International Day of Democracy

The word democracy has its origins from the Greek words demos meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and kratos meaning power or rule; and means rule by the people. For representative democracy forms of government, the people make decisions about how their community is run and elect leaders to make laws to effect these decisions.The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy.  International Day of Democracy is thus to review the state and the ideal of democracy in the world, and to reinforce the link between democracy and human rights as captured in article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”