Sneaking to democracy

In this, the 250th anniversary year of the formation of Nova Scotia's Legislative Assembly, we can also take a look at how things are developing elsewhere.

There are great political myths abounding about events in the last century: one is the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar of Russia; another is the Viet cong defeated the Republic of Vietnam; still another is Robert Mugabe liberated Zimbabwe from white rule.

One thing that is true: the words uttered by the late Rhodesian prime minister, Ian Smith, who said there would be no majority rule in his lifetime. He passed away last November.

Mind you, Smith did more than anybody - except Mugabe - to ensure there was no majority or democratic rule in what is now Zimbabwe.

Smith declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965, leaving about 100,000 European Rhodesians ruling a country of more than six million - a travesty in itself.

A guerrilla war erupted, and eventually led to an internal agreement in 1979 that left Bishop Abel Muzorewa prime minister of what was then called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. The European Zimbabweans were given a certain minority of assembly seats and cabinet positions.

That wasn't enough for certain elements in the west who demanded new elections, including the leftist so-called Patriotic Front, lead by Mugabe. So came the Lancaster House Agreement in late 1979.

Everyone expected Mugabe's crowd would bully the voters - and they did, allowing him to oust Muzorewa, and any hope of democratic progress for a generation.

Zimbabwe had been well set until the 1980 elections. The fact was, though Smith's racist government prevented democratic progress until it was too late, the legislative and governmental machinery was there. So was the immediate leadership - including Bishop Muzorewa. As well, the economy, despite years of porous sanctions, was intact.

What happened?

Of course, the Western liberal-left thought better, and the centre-right just let things go ahead - again.

The Zimbabweans are paying for it.

The negative aspects of the recent election - which Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change claims, with good reason, to have won - are the legacy of the Lancaster House Agreement. The agreement's legacy wiped out years of political evolution that all democracies experience.

After all, Nova Scotia, and Canada's move toward democracy in 1758, was far behind the situation in which Zimbabwe-Rhodesia found itself in 1979. The same can't be said of the Zimbabwe circumstances now, though.

The lesson appears to be, as shown in Nova Scotia and the other British colonies in America, things take time and political evolution. Care has to be taken to ensure there is as little back-tracking as possible.

Sometimes things work, as with wide franchises and secret ballots. Sometimes they don't, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's four-year fixed term scheme and, probably, an elected Senate will prove.

But it takes trial and error - and stealth on the part of ordinary citizens.