It appears that a fog has descended, and
the distinction between legitimately elected and legitimate authorities has
been blurred. In recent times we have seen one of these things being posited as
absolutely equal to the other, some have seemingly accepted this, without
question. But this is wrong, because there comes a point when, through their
actions and choices, a legitimately elected group of leaders can lose their
legitimacy and with that forfeit their elected office.
To draw examples from history, the Nixon
Presidency ended in his resignation to avoid the embarrassment of impeachment
over the Watergate affair, while the Clinton impeachment was a ground-breaking
event for TV. The legitimacy of these Republican and Democratic presidents was
questioned; their actions lead to questions of whether they were entitled to
remain in office.
Now move to the present day, and the
insistence from some parties that Bashar Al-Assad is the “legitimate” ruler of
Syria. Is he? Is Assad possibly guilty of war crimes against “his” people?
There is enough evidence available of both chemical weapons and indiscriminate
killing of civilians with weapons such as barrel bombs, so, can anybody really
claim that his authority has any legitimate right to continue? This is a
fundamental question and a starting point for discussions on how the world
might extricate the Syrian people from the hell on earth that is their lives
right now. Insisting that Assad’s position as head of state is sacrosanct, as
the inappropriately named “Stop The War” Coalition in the UK have, is based on
flawed reasoning.
Let’s look at Ukraine’s disgraced former president,
the legitimately elected Victor Yanukovych. After he fled to Russia the idea
that he remained the legitimate head of state, and therefore the manner in
which he was replaced was automatically illegitimate, was commonplace. This
line of thinking was heavily promulgated by his new host country for reasons that
are self-evident. But was it right, or even logical, to claim this?
The legitimacy of the Yanukovych regime
indeed began with a fair election, albeit an election in which the Ukrainian
people had no good choices. But could that legitimacy go on unquestioned
despite the blatant grand scale theft of state resources? No. Of course it
could not.
Common hooligans and thugs were brought to Kyiv by the Yanukovych authorities (first recorded on Nov. 29, 2013 when the revolution was just a few days old) to terrorize the residents of the capital. This act was completely in contradiction to Article 3 of the constitution that Yanukovych was elected to uphold. It was right to question Yanukovych’s legitimacy after this.
Can the legitimacy of a ruling authority
survive past the blatantly illegal adoption of laws designed to end democracy
and create a dictatorship? No. Of course it cannot. Yet, this is what the
Yanukovych controlled Party of Regions attempted to do on Jan. 16, 2014. Later
analysis of images taken in parliament that while 235 MPs were declared to have
voted for these “dictatorship” laws, only about half of this number of MPs were
actually in the session hall when the vote was taken (by a show of hands – also
illegal.)
After such clearly anti-democratic and
dishonest actions, can anyone consider that authority to be legitimate? The
actions were a breach of Article 5 of Ukraine’s constitution – something that
Yanukovych was under oath to protect and uphold. But he failed to keep his word.
There were more violations of the constitution
by Yanukovych, its supposed protector.
Article 27 of Ukraine’s constitution says
that “Every person shall have the inalienable right to life. No one shall be
arbitrarily deprived of life.” Yet Yuri Verbitsky, a 42 year old geologist from
Lviv, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by forces belonging to the Yanukovych
regime between Jan. 22 and Jan. 25 of 2014.
That Yanukovych had already lost any
legitimacy by this point should be beyond question. Later, of course, came the
deaths of many more people on Feb. 18 and then Feb.20, after which Yanukovych
fled to Russia, insisting his authority and position were still legitimate. Define
legitimate.
The idea that legitimacy carries on from
appointment without further question is a complete fallacy. It is something
that we should refuse to accept. An elected leader most certainly can lose their
legitimacy through illegal and/or unconstitutional, actions. The most recent
public attempt at increasing the fog blurring the distinction between
legitimately elected and legitimate comes from Russian Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev. Bottom line, they are not the same, although it is easy to see why
Russia’s ruling clan would seek to pretend that they are.
Who is the main proponent of the idea that
the legitimacy of a head of state is beyond question? For what reason? Was the
legitimacy of Nixon or Clinton or Yanukovych immune from accusations of
impropriety? Is the legitimacy of Assad or, indeed, Vladimir Putin immune from
accusations of terrorizing, even murdering, citizens, or allegations of
financial misconduct? The answer is no.
The simple truth is that the legitimacy of
any ruling authority is derived from the actions of that group. Using chemical
weapons, using torture or intimidation, assassinating opposition voices, gross
financial misconduct, fixing votes of the public or the parliament; these are
the things that can contribute to the self-induced termination of legitimacy
that some would try to have us believe is an impossibility.
