected. People whose are not in power must be allowed to speech out. Minorities are sometimes referred to as “the opposition” because they may have ideas that are different from those majority. The individual citizen must also learn to be tolerant of each other.
A democratic society is composed of people from different cultures, religions, racial and ethnic groups who have view point different majority of population. A democratic society is enriched by diversity. If the majority deny rights to and destroy their opposition, then they may also destroy democracy.
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The one of the goal of democracy is to make the best possible decisions for the society. To achieve this, respect for all people and their point of view is needed. Decision are more likely to be accepted, even by those who oppose them, if all citizens allowed to discuss, debate and question them.
6. Transparency:
For government to accountable, the people must aware of what is happening in the country. This referred to as transparency in government. A transparent government holds public meeting and allow citizens to attend. In a democracy, the press and people are able to get information about what decisions are being made by whom and why.
7. Economic freedom:
People in a democracy must have some form of economic freedom. The private ownership of property and business allowed by government and people are allowed to choose their own work and lab our union. The role that government should play in the economy is open to debate, but it is generally accepted that free markets should exist in a democracy and the state should not totally control the economy. Some argue that state should play stronger role in countries where great inequalities of exist due to past discrimination.
8. Multi party system:
In order to have multiparty system, than one party must participate in elections and play a role in government. A multiparty system provides government with different view of point on issues. It allows for opposition to the party that wins election. A multiparty system provides voters with a choice of candidates, parties and the policies to vote for. Historically, when a country has only one party, the result has been dictatorship.
9. Regular free, fair election:
The regular free and fair election is one of the important elements of democracy. Human rights are most essential part of human rights. One way citizens of the country express their will is by electing official to represent them in government.
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Democracy insists that this elected official chosen and peaceful removed from office in fair manner. Regular election is held in democratic country. The participation in election should not be based on citizen wealth corruption, threat to citizen, looking of secret ballot cause problem and are principle against democracy. In free and fair election most adult citizen should have right to run government office.
10. Accepting the result of election:
In democratic government there are both winner and lesser, Ruling party and opposition party. The loser or opposition party in election believes so strongly that their party is the best one that they refuse to accept the result for election. It may even result in violence which is also against democracy.
11. Human rights:
Both human rights and democracy are interrelated. All democracies strive to respect and protect the human rights of the citizens. The main aim of human rights is to promote the respect of human dignity. The democracy emphasizes the value of every human being.
The democratic government ensures human rights like freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, right to religion, right to equality, right to education. In a democracy, no is above law democracy insist fairly law.
Many democratic governments also choose to have bill of rights to protect the people against abuse of power. The bill of rights is list of rights and freedoms guaranteed to all people in the country. When a bill of rights becomes a part of country constitution, the court has the power to enforce these rights. It limits the power of government and also has duties on individual and the organization.
12. Control of the abuse of power:
Corruption is most common abuse of power. Corruption when government officials use the public funds for their own benefit. To check this corruption abuse of power, democratic, government to have independent court to limit abuse of power.