Does the election of a pope offer useful lessons for democratic institutions?
At first glance, none: the secret election, during a conclave, after an indefinite number of rounds of voting, of a man, who must be unmarried, by 133 others, most of whom were chosen by his predecessor, to rule alone, with the support of an administration under his command, until his death, over an institution with moral authority over more than a billion faithful, is clearly completely contrary to all democratic principles.
And yet it deserves our attention: even if some papal elections in the past have been the occasion for unsavory deals, bloody wars, or lasting schisms, this mechanism, and the institution it embodies, the Roman Catholic Church, has survived for nearly two millennia and 267 popes have succeeded one another.
It is even the oldest human institution still in existence today: the Egyptian monarchy, established in 3100 BCE, ended with the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE; even shorter-lived were the Chinese monarchy and others, including the French monarchy. The other oldest human institution still in existence today seems to be, after the Catholic Church, the Icelandic Parliament, which was only established in 930 CE.
We must therefore reflect on the lessons that can be learned from the mechanisms for electing a pope:
In dictatorships, the process of selecting a leader is quite similar to that of the pope: upon the death of the previous tyrant, his acolytes (if they are not overthrown by the people or by a coup d’état by one of their own or by a third party) meet to choose a successor. This is how the few general secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who were also necessarily heads of state, were chosen. In China today, despite the theoretical limitation of the leaders’ terms of office, the mechanism for selecting the supreme leader is also very similar. The same is true in all other single-party regimes or those ruled by a quartet of officers.
And in democratic countries? At first glance, nothing similar. And it is obviously impossible to imagine limiting the electorate to a few people or imposing secrecy on the debates preceding the votes. On the other hand, three characteristics of papal elections could provide useful food for thought for democratic institutions:
First, in papal elections, none of the electors are candidates, at least not openly.
Second, electors can vote secretly and freely for the candidate they prefer from among all the other electors.
Third, the election campaign serves first to take stock of the institution and then to choose the direction the electors want it to take in the future.
Only then does the vote take place. It is secret. There is no outside influence and no one is a candidate. Voters may have to vote a large number of times until a qualified majority emerges for a particular candidate.
Could these principles be replicated for the election of a mayor or president?
It would mean starting the election campaign with a long debate among voters on the record of the previous term, on what were successes and failures, then debating the situation of the country and defining priorities for the future. Without any declared candidates. It would then mean listening to all those among the voters who have something to say about all this, whether they are professional politicians, party activists, community activists, employees, entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors, retirees, or anyone else. Finally, it would mean allowing implicit candidates to emerge gradually during these debates, who would never have to declare themselves and who would stand out for their eloquence, the importance of their analyses, and the relevance of their proposals.
Voters would then vote for one of them, without any of them, in principle, ever having declared themselves a candidate. And since the votes would most likely be scattered among thousands of non-candidates, hundreds of rounds would be needed to achieve a majority result.
This is undoubtedly impossible to replicate, except perhaps for municipal elections in small towns to elect the mayor, who would then choose his or her team.
However, we can draw some essential lessons from this that are useful for democracy at all levels:
- Analysis of the situation, the issues, and the programs must come before the choice of a president.
- The president should be able to be chosen without having to be a candidate, from among voters who could, through their votes, bring forth candidates from outside the political class.
One could therefore imagine a first phase of the campaign limited to substantive debates on the analysis of the situation and the development of programs. Voters would then be asked to submit the names of those they would like to see as president to implement this program. Only then would the names be put to a vote.
Put even more simply, there would be two successive votes: first a vote on a program, then a vote on the name of the person best able to implement it.
By doing so, we would have greatly improved the electoral process. We would have encouraged people to focus on programs, which are the great forgotten elements of all election campaigns.
We should also not forget that the main reason for the enduring popularity of the Roman Catholic Church lies elsewhere: despite all its past and present turpitudes, it remains capable of inspiring attachment, or more precisely hope, in its followers.
Hope. That is much more important than procedures. A great nation should be able to do at least that much.
Image:The Conclave, 1903, Unbekannt