DEMOCRACY is dead, much as it has been for some considerable time.

Now little more than a skeleton flecked with remnants of rotten flesh, the carcass of democracy has begun to smell particularly pungent in recent times.

The deceased political system is now being mourned by hoards of grief-stricken politicians apparently unaware of its long-standing obsolescence.

“Why god why,” wailed one mourner unironically. “Our dear democracy, so bright and beautiful, has been stolen from us!

“We must find out what went wrong and bring the mysterious perpetrators to justice, whoever they are and wherever they are hiding.

“Alright I’m off now – see ya!”

A bemused coroner tasked with establishing a cause of democracy’s death confirmed that it had died decades ago and that many of those responsible were now seething with a sense of injustice.

“This democracy has not been alive for some time,” said the coroner. “She lived a brief and troubled life that was cruelly ended before it was ever allowed to reach maturity.

“Many in the medical profession were warning for years that democracy was being fed on a diet of toxic junk and was headed down a path to destruction and death. Was their advice sought? Did any of democracy’s right honorable friends care enough to make an intervention?

“I note that many of the folk who spent years injecting poison directly into the veins of democracy are now howling with rage, after belatedly discovering its demise.

“Where were they when one of the top doctors in the land said that only major surgery could save democracy from premature death? Were they not alarmed when she would turn up for work covered in cuts and bruises, often dressed in blood-stained clothes?

“Shedding tears over democracy’s loss today does nothing to heal the deep wounds of the past that were ignored for so long. These are the treacherous tears of hypocrites and I have no truck with them.”