Hooray! It�s over
Tumie Modise | Monday October 27, 2014 17:12
Some people will continue celebrating, even until the end of this week. For others, the next few days are going to be longest and most torturous. If like me you have been a victim of a robbery, for a few days you will find yourself waking up every morning or in the middle of the night hoping that your experience was nothing but a very bad dream!
Last week we received a report that out local Red Cross office was planning to set up some relief mini stations at selected polling stations on Election Day.
To me, it is a very necessary and a very welcome move. We take our emotions for granted and we often assume that we all operate on the same emotional wave length. Funerals are just an example of how different we really are.
We have all been to those funerals where you find a handful of people wailing, rolling on the ground and even threatening to jump inside the grave while others from the very same family will just remain calm and unmoved even in the midst of such chaos. We are very different like that.
In my adult life, I have voted at only two elections. I can attest that the worst day ever has to be the day after elections, as results come trickling in. For some reason, a lot of first time voters (young and old) voted for the very first time in last Friday’s election. It is that group of voters that makes me very nervous.
Because, even though every single vote counts in political terms, some of them honestly don’t understand that theirs is just one vote.
I am no psychic, but I see many first time voters throwing the loudest tantrums and rejecting the results outright. By Thursday last week, many of those were almost very certain that their candidates will emerge victorious! It is not farfetched either to assume that many had already started rehearsing for those impromptu celebration parties! Mass hysteria and euphoria were at the forefront of these election’s campaigns and that, in my view, is very dangerous! A friend of mine who is also a first time voter, like many others, his only experience with politics is mainly through social media, radio stations and newspapers. A real arm chair political activist, I shudder to think about his current state of mind right now! Fact, as they say, is stranger than fiction. I am hoping that the Botswana Red Cross will not abandon their mission yet, but rather hang around at least for a week.
A few days before the election, conspiracy theories started flying thick and fast, mostly about possible rigging. In my head, rigging long took place when only 800 000+ people registered instead of the multitudes that were expected.
Just how do people trust other people with their own lives that they would not want to be actively involved in the affairs of their own country? Rigging also took place at registration time. For reasons only best known to themselves, thousands of people simply registered where they do not reside or originate from, and in my mind, together with those who simply did not vote they are the worst election rigging culprits! But keep your ear on the ground; it is this group that will be making the loudest noise for the next five years!
Soon, the next President will be sworn in. Like many Batswana, I am upbeat about this development because once more whoever becomes president will once again make dish out a list of promises. Change excites me, whether it is from within or from outside.
My heart goes out to all the candidates who did not make it in this year’s election. Like the saying goes, there are no winners and losers; the only winner has to be our democracy always.
Unfortunately, with every race there can only be one winner and worse, unlike the Olympics and beauty pageants, in politics there are no medals for runner ups.
Lessons learnt from this election? One must never assume and one must never count their chickens before they hatch. Most importantly, the power of the silent voter must never be underestimated by anyone! To the new leadership, let God lead the way and everything else shall follow.