Elected but not legitimate

So Ukraine now has a legitimate government. Or does it? Viktor Yushchenko has been elected with 52 per cent of the popular vote. His opponen...

So Ukraine now has a legitimate government. Or does it? Viktor Yushchenko has been elected with 52 per cent of the popular vote. His opponent received 44 per cent. Observers confirm that infringements of the electoral rules were but minor. Yet questions remain. The defeated candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, contests the result. The country is deeply divided. Will the miners of Donetsk start the next revolution, this time in red against the orange of the protests staged by Yushchenko8217;s supporters against the original election with its clearly illegitimate result? Will there be a secession movement in eastern Ukraine?

Legitimacy is a delicate, yet utterly important feature of stable democratic politics. It is also complicated. Was George W Bush the legitimately elected President of the United States in his first term, having gained office only after America8217;s Supreme Court ordered an end to the Florida recount and with Bush having secured only a minority of the votes? Are the presidents of some former Soviet republics who seem to command 90 per cent of the popular vote legitimately elected? Will the elections in Iraq be regarded as legitimate internally as well as externally?

It is vital to remember that elections alone do not guarantee legitimacy, even if they are seen to be free and fair. Americans find it hard to understand this, as do others in the lucky democracies of the Anglo-Saxon world. For them, legitimacy simply means that voting and counting votes happens according to undisputed rules. What is legal, they think, is also legitimate.

For many others, however, two questions remain. First, turnout: who has voted and who has not. The second question is whether there remains any systematic, potentially violent opposition to the outcome.

The point about Bush8217;s first term was that despite grumblings, the result of the election of 2000 was generally accepted. Or consider Tony Blair8217;s 8216;8216;landslide victory8217;8217; in 2001, when Labour won 40 per cent of the vote with a turnout of 60 per cent. In effect, 25 per cent of the electorate gave him nearly two-thirds of the seats. Did anyone doubt the result?

Legitimacy by election is particularly problematic in countries with what might be called 8216;8216;endemic minorities8217;8217;. In Canada, for example, it would be risky to overlook the special interests of Quebec. In Ukraine, the divergent interests of the country8217;s west and east have to be recognised. In Iraq, a technical majority in a wholly legal election is almost meaningless if the position of Sunni Muslims and Kurds is not explicitly recognised.

In Western countries, notably in the US, people tend to assume too much when it comes to bringing democracy8212;meaning elections in the first instance8212;to others. In particular, we assume a homogenous electorate, so that even a low turnout does not involve any disadvantage for particular ethnic or cultural groups. We also assume an automatic acceptance of rules that in fact took a long time to become embedded even in the US.

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Without legitimacy, there can be no stability in any political system, and without elections8212;that is, an explicit expression of popular consent to the holders of power8212;there can be no legitimacy. But while free elections are a necessary condition of legitimacy, they are far from being sufficient. Constitutional arrangements must guarantee all entrenched groups a place in political institutions. It is equally imperative to establish the rule of law.

We should remember this as we pursue the elusive objective of democracy in Iraq.

The writer is the author of numerous books, a member of the British House of Lords, a former European Commissioner from Germany and a former Rector of the London School of Economics Copyright Project Syndicate