Nobody has ever used this kind of ‘assembly democracy’ to win a national election, though. It took them more than a year to build their candidate list, with over 80 student assemblies in six university cities proposing names, interviewing candidates and vetoing anyone they didn’t trust. The students disqualified themselves, and nobody from the ruling coalition or the top ranks of the old opposition was allowed to stand either.
What emerged was a list of 250 doctors, academics, lawyers, artists and athletes, 134 of them with PhDs. Because the students refused to stand themselves, their promises to clean up politics were believable to the electorate. Turnout jumped ten points to almost 70%, with roughly 600,000 more people voting than in the last election.
The result? 141 seats in the Serbian parliament, an outright majority.
As the famous quote, often erroneously attributed to Lenin, goes, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen”.
If ever there was a time of revolutionary change, it seems we are living through it now. Now the Serbian students have demonstrated a template for peaceful 21st-century revolution. By excluding themselves, and everyone from the old order, they’ve succeeded in wiping the slate clean. At least within their own party, the old right-wing strongman’s party still has seats in parliament too.
How many people in other countries might try this approach? Abandon ALL the old parties, and sweep to electoral victory, with something only a year or two old?
Now that’s how it’s supposed to work! Now the rest of the world needs to follow suit.
That’s fantastic, but I don’t think it would work or even be legal in the US. Unfortunately, we are still going to have to rely on ye olde violence.
It famously wasn’t legal in Serbia either. Revolution is never legal.
Wait, so this is illegal and those in power are just going to allow it?
Well they’ve spent the last two years trying and failing to stop it.
