Political accountability is mediated by the democratic election process, through which elected politicians hold top civil servants in the Department of Health to account according to the mandate and expectations of the public.
She is facing a recall election campaign, the rare procedure through which elected officials can be booted from office.
Many of Fatah's younger members (and some in Hamas and Islamic Jihad too) see elections as the vehicle through which they can translate the nationalist kudos they gained in the uprising into real political power.
Labor leaders say it is far easier to organize workers through card checks than through elections, which often take months to hold and can bog down in years of litigation.
In this draft, the Senate was to be elected in proportion to the population, being two-fifths the size of the House, and the President and Senators were to be elected through complex multistage elections, in which chosen electors would elect smaller bodies of electors; they would hold office for life, but were removable for misconduct.
Elections can be a tool through which social change is attempted.
It spoke of a ten-year transition through which democratic elections would be made possible and a new form of democratic socialism would replace the status quo.
Beyond elections, there are other processes through which citizens organize themselves, demanding explanations and threatening less formal sanctions like negative publicity.
A national "poll of polls" published on January 5th put the Lib Dems on 11%, halving their share of the vote since the last election, with Labour on 40% and the Conservatives on 38%.By-elections offer an imperfect lens through which to view national trends, especially in places with such tangled politics as Oldham, the scene of race riots in 2001 and still a sadly segregated town.
"We will not use violence and all of our problems must be solved through elections, which will take place next year," Mr. Latortue said during a visit on Friday in Coral Gables, Fla.
