EVEN if you don鈥檛 like the way Bill Clinton runs America, you might still
like the man. That鈥檚 the thing about politicians鈥攖hey can be very
likeable. In fact, every time I walk away from a close encounter with one, I
feel a glow of friendship, regardless of their party. For at least 15
minutes.
OK, I鈥檓 a bit of a sucker for politicians. In a representative
democracy鈥攁nd by that I mean one that elects representatives, not
necessarily one that represents public opinion鈥攖he first and most
essential quality for a representative is likeability. Without that, no matter
how talented, you will get nowhere. This is why politicians, rather than, say,
cryptographers, win elections.
People reaching high office will of course often have other characteristics,
such as ruthlessness and paranoia, but no matter how high they fly, some residue
of likeability remains. Anyone who goes out to kiss babies every four years, and
has to hammer out compromises with sworn enemies in smoke-filled rooms, must be
at least partly human.
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Which is why the arrival of Internet voting, unsurprisingly dubbed e-voting,
is cause for concern. Two weeks ago voters in Arizona picked Al Gore as their
Democrat candidate for the US presidency via the Net. The company behind the
technology, Election.com has already opened an office in Paris and is about to
do so in London.
At one level, this is good news for politics. E-voting boosts the turnout at
elections, especially among the young and apathetic. This is important in places
like Arizona, where there are few Democrats and even fewer who bother to go to
polling stations. In Britain, e-voting could also do wonders for the dismal
turnouts at local elections. My worry is the seductive ease of e-voting and the
temptation it opens to use it not just to elect politicians, but to bypass
representative politics altogether.
You鈥檒l find supporters of this idea in any e-politics Internet discussion
group. They usually claim that e-voting offers a tidy solution: government by
instant electronic referendum on all issues, thus removing the need for a
political class entirely. Of course we鈥檝e heard all this before. Soldiers,
scientists, economists and鈥攈eaven help us鈥� management consultants,
have all offered to 鈥渟ave the world from politicians鈥�.
On the surface, the Internet demagogue seems to put the people in charge
rather than an elite band of technocrats. But the end result will be the same:
tyranny. As the British left-wing academic Bernard Crick wrote in the classic
In Defence of Politics, politics is a precious flower. By definition,
it recognises that society consists of different groups of different interests
and that it is possible to reach a peaceful compromise with them. Which means
that it should be run by people with the ability to inspire likeability, or at
least tolerance.
Pure e-democracy, by creating an instant tyranny of the majority鈥攁 kind
of cyber update of Rousseau鈥檚 鈥済eneral will鈥濃�攄enies that pluralism. The
prospect is as repulsive and dangerous as any other tyranny.