Democracy

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison. Lula, widely considered one of Brazil’s most popular political figures, is the front-runner in the 2018 elections. We look at how this development could impact his presidential bid, and… »

The second round of the French legislative elections seemed like a given. Everything indicated that Emmanuel Macron, the new president would obtain the backing of an overwhelming majority in parliament. 361 deputies out of 577 gives him a very large majority, although less than predicted. This consolidates the neoliberal and… »

By George Monbiot for The Guardian We urgently need new rules to prevent the capture of our politics by billionaires and corporations and their secretive funding How is this acceptable? A multimillionaire City asset manager… »

By Johan Galtung What is the essence of democracy? “Rule with the consent of the ruled” implies two classes of people, Rulers and Ruled; concretely State and People, Statism. “Free and Fair Elections” implies voting for a Parliament; Parliamentarism. Together, a three-tier power structure State-Parliament-People; with People controlling Parliament,… »

By Roberto Savio* George W. Bush, the Republican bridge between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump as U.S. president, declared that the United States was the only democracy in the world. The election of Trump now makes this traditional American rhetoric impossible. Trump received 3… »

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | 27 JANUARY 2017 The British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Boris Johnson, has indicated that his country should no longer oppose President Bashar al- Assad’s right to stand at the next Syrian elections. He conceded that this new… »

On January 15th, acTVism Munich organized its largest event yet that took place under the title “Freedom & Democracy – Global Issues in Context” at Muffathalle in Munich. This event featured a live interview with Edward Snowden via video conference from Russia as well as discussions with a panel of… »

On January 15th, acTVism Munich will be hosting the event “Freedom & Democracy – Global Issues in Context” to take place in the event location Muffathalle in Munich, Germany. The following experts will be present: Edward Snowden, Jeremy Scahill, Jürgen Todenhöfer, Paul Jay, Richard Wolff & Srecko Horvat. »

Last Saturday the young DiEM25 Movement walked a thin line in Berlin. It should have been the first countrywide meeting of the movement in Germany. Due to time bottlenecks the project is threatened with failure. The meeting was announced only a few days ago and the lack of time is… »

In the heart of Neukölln-Berlin, in B-Lage, DiEM25 Berlin presented the film “Who is Saving Whom? – Crisis as a business model at the expense of democracy and social security”. Although the screening room was crowded and crammed with 80 visitors, the mostly young audience attentively watched… »