Participatory democracy crucial

For years, free elections have seemingly been used as the only yardstick to measure a country's democracy. So long as a country has general suffrage, it is considered democratic.

Suffrage, or the right to vote, is certainly an important political and human right, and it is often hard won in any society.

But, two elements are essential to this matter: One, it must be based on the nature of power, which is required to be independent of external coercion and internal inequity as a prerequisite for democracy. Two, it is only one of the many aspects of democracy and attention to electoral democracy should not detract from attention to other aspects of democracy, such as public participation.