"One head, one vote" in Western democracy becomes "one dollar, one vote": former Italian PM

BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The principle of "one head, one vote" in Western democracy has degenerated to "one dollar, one vote," said Massimo D'Alema, former prime minister of Italy, at an international forum on democracy here Wednesday, expressing concerns about prevalent money politics.

Through the control of modern media, the "overpowering" money has been increasingly capable of manipulating and conditioning political opinions, he said at the third International Forum on Democracy: The Shared Human Values, calling for limiting the excessive power of money.

However, with Western democracy declining, some Western countries still deem democracy as a value of the West, and wave democracy as a flag to oppose other countries, he said, warning that some are actually building a "new Berlin Wall" that will make all international cooperation difficult.

Domestically, Western countries should reestablish democracy through public policies to relieve inequality and social injustice, while on the international stage, open dialogue, instead of ideological opposition, between different cultures and civilizations is urgently needed.

The Western model "cannot be exported and imposed in other parts of the world, as the experiences in Afghanistan or Iraq or in the Middle East have shown again in recent years," he said.