The institution of democracy can survive and progress only if there are checks and balances and prevention of dominance of one person, an expert has said.
Sir Don McKinnon, former Secretary General of The Commonwealth and former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of New Zealand said that every democratic Government faces the challenge of ensuring that one dominant personality does not in the end make every decision as when things go badly and against them, as they always do with the swings of public opinion.
“They will pull down the pillars of the temple with them,” he said delivering the Fourth Annual Indian Newslink Sir Anand Satyanand Lecture on Monday, July 28, 2014 at Pullman Hotel, Auckland.
He said that other institutions including the Legislature and the Judiciary should also be strong and resilient.
Sir Don said that the biggest failing of some countries was allowing a leader, President or Prime Minister to get away with dominating the other institutions to the point of their irrelevance.
“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he said, citing Russia, Belarus, many Central Asian Republics, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji and Egypt as examples.
Among the other speakers at the Lecture were former Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand, Phil Goff (Master of Ceremonies) and Trade Minister Tim Groser.
We have serialised Sir Don’s speech into two parts, the first of which appears under Homelink.
The picture (by Narendra Bedekar) appearing here shows (from left) Robert & Prakashni Khan (Radio Tarana), Ravi Thapar (Indian High Commissioner) Lady Claire & Sir Don McKinnon, Sir Anand & Lady Susan Satyanand, Mary & Phil Goff, Ravin Lal (Indian Newslink) and Tim Groser.
