SOROS ADVICES TO AVOID POPULISTS

Support A1+!

“Freedom of speech, conduction of free and fair elections, independent mass media is not enough for building an open society”. These words belong to the true supporter of democracy, the Chairman of the “Open Society Institute” George Soros. According to him, one should be able to avoid those who distort the truth; however, it is impossible to do so today.

George Soros made similar statements in the PACE session hall during the meeting with the students of the CoE Political School. Students from 15 countries participated in the meeting.

Talking on the necessity of constructing democracy, George Soros noted that one should avoid populism in politics and it was impossible to avoid it nowadays. In his opinion, populism grants an opportunity to people “to come to power by manipulating and preserve that power and never reach a result”.

“We must contribute to minimizing the manipulating policy and the best way to achieve that is to have an open society and to eject the populists through elections”, he said. Mr Soros mentioned that his institute was carrying out programs in the USA as well. “I never thought that it will be necessary in the US”, confessed George Soros, since he considered that the power and the reputation of the US was diminishing. “And here also we deal with manipulating policy”. Today when the US is losing its reputation, Europe should take up the role of a decisive actor for maintaining democracy and for establishing open society. “The EU is the prototype of an open society”, declared Soros and added that the EU member states waive their independence for a common objective, since it was impossible to solve complicated problems alone.

According to George Soros, fight against Saddam Hussein was a common problem.

The “Open Society Institute” does not possess a definite mechanism for assessing productivity of activities.

Representatives of 15 countries thanked George Soros for the implemented projects, and the representative from the Belarus asked for a support to get rid of Lukashenko’s regime and for reinforcing democracy.

At the end, George Soros advised the future politicians and political actors to be open and noble and to contribute to the formation of an open society.

Diana Markosyan

Strasburg-Yerevan