Despite record voter engagement, democracies face pressure to deliver. At Davos 2026, experts examine how innovation, tech, and reforms can restore public trust.
At Davos 2026, panelists agreed that democracy’s problem is less voter apathy than a widening gap between expectations and delivery. Hélène Landemore argued “we never really had authentic democracies,” and globalization has “disempowered politicians” while empowering corporations, creating a vicious circle of capture and declining trust. She warned reactive “reassertions of democratic sovereignty” can drive voters toward strongmen rather than “thoughtful deliberation,” urging experimentation such as citizens’ assemblies and even reforms to corporate governance where accountability is weakest.
Bolivia’s foreign minister Fernando Hugo Aramayo described how leaders can weaponize democratic tools—votes, institutions, and social media—to “manipulate population,” then focus on preserving power rather than accountability. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, speaking from the experience of Belarus, stressed that autocracies can mimic democratic forms—“we also have parliament… courts… media, but they are empty”—and urged democracies to notice early erosions of rights and “grow our teeth” through institutional reform.
Singapore’s Edwin Tong framed democracy as a social compact: elections grant authority, but the “quid pro quo” is competent delivery. He argued democracy needn’t “micromanage every last decision,” but must rebuild trust through responsiveness, consultation, and protecting free and fair elections.
Good afternoon. You have to be very brave people to be here after three days of very hard work, particularly since Mr. Trump came in, because Mr. Trump has shown that not only can he can he upset the world order, but also the World Economic Forum order. It's been challenging. One and a half day. So thank you very much for being there. I have a great panel with me. And we have we have an important question is democracy in danger? And I know that a lot of you think that there is a problem there. That's why we have a full hall. In fact, in the last decade, I can't even count on my fingers because I only have ten. The books that people have written about democracy, being in danger or democracy being finished. I will not read all of them. This is an afterthought. I try to put it on the screen, but I thought of it too late. I counted 15, but there are many more. But if I count five, I think that is enough to scare all of us. The life and death of democracy, how democracies die, why we get wrong. Politicians always why politics fails. Authoritarianism goes global. The challenge, the challenge to democracy. Democracy and its crisis now. Democracy now. Democracy lasts forever. How, how how, how, how, how the Constitution threatens the US. That's just a sample of 5 or 6. And there is so many of them. There seems to be almost a kind of a panic that democracy is dying. There is global collective chest beating anxiety. The democracy is declining, sliding. There is going to be a sudden death. Who is writing all of this and who is getting so fearful? I'm putting out a proposition and then we'll talk about it. A bunch of propositions. I will not tell you what my view is. Could it be those who find their ways are getting disenfranchised now because because of the way democracy is changing, could it be those who were losing the war against history and narratives? Narrative, by the way, is the word that's banned in my newsroom. It's so misused. But I'm using it now. Number three, is it is it being overstated by those who are losing their voice in public debate? And we can then go on from here. We have a wonderful set of panelists. I can start start left to right. We have Edwin Tong Chun fai, Minister of Law and second Minister for Home Affairs in Singapore. But I also read about him that when he used to be Minister for culture, he was responsible for bringing Taylor Swift to Singapore and getting her to perform for six nights, six nights in a row at the National Stadium.
Some might think it's not Democratic.
So you can get your stuff done. We have, we have Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, opposition leader from Belarus. Now, think about how brave it is to be opposition leader in Belarus. And that that is the most reassuring fact, the factor that tells us that, yes, democracy has a future. As long as there are brave people who are willing to be leader of the opposition in Belarus. So thank you. Thank you for being here. We have Fernando Hugo Aramayo, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Bolivia. That's a very for us, many of us a distant part of the world. But right now it looks like it's the it's the epicenter of the world. Since Trump is focusing so much on his what he defines defines as his neighborhood. And then and then we have the wisest, I suspect, of us all. In fact, I'm sure of us all held in Helen Landymore, who is a demon. Wells, 58, professor of political science at Yale. Her next book, which will be out in February, that is Politics without Politicians and even a.
That's the solution.
And earlier book, earlier, earlier book. She's a political theorist. Her earlier book also was sort of on a similar theme, where she talked with challenge, where she challenged the notion of modern modern conception of democracy. Democracy. So four brilliant minds, I will, I will go. Let me start at the other end. Maybe you can pick up the thread from, from the proposition that I made propositions that I made earlier, but I can add something to it, which is that politics is like water. Water. It finds its level, or it's like air. It abhors a vacuum. Right. So whether you have politicians, don't have politicians, they will be politics. There is politics even in China. There's politics everywhere. All politics is it. Is it so? Could it be so that old politics is now dying in natural death? New politics will come in in its place. The question is, what will it be? What will it be like today? Any questions? Any questions about democracy? If you don't like somebody on the other side, you immediately name names, immediately call them names Nazi, fascist, stuff like that. The level of tolerance between politicians is also much less so. It's quite evident that democracy as we knew it, politics as we knew it, Democratic, democratic politics that is now dying or declining what will come in its place.
So I'm not really in the business of making predictions, and I'm not either in the making, in the business of, you know, being negative. We just saw Elon Musk was who told us to be optimist. I'm I'm an optimist. I also happen to think I'm right. But I even if I'm wrong, I think it's good to be an optimist as well. I think that we never really had, authentic democracies. And the problem is that democracies, democratic expectations have risen over the last 50 years, I would say. And so now there's a complete mismatch between expectations and delivery. I think when we say democracy, I think most people hear, you know, rule for the people, but it means rule by the people. And in fact, you cannot have rule for the people unless it's also by the people. So I think it's reconciling those two elements of the definition, closing the gap between elites who rule for us and the people on behalf of whom they're ruling. And I think this gap is just growing at the moment, in part because of factors like globalization that have disempowered politicians. But it's not a natural phenomenon that happened to them. They brought it about in large part, these are globalization. And the disempowerment of nation states was chosen by elected leaders all around the world, including in the West. So it's also something they have to grapple with. They brought about their own demise to the benefit of large international corporations that now capture them with the money they've accumulated. So it's a terrible, vicious circle. And my problem is that, yes, you could say, well, look, it's not that bad after all. Brexit, it's a reassertion of democratic sovereignty. Trump elections was, after all, a in some ways a reassertion of democratic sovereignty against the sort of neoliberal elites that brought the world that people were fed up with. But it's not the right kind of reassertion because it's kind of reactive. It's running to a strong man or running to a solution that that that is radical as opposed to being the product of a thoughtful deliberation among citizens that have been consulted throughout. So I think I'm worried. But I'm also an optimist, and I think there are other solutions, including things like citizens assemblies of the kind that that I talk about in my book.
So I'll come to others. But just a follow up question. Do you think what's happening today is a passing phase? It's like a placeholder phase or a or a or a study break, or do you think the new politics is emerging already?
No, I think I think new politics is emerging already. I, I'm a little worried, to be honest, that my book comes, both at the right time and a little too late. So we're sufficiently fed up with politicians that we're ready for new things. But also, we've waited so long to address problems that are now global in nature that we don't even have the the levers to fix the problems. In particular, at the global scale, we have no levers there. The UN is completely impotent. So we're we're in the hands of, you know, bullies now, and corporations. So where is the place for ordinary citizens from different countries to have a say and shape the next global order? I'm not sure.
Yeah, I'll come to. I'll come to, the minister from Bolivia. Are we looking at democracy too narrowly? Are we just getting angry? And we are seeing we are thinking democracy is in trouble. Because according to our view, as in general commentariat, the wrong kind of leaders get elected. And if democracy throws up people like these, there must be something deeply wrong with this. So invent another system and I will give you an example. In one of our arguments in our country, I know the note said that 2024, the largest number of human beings went for elections. They voted 3.7 billion. A little over one fourth of those were in my country. And the guy who got elected got 37% of the vote. So 63% people still think that the wrong person got elected. And he's a very popular leader. So just because your guy doesn't get elected, do you think that democracy is all wrong, that for democracy to be perfect, my side has to win?
Well, it's really, really complex to talk about democracy. I think we need to analyze that. In the last time we are in front of democracies, for a second, I think that democracy has been captured by specific interests from some groups. Because we are living in societies that have been, established different hierarchies. So I think that some leaders capture, the, the sense of democracy in their favor, and they instrumentalize democracy instruments like boats, for example, and use institutions and those kind of processes to get the complete power. So citizenship, the common citizenship is not anymore participating seriously on democracy processes. And if you add third, the element of fragmentation or social polarization, that is emotive or an emotional, fragmentation or polarization is not in most of the countries, an ideological or socioeconomic polarization. You have a perfect ingredient. And if you add to that, to all of that, above all of that social media, okay, you have the perfect combination for people who do not have the interest to represent what the majority needs. But they can share some thoughts and emotions to capture all this, momentum in some countries. And once they get the power, they don't care about accountability to deliver to institutional performance. They only care about how to, capture the rest of the institutionality, the rest of the volunteers and how to, preserve the power they get. So that's why, for example, in Bolivia, you have 20 years of a regime that has been elected through elections, and with a lot of majority supporting them, but a government that was corrupt, engaged with organized crime. And you said what people doesn't know that that's present in all media. And it's not only happening in Bolivia, but so what is going on is a problem with democracy. No. Is that these, leaderships social, political, private sector leaderships, they found the formula to get the power and to manipulate population. So we need to strengthen social organizations. The critical, thinking of population citizenship. I think we need to re-educate what democracy is demand now to be handled by citizenships.
Which note? Svetlana. She comes from Belarus. Svetlana. Both questions. First of all, what happens when democracy elects the wrong guy? How does how do people who believe in democracy handle it? And second, isn't it all ultimately rooted in the health of institutions? Because if institutions are strong, then democracy survives. It goes through ups and downs. But if if institutions begin to die, then there is no parent left. Tell us something from experience and give us some prescriptions, some diagnoses and some prescriptions.
So first of all, I have to say that, talking of fighting for democracy in democratic countries and, fighting, dictatorship is two different types of fighting for democracy because, when you, you know, at the beginning told that, you know, so many, you know, names is democracy dying, you know, all this stuff, I'm sure that, while there are nations or people who are dying for democracy. So democracy is not dying because nobody is dying for dictatorship, you know, and that's why it's very important, you know, to, to for people who live in democracy to realize that they might lose very easily what you have, you must cherish it. You might contribute. And democracy is not about politicians. No. Democracy is about contribution of everyone. It's responsibility of other people, organizations, of course, institutions, but also media businesses. You have at one moment you have to choose. Either you are on the side of democracy or autocracy. Either you, conduct business based policy or values based policy. And and of course, everybody is responsible. But the institutions, you know, you asked me about institutions plays extremely important, meaning in every democratic countries not to lose what you have because even democracies, they also can have this attributes of dictatorship can have tributes of democracies, because in Belarus, the country where 30 years, one person is governing and who, suppressed, wonderful big, uprising back in 2020. We also have parliament. We also have courts. We have different, you know, we have media, but they are empty. They are serving not to the people, but to to the dictators. So it's very important, you know, to watch closely what's happening in your countries. If something is suppressed, if your rights are suppressed a little bit, if your, you know, media closed, you know, it is the beginning that you might not notice. And very fast, you can lose, you can lose what you have. So in 2020 we had elections. You know, we have proved that we that, you know, I won the elections. We, had used all the possible attack instruments, you know, to prove this. We showed it to the world that Lukashenka lost. Lukashenko refused to to go. He used the army. He used his special, service, forces, you know, to suppress, society. You know, he, misuses courts, you know, to give people 20, 25 years of of jail just for being on the streets conducting peaceful revolution. Our Parliament, you know, spoke at Parliament, its servant to the dictators interest, not not to the people. So but, you know, just, you know, from a side it looks like a normal country. So dictatorships can imitate, you know, for, for, democracy. And that's why, you know, it's one of our tasks is democratic society that mostly have to work from exile because it's impossible to work in the country that is democratic. Does it? It's also encourage you wonderful people who breathe, democracy, that you are also in danger. And you personally, you have to invest into it as much as you can. Don't leave it to politicians, not politicians. Create democracy. Just imagine democracy as religion until you believe in this, until you contribute into this, it will exist.
Yes, I'm asking you all questions. Any of you can feel free to intervene if you have a point to make, and then we'll throw it open. I'd encourage you to also argue and have a big fight amongst yourselves. It's all. practically all always good for ratings. And if you want to post this on social media, then the hashtag is hashtag VEF 26. So remember that. Minister Tong Singapore is known for efficiency delivery citizen services. Do you think the problem right now and what's got everybody paranoid. Paranoid is that old liberal consensus on on what old liberal consensus or consensus on democracy that produced incrementalism. Incrementalism, bureaucracies, slow processes, status quo. Europe is always called bureaucratic. They are a primary cause. Singapore probably is the opposite. Right? You are a technocratic, technocratic democracy. Do you think this is true? And this led to the setting up of building of echo chambers, conference circuits. This is the time when people want quick results in my country. The debate right now is should should gig workers be made to deliver gig companies be promising ten minute delivery or not? Right. But people want. Everybody is in a hurry. Nobody wants you to say, oh, I'm. I'm thinking about it. I will deliberate this, etc. people get very impatient. Do you think the old institutions and the old structures in ability to change with times has caused this distress?
Well, I think it's not possible to analyze this question of democracy without understanding the social compact that lies behind it. And the social compact, very simply put, is people come together, they select who their leader would be by elections. And the assumption behind that, of course, is free and fair elections. And the quid pro quo on the other side must surely be that the leaders who get selected have an obligation, a duty, even to say how I'm going to uplift lives, build society and improve upon the previous generation. And I think that compact lies at the heart of what I believe is the democratic process. And despite what you say about having 3.7 billion people go to the polls last year and, you know, two.
Years before last.
24, last 24, two third of the world is governed by democracies. So I think there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the system. But what I do think has gone wrong and which has put it under pressure is number one, I think there is a failure of delivery in several ways. One, in some cases there's an abuse of power. And you see governments elected through unfair means remain in power, build up and then abuse the position. I think that has caused many citizens, not wrongly, to be cynical about the process. And then there's also a failure in terms of how we carry out and discharge the obligation to improve society, improve lives, build upon previous generations. And if truth be told today, I think it's also under threat through a number of different ways. Trust in institutions, something you alluded to earlier, has eroded. You look at misinformation. We've not had misinformation to this extent in previous generations, and you just look at the number of elections that have been undermined by false information. So all of these factors and forces, I think, buffeting the process of democracy. So to your point directly, are we stuck in old premises, old framework, old routines? I think the answer is yes and no. I mean, we embrace the old structures because they have worked for generations, but what is required to be done within this framework is and I take a leaf out of Helene's point earlier, a stronger degree of collaboration with citizens, even after the government has come into power early on. I think you mentioned citizen assemblies in Singapore. We have what we call citizen juries, and we have a youth forum for young people to express their views. And we made a commitment some time ago when I was when I was a cultural minister, I was also the youth minister. We made a commitment that youth voices must be heard, because having no experience today is not necessarily a liability, it's just a different perspective. And we made a commitment that youth voices when they're heard will be presented as well at the highest forum, including in Parliament, so that there is a degree of engagement. And we feel that citizens are able to say, I'm invested in the outcome of policies. I have a say in the architecture of social policies that affect me, and ultimately the balance. And the bargain in Singapore is if the government of the day is not performing, if there are failures of delivery on the ground, as I've mentioned, then the process must come to roost in the elections, and we must have and must guard carefully free and fair elections, because that's the process which I believe keeps the democratic system running. That's the heartbeat.
It's a fascinating, conundrum that more and more people are impatient with democracy and people they elect, and yet more and more come out to vote because so many countries see rising voting percentages. So people still think that whatever it is, this is the system that they've got, and they better make it work or somebody, somebody better make it work. But if you look at this age of impatience, Trump has unleashed the age of impatience. Now technology has come into governance. Everything moves much faster. Why is governance still so slow and slothful? A lot of the anger you see is about that, that these guys get elected, they get all this power, and then they think they just own the place. You can answer it. And I would encourage others also to join in.
I think I will share Singapore's experience, and I don't profess to be able to say that that system applies to all. But as a small country, small nation, we've had one party rule Singapore since independence. In some ways, we've got the ability to move very nimbly and very deftly. And I'll give you one example. In the immediate aftermath of Covid, we realized that there were many obligations, financial contractual obligations that would come under pressure because we had social distancing measures. Between the time we decided that we needed to do something about that, to not have an avalanche of litigation cases and breaches of contract, we decided on legislation, we moved, we consulted, and we passed it, and we made it effective in nine days. Now, that's not to say that, you know, it ought to be done like this every time, but I believe that we have to we have an obligation as a government to respond, to evolve our thinking through consultation, because citizens, users of the system, business people, they have a different perspective sometimes. And that's something that we need to take into account. So to be able to move nimbly, quickly evolving with times and able to address specific concerns on the ground is, I believe, a sharp obligation of the government. And it's one that we from time to time, we look at ourselves and we say, can we move faster on something?
So I will take this question forward. Then any of you can answer it. We talked about technology and governments being slow. Now you have the rise of new tech trillionaires not just billionaires. Do you think they will now produce a new kind of leader that that we haven't seen emerge as yet, not like Carney or Trump or Modi or or Macron, but a very new kind of leader that comes out of this, this demographic. And will we then see an ideology, free politics, maybe not politics, free politician, free politics, but maybe ideology, free politics. Who wants to take it? Always turn to the prof.
So, I just want to react to something Mr. Tong said, which is that I think you think the system is quite efficient and there's nothing wrong with it. I don't know, I find this a little surprising. It hasn't evolved that much since the 18th century, and I do think people are fed up with the slowness, the lack of responsiveness, the lack of causal impact of majorities. I mean, the American Constitution is revered, but it's also very flawed. And it's been there for 250 years. We could fix it. I don't understand why we're not approaching this more in an engineering spirit. I mean, we're going to Mars. Can't we just fix things on Earth first, you know, and experiment a little bit? And, and I think one of the reasons is because we continue selecting leaders and representatives in this very old fashioned way through election, which, by the way, is historically an oligarchic mechanism meant to send to power the wealthy, connected, already powerful. And guess what? They end up being very old. It's an oligarchy all around the world. Look at the average age of parliaments. It's not representative of the average age of the population. And older people have a lot of wisdom, which is beneficial in some ways. But when they're only old people at the top, your society is less dynamic. So I think introducing some sortition a lot would inject youth and the representation of dynamic, tech savvy young people who would fix the government, make it more, make it, make the bureaucracy less slow. I think there's a good example in your part of the world, Taiwan. Audrey Tang is my personal hero. She she went from hacker to minister of digital, affairs in Taiwan, and she completely modernized, the way the government was communicating with the population, which made them one of the most successful countries during the pandemic in terms of letting people know where to find masks. You know, whether to trust, Russian bots or not, etc.. So. So I think I would like to move away from this complacency that we figured out democracy. I mean, we've we've reinvented it 200 years ago. It's not that long. We can do better. From my perspective, it's a continuum where somewhere in the beginning of the continuum which would deepen, explore, experiment and evolve all these collective intelligence that distributed in the population and that we are just ignoring and not making the most of.
Svetlana, I want to join in.
Well, in my opinion, I think that it is really difficult to put in the, in the same page all the characteristics that we are observing in democracies around the world, because in some contexts you have democracies that has been, captured, but, social power, for example, and with the, with the hope that this social actors that came from the, the basis will be able to change, to create more participation or to improve representation. But, that doesn't happen necessarily in other countries. You have, process that are looking for how to introduce new technologies to improve participation and legitimacy, but this is not working at all. So, I agree in terms of what we need is to analyze, what must be, what is necessary to modernize, to create innovations in democracy? Because, it is quite interesting that in societies that has a lot of problems, social conflicts, and everyone is waiting for a social crisis or a civil war. They at the end of the day, the go to vote and they the participation has been increased. And you say, well, what what they are looking for, do they still feel trust in politicians and democracy? Do they not have any alternative? Why? They are, again, looking for an institutional resolution for all the controversies they have. So I think what we need is to learn to stop, making this diagnosis, saying, okay, democracies are in danger, democracy doesn't work anymore. Okay? Instead of that, where democracies are working, where democracies are delivering what populations need, where democracies are solving inequalities, and take that kind of examples and redefine the content and sense of democracy, and to identify innovations from empirical experiences. Because I think that in some sense we are in a theoretical position analyzing democracies, not putting value what democracies are showing us in some contexts where they are delivering, they are working in a way that citizens are expecting. Of course, those are very, very specific examples. That's not the general reality, but I think we need an equilibrium in terms of, okay, let's be optimistic how we can create better democracies learning from what is happening in the real world.
Svetlana, before you join in, I'll add a question to to what you are going to speak about. We have a problem how to navigate, how to navigate this situation with hope. Put our head down and hope that it blows over. It's like the nuclear winter it will end, particularly the kind of adversity that you face. Face the challenge that you face. Or is it possible to reconfigure our institutions?
Look, I think that when we talk about democracy, we have to understand that, you know, this ideology, as you call it. You know, it's also going through some transformation. And I think it's time to reinvent maybe democracy, because all those democratic instruments, I don't know, or institutions that have been developed for many, many years now when they discover themselves in a new era, in the era of technologies in transit, like new approach. We are not prepared for this changes, you know, because because everything goes so fast. And, we have to invent new instruments, you know, how to cope, how to cope with the, this new era, with this new, new world. And so that's why, again, I'm returning to my point that everybody has to invest into democracy. And talking about also, you know, tech companies, about people, about media, so on and so forth. We need to protect, protect institutions, of course, but we also have to, reform the institutions because, for example, UN, is not working well enough. You know, it was created in after war period. It was just for peace. But now when new challenges appear, dictators are becoming bolder. They are uniting. They might prevail with their voices in UN. So we have not only have to protect democracy, we have to grow our teeth. And only in this case we can protect what we have, but also to punish those who are threat to democratic institutions and democracy itself.
The good point, at which point I would request, if there are any questions, please raise your hand and introduce yourself. And if the question is directed at a particular panelist, please say so.
I'm Victor Ambrose from University of Massachusetts Medical School. Sorry.
I didn't say anything.
One moment. Sir.
I'm not in charge of the button. Okay. I'm Victor Ambrose from University of Massachusetts. My question is about what's implicit in a lot of this discussion is, how do citizens know where to go to get reliable information? And, you know, with all the disinformation and, you know, propaganda. And I wondered if you guys can envision ways that we can somehow regrow a, some sort of consensual focus that people will start to believe, and rightfully so. That is reliable source of information.
Well, I think that empirically, the trust that, people have in social media and their information sources is directly correlated with the trust they have in their governments. You don't have as many conspiracy theories in Norway as you have in the US. And that's because politicians are actually liked and they're not seen as corrupt, and they're not seen as the pockets of tech giants. And and they're not seen as unresponsive to the preferences of citizens. So I would worry really, first, about the health of the democratic system. And only second, about the question of like reliability and trustworthiness of the, of the media. That said, I do worry about it too. And that's where I think, the work I do with, Oliver Hart, who is right here in the audience, and Luigi Zingales matters, too. We're thinking of expanding the concept of citizens assemblies to the corporate world as well, and the world of investment funds, etc., because my sense is that at this point where corporations have so much power over governments, regulation is not going to be the the solution, or it will come too late or it will be captured or co-opted. So there needs to be accountability mechanism and some form of democratic responsiveness inside these economic entities that are so powerful, including those tech giants that are developing AI in a direction that's not necessarily humanity, you know, centric and, orienting social media towards profit maximization over truth and other values that we should care about as a society. So I would encourage us, especially here in Davos, to think about corporate governance reform as well, not just democracy.
Any other questions? Please go ahead.
Thank you. I'm a student. I'm a student here from Switzerland. And my question is, I mean, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Swiss democratic system, but pretty much we vote on everything, every small detail, if a cow should have horns or not, for example. So do you think that, it is crucial that even those small decisions are really made by the public, or is sometimes maybe giving up a little bit of democracy for things to be more fast paced, necessary, and maybe a good option?
Thank you. Are you addressing this to anybody in particular or.
Whoever wants to answer?
I'll direct it to Mr. Tong.
Because.
Singapore is the closest. Following, not the same path.
Well.
But being very quick with decision making.
We don't have that many cows. I mean, I'm not sure about horns, but but I'll say this, I think democracy is not about voting every last issue. And certainly when you choose a government, it is not about then wanting to micromanage every last decision. And I think if you have to put every last decision you make to a vote, you're abdicating your responsibility. The government has been chosen to take responsibility and make decisions on behalf of its people. But as I said at the start, the quid pro quo being that you must advance society, you must show societal uplifting, social mobility, for example. So I don't believe in every last decision being micromanaged. But I also want to make a point, partly in response to what I've heard earlier in the discussion. I know there are a lot of failures with democracy, and I think moderator has outlined several publications. But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater as well, because the process is, at its heart, a genuine process that's designed to throw up persons or person or persons who the majority of the population believe it ought to be leader of. And there's nothing wrong fundamentally with that. What I said earlier was there are difficulties, though, with the process elections, are they free, fair misinformation and so on. But I think fundamentally, let's not conflate the issues. Even your example that you gave on Taiwan, ultimately this person came forward and was put in that ministry through elections. So let's not take, umbrage at all forms of democracy, but let's work out what precisely are the ailments that causes today's democratic process to fail and try and fix those.
And and you have the other panelists wants to answer this to join in.
I think we need to analyze this, from an integral perspective. At the end of the day, to participate, voting about, micro-decisions, I think is not the key issue. I think the key issue is what are the standards, that you, have as a reference to define your choices. So when you talk about misinformation, for example, or emotional polarization, what you're voting is not, representing what could be a clear decision to put in some I don't know if I can transmit the idea because we are in front of societies that, are not, double checking the information. They are validating their emotions through, social networks that validate or that support their opinion. So if you put them in front of voting processes, you don't know where they are electing, what kind of standards of quality they are using to decide. So in front of that, are we going to leave all the decisions to the government? But what if government has specific interests that are playing in favor of specific interests? So in front of them we are going to have also a problem. So I think we need to analyze this from an integral approach. We need to innovate in terms of re-educate our population. I think in most of the countries we have lost this sense of, what is correct? What is not correct? We are pursuing this populism in terms of all these guys, really strong. Have you seen, what is going on? I was listening to the Al here before the presentation of Mr. Trump. We will see the response to Mr. Macron. Everyone is waiting for fight or for motion. But I think that the man has a deep reflection in terms. Okay, what kind of reeducation we need as a citizenships? What kind of, new quality standards we must demand to our leaders, not only politicians, but also social political leaders, media. And what kind of arrangement do we need to create new arrangements with these new, big companies of technology that are handling, opinion? Apparently without any interest? But of course, that's not realistic. So I think we need to analyze this from a different approach and integrally.
I think we can take one more question. Do we have any. Go ahead. Hi.
Good evening everyone. I'm Ishan from the New Delhi Global Shapers. And, my question is directed to, gentleman, who you mentioned how we need to be more specific about, the solving of problems. And I was wondering if what you meant was instead of talking about the what we need to talk about the how of, problem solving. Do you consider, us making everything political to be a problem because, it's probably solution can be found in the apolitical. Is that what you are meaning to say?
Yeah. Not not not every not every issue has to be seen divided on political lines. I think I think earlier on, moderator mentioned that Singapore is practical. I think you use the word technocratic.
Technocratic.
But I would like to say I would like to think that we are more practical and we are driving towards a solution to a problem. And the solution sometimes can be multifaceted and can come from different, sources. And a responsible and a productive government ought to be able to accept all of these different sources. So I wouldn't define solutions on.
But the point really is, at the end of the day, I agree with your proposition that we also have to have a conversation on the how, because inasmuch as we want to know where we're going, I think it's important that between government and its people to to have an open mandate and to understand where that mandate is going. There must also be a discussion on how, because in every decision, there are always trade offs. And in understanding how to go forward, we must understand that there are always trade offs which might affect some other parts of the population. So that discussion, that openness with information, is quite an important process in the entire democratic system.
Helene, there's one minute left. Less than one minute I will I will pass most of my summary summarizing time if you just take 10s.
Okay. I just wanted to say that there's another aspect of the Swiss system that we don't talk about enough. It's. Does anybody know here what the name of the president of Switzerland is? No, because you do. Okay. But I'm saying the executive function in here is much less dominant than it is, say, in the US or many other sort of presidential democracies for for very good reason, the executive should execute. And somehow we let the executive legislate anywhere else. So I think recentering everything on, on assemblies, whether elected or randomly selected or a mix of both, I think it would be one of the solutions to get more democracy rather than this hyper personalized cult of personalities we have.
I think we could we could close there. But because I have to do it a little summary. I'll leave two thoughts here. One, one one is a proposition that ultimately all politics will return to the muscular middle where it should belong. It's a proposition. Right now, the world is shuffling its feet, calibrating. The other proposition is one of dread. What if this isn't a phase? What if this is it? This is the 21st century. And that's what makes this session so important. We had three public figures coming from very different democratic systems and geographies, and a wonderful mind that looks at the future and the character of democracy. So thank you very much, all of you. You've been wonderful panelists. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.