Elections are the bedrock of democracy. This statement is supposed to give comfort to billions of people around the world, who believe in the system of government which has been in place for many hundreds of years. Yet, if you look at governments around the world, you will find that the systems which have been put in place to ‘elect’ the Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Chancellors of this world, are very flawed.
The reason I say this is that the ‘people’s votes’ which are supposed to decide who runs the countries, are often little more than ‘appeasements’ to make the electorate feel as if they are making their votes count.
This interesting article from the BBC’s website breaks down the US election which is currently in progress. The main point of the election from reading the article is that the ‘people’s
vote’ is actually voting for ‘delegates’ who decide who will be the person to run for president. So rather than actually voting for their guy or girl, they are choosing some unknown people to decide for them.(I am not a political analyst, and I do not know chapter and verse about the US political system, so please investigate further if you want to know more).
This clip from Micheal Moore’s movie Farenheit 11/9, shows the delegate process at work.
In certain countries around the world people are paid to vote. This happens regularly in poor or impoverished countries where a small payment will feed and cloth a family, so the
promise of payments help the local party to ‘buy’ their seat, or place in power. This is particularly rife in impoverished countries which the people are used to ‘families or political dynasties’ running the country. The people in power have control of the country’s wealth, so the pay the people to vote for them ‘again’ using the people’s own money in effect.
There is also ‘election intimidation’ which is the threat of violence to people who do not vote for the ‘correct party’. African countries have been experiencing this for many years. In Zimbawe for example, there has been visual evidence of the Zanu PF party (Robert Mugabe) intimidating opposition supporters, and reports of 100,s of deaths, and the imprisonment of the opposition leader (Morgan Tsvangiri) on many occasions. This is one example which I have watched on TV and read articles about. There are more examples out there.
In China, the word used, changes from ‘Election’ to ‘Selection’ Leaders are selected by party members to join the higher ranks of the party and therefore into positions of power within the party. This is supposedly a ‘democratic process’ although little is know about the process outside of the higher echelons of the party itself.
There is also the ‘constitutional amendments’ which leaders in certain countries use to remain in power forever. Haiti is one such country where ‘Francois “Papa” Doc Duvalier’ declared himself ‘president for life’ and he also passed on succession to his son, ‘Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’ so elections held within their successive rules were little more than ceremonies to ‘re-elect themselves’
Finally, on this post, Must mention ‘The Church’ For as long as can be remembered religion and politics have always gone hand-in-hand. Today, in many countries this ideology still exists. Churches have followers. These followers listen to their leader. If the leaders follow a particular political party, the you can rest assured that the followers will also follow the party of its leaders. The church has enormous ‘clout’ over who governs the country in many countries around the world. In The Philippines a church named ‘Iglesia Ni Christo’ is one of the most politically powerful churches in the country, and as such can influence an election by merely instructing its followers who to vote for.
As I have stated before, the purpose of this site is to introduce the topics for discussion. Therefore this is not an all encompassing overview of the electoral processes around the world, but merely a peek inside to give you, the read, a wider perspective.