Filibuster Cartoons
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At a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Uganda last week, the member states voted to kick Pakistan out of the organization, on account of that country’s recent plunge into martial law. The Commonwealth considers itself to be pro-democracy, and countries with non-democratic governments are supposed to be shunned from the group.
Problem is, this actually happens very, very rarely in practice, and Pakistan is now one of the very few countries to ever be kicked out. Indeed, according to Freedom House, even without Pakistan there are still four out-and-out dictatorships presently in the Commonwealth, and at least a dozen other countries which can only be considered “partly free.” The gesture is thus a bit empty.
Of course, the Commonwealth of 2007 is still an improvement from the Commonwealth of the 70′s and 80′s, in which dictatorships frequently outnumbered the democratic countries.
