Why the hullabaloo about another supplementary registration? #Elections2014
Michael Dingake | Tuesday March 11, 2014 15:21
After 10 general elections they know that one can only vote if registered! The reluctance nay, resistance to register to vote, is a loud and clear message to the effect that Batswana don’t have any truck with elections! You can take a horse to the river but you can’t make it drink. In Australia where voting is compulsory and citizens can be penalised if they don’t go to the polls, how do the authorities know whether people go into the polling booths to vote or to spoil the ballot papers?
Voter apathy should be blamed on government, Independent Electoral Commission (EC), political parties and of course the voters themselves. The government deserves blame if its system or electoral laws are inconvenient or unintelligible to potential voters. If government preaches democracy where majority wins and then adopts an electoral system where in practice the minority can win, for instance adoption of First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system, then people may be discouraged to vote if a minority might win in democratic general elections under the FPTP; moreover if government enacts electoral law which in theory create the IEC but in practice deny the institution the resources to conduct free and fair elections or deprives it of power and authority which logically fall under its jurisdiction, for instance withholding constituency delimitation aspect when this is the alpha of the election process , then the scenario complicates and confuses the objectives and duties of the IEC.
The IEC itself may be responsible for voter apathy by laxity on voter trafficking, failure to introduce on-line registration system, failure to extend identification documents to include passports and drivers’ licences, failure to design registration forms for automatic transferability of the vote at registration period for convenience of the voter indicating where the voter prefers to cast his/her vote; it shouldn’t be difficult to register to vote in Gaborone North while indicating where the casting of the ballot will happen, Shakawe/Tsabong if one works in Gaborone but home is Shakawe/Tsabong; it is asking too much of the voter to travel all the way to Shakawe/Tsabong just to register to vote when one works in Gaborone; it costs a limb to do that!
Political parties may also induce voter apathy unwittingly by failing to instill discipline in their members; very often party members foment controversy and factions during primary elections when they dispute unfavourable results, candidates often batter party interest for personal interest. Otherwise why do candidates who lose primary elections refuse to accept results, preferring to go it alone as mekoko (independents)? Here and there it may be the inefficiency of the party office mixing up the voters’ rolls, but generally it appears the gripe in primary elections is that party members are determined to win by hook or by crook; the incessant quarrels after primary elections results can be laid at the door of poor political party leadership failing to instill the necessary discipline in the membership; the feature of primaries constant disputes, compromises political parties’ altruism and may ultimately discourage voter registration; defections also play a role; while defection may be a legitimate option for members frustrated by own party’s deviations, often these defections may be a flimsy excuse reflecting lack of principle in party membership and likely to influence perception of instability and unreliability in a given party. Parties ought to demonstrate they can be relied upon by the unaffiliated floating voters.
Finicky defections are a source of disillusionment with the parties and elections systems. Another problem is the perception that political parties don’t adhere to their manifestoes but use them to lure unsuspecting voters to support their self-enrichment agendas. This largely applies to the ruling party. While the ruling party displays this tendency by failing to implement manifesto pledges , opposition parties are not immune, they manifest this by failing to pressure the ruling party every time it falters and stumbles on its pledges. How should the opposition behave in the circumstances? Obviously make shrill noises in parliament/councils whenever the ruling party fails to deliver goods and services and by embarking on mobilising active resistance whenever the opportunity arises . Voters don’t expect opposition leaders to hibernate after losing in the general elections, they expect them to continue criticising, harassing and driving the rulers to walk the narrow and straight path!
In the final analysis it is the individual Motswana who makes up his/her mind whether to go to the polls or not. The reasons usually given by Batswana themselves why they don’t register to vote are many and varied: they don’t vote because their vote doesn’t change anything; they vote for candidates on a mission to enrich themselves; political parties across the spectrum are the same; the same party wins all the time! Obviously if they vote for the same party at every general elections, nothing will change; it is nonsense to view political parties as the same when they haven’t alternated in office. After almost 50 years of one-party rule, intuition, if not intelligence should inform Batswana their circumstances won’t change while they don’t change the ruling party!