SOROS ADVICES TO AVOID POPULISTS
Diana Markosyan

A1+
[07:46 pm] 10 July, 2007
Strasburg-Yerevan

"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.