Answer to Question #304659 in English for Potter

Question

Assess in three ways the importance of accountability in a democracy

Answer 1

Accountability is important in democracy in the following ways:

i) It enables the citizens to know how the government is doing by ensuring that the civil servants and ministers act in the best interest of the citizens. It prevents the government servants from carrying out a duty in their interest.

ii) It shows how one can gain redress when things go wrong. Accountability makes the person who is liable of a wrongdoing to open up and say the root cause of the problem and suggest possible ways of mitigating the problem. An example being the election body indicating the root cause why there is election malpractices and coming up with ways to prevent it from happening. Without accountability, the election bodies cannot admit to election fraud, and therefore, the malpractices will continue.

iii) Accountability creates trust among the citizens with the government. The government, which is democratic ensures trust is upheld if they encourage certain rights of the citizens and their freedom to be upheld. The citizens will trust the government more if they become accountable for the problems in the society and find ways of stopping or reducing the problems.