A forum along the lines of Leveson is imperative, so the public can be made aware of how far our democracy has been eroded, and it needs to address the following questions: 1. Authorisation: a squad as big as this does not exist for more than 40 years without approval, if only tacit, at the very highest level.
The neck-and-neck race between Mr. Odinga and Mr. Kibaki shows how far Kenya's democracy has come from just a decade ago, when it was still under the grip of Mr. Moi, who has been widely criticized as a dictator and who is campaigning for Mr. Kibaki.
The most important questions are now up to the opposition: How far will pro-democracy activists go?
Most economists are not yet talking about the United States dipping back into recession, and it is too soon to tell how far the pro-democracy protests that have roiled Egypt, Bahrain and Libya will spread.
"Mr Kinnock's own words … show just how far the enemies of democracy have advanced inside the modern Labour party.
Aung San Suu Kyi has maintained a note of cautious optimism throughout the last year, even while noting how far from a real democracy Burma remains.
But the fact that a 72-year-old former dictator has become the first to unseat an incumbent reveals both how far Africa's largest democracy has come, and how far it still needs to go.
It didn't stop the protests, but it is worth keeping an eye on how far Ecuador and other "democracies" take these new forms of disinformation.
It is a little depressing, on this anniversary taking place during an exploitive and hyperbolic Presidential election, to consider how far the United States, the oldest democracy of all of them, has yet to go.
PAGE A8 Arrests Stir Unease in Iraq Arrests of journalists in Iraq, and the jailing of a professor accused of defaming Kurdish leaders, raise the question of how far Iraq will travel toward democracy.
