Catherine Ashton's hypocritical stance

I read an article about the situation in Egypt the other day by the European Union’s High Representative Catherine Aston. In which she more or less gave a lecture about how Egypt can turn into a functioning democracy and the importance of this.

Now, this strikes me as being rather hypocritical does it not? Here we have essentially the unelected foreign minister of the European Union who actually has never been elected for anything in her life and yet, she was leader of the House of Lords and an EU commissioner who played an integral part in ratifying the Lisbon treaty in the UK, which, if I may say so was ratified in one of the most undemocratic ways I have seen in modern Europe. The process ran completely counter to her view that "They [Egyptian authorities] must respond to the wishes of their people."

In her article she states that the “EU is ready to help the Arab World.” This also strikes me as being rather hypocritical. How can a fundamentally undemocratic institution offer aid to the Egyptian’s lust for democracy?

But she takes it even further by laying out two different forms of democracy, Surface Democracy and Deep Democracy. Surface democracy being the notion that “people casting their votes freely on election day and choosing their government” and Deep Democracy being the “respect for the rule of law, freedom of speech, an independent judiciary and impartial administration.”

According to Ashton, it’s all well having surface democracy; however the only way to have genuine democracy is through the “foundations” of deep democracy. Now this is rather arguable. I would argue that the most important aspect of a democracy is the fact that people can cast their vote’s freely on election days and choose their government. Ashton’s assertions that having deep democracy would gear the attitudes of the people and the political system towards a more democratic one is rather flawed. Surely being able to vote in free elections is more likely to change people’s attitudes to democracy than having a bunch of bureaucratic institutions?

To conclude, I believe that Catherine Ashton has no credibility in giving advice to Tunisia or Egypt on how to be more democratic.

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