Mid-Week Thoughts - On Elections, Elections and more Elections

Having been bombarded with things election all week long by the local media (both print and online), mailing lists and blogs, I ran away to the broadcast media, more specifically Astro, for my daily diet of news last Sunday. Alas, BBC world news carried visuals of Putin casting his vote and some Spaniards going to the polls. I am again reminded of elections (pardon the time lapse as this para was actually started on Sunday night).

Elections. The 2004 season has commenced. Georgia, Iran, Greece, Russia, Spain have already had theirs. Malaysia, Sri Lanka (April), Indonesia (April), India (April) and the Philippines (May) to follow. Others later in the year, notably, US of A’s Presidential Elections in November.

Elections. The process through which ordinary citizens can exercise their much sought after and fought for empowerment – the suffrage. That is, the right to vote and choose who should govern them in political elections. Looking at it in another way, “each vote signifies a wish for what we want and need” (Our PM as quoted in today’s NST front page).

And when the choice have been made we have the government of the day. Abraham Lincoln saw it as government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Thanks to those who fought and make sacrifices throughout history to bring forth this institution of Voting and Elections. Much good has accrued “for the people” and their countries.

But there’s always a downside to everything.

What if winning the polls was just winning the battle and not the war? Take Iran for example. The Iranians, prior to the 2004 elections, overwhelming elected reformists to their parliament in the hope that things will change for the better. They were soon to be disappointed. Parliament was paralysed by the Republic’s system, which bestowed almost absolute power of veto to the Guardian Council comprising of conservatives clerics. Much as President Mohammad Khatami and his supporters wanted to act in the interest of the people, the ordinary citizens who voted for them, they were unable to.

What if the majority’s choice was not totally right? We all know what Junior (Bush Jr. that is) has been up to after he became President. He did nothing much for the economy but yet spent millions for his so called liberation wars; he took away cherished individual rights like liberty and privacy with his Patriot Act all in the name of safeguarding the people against terrorists; he caused hundreds of body-bags to be sadly brought back to US soil from Iraq, a consequence of waging a war most of the world did not approved. Was all this acting in the interest of the people?

Frankly, elections sometimes frighten me. The electorate is a motley crowd of rational persons, irrational persons and the in-between ones. I mean those people who otherwise would be rational but instead act irrationally because of bitterness due to something done to them or deprive them; because of emotions raised due to a careless or uncalled for word or two on race and religion and so on. What if the collective irrationality prevail with all its attendant consequences?

That said, come this Sunday, as far as Malaysian voters are concerned, I am sure their common sense will prevail and they will know the white from the black.

Negara ku
Tanah tumpahnya darahku,
Rakyat hidup
bersatu dan maju,

(My country, my native land.
The people living united and progressive)
[English translation from here]