The 2015 General and Regional Elections are now 25 days away and campaigns are in full swing. Regrettably some of the campaigning is taking place at gutter level, despite protestations and promises that the opposite would have been done. It was to be expected. Let’s be realistic, for some politicians fighting to win votes means doing whatever is necessary, including descending to the basest levels that there are.
It must be noted that in keeping with the age of technology, a lot of the political campaigning is also being done via social media. Not that the hustings have been replaced, but it has been recognised more now than in 2011 that the World Wide Web is where many people congregate to chat and exchange views.
Numbers are going to mean a lot in this election. Already, the political parties and their supporters are looking at the audience factor. Hints are being dropped and words bandied about which party draws the bigger crowd and where. Of the two parties that have held political rallies around the country, each has accused the other of transporting supporters to the various areas to make up numbers.
This may appear to matter, but really it doesn’t. Beyond making the party holding the rally look good, these numbers are as significant as ‘likes’ on Facebook. It is well known that Facebook does not have a ‘dislike’ button so often a ‘like’ can be a sign of derision, but only the person who clicks it really knows that, which makes it hard to say how many of say 1,000 likes might actually mean what they purport to mean.
The dichotomy between the number of people who were eligible to vote and those who actually exercised their franchise and did so correctly at the 2011 General and Regional Elections ought to have provided a huge learning experience for all concerned. The final voters’ list in 2011 had a total of 475,496 electors. The final results of those elections had revealed that 342,236 valid votes were counted, 346,717 persons had actually voted, representing 72.9 per cent of those eligible to do so. Nearly 4,500 votes had been spoiled and were rejected.
The over 133,000 potential votes that were not counted at the end of the day as a result of not being cast or being spoilt would have made a huge difference to any one of the parties that were actually in contention in 2011. As it is, they changed the course of history; Guyana had a minority government for the first time. And while this could have been a good thing, it wasn’t. The subsequent tug-of-war in Parliament resulted in the average citizen sustaining extensive rope burns and not much else.
Those uncast votes suggested not disenfranchisement, as every effort seemed to have been made to allow those eligible to do so to cast their ballots, but apathy. The evidence is obvious – if 133,000-odd people had wanted to vote but were not allowed to there would have been a huge hue and cry. Instead, apart from a few mutterings from politicians, there was mostly silence.
In fact, in the run up to those elections, many people had said openly among their peers that they were not going to vote because they did not care – that is apart from those whose religion precludes them from taking part in the process.
This year, for the most part, there has been the opposite. Many people, particularly young people, not previously known to be political or to have paid any interest in elections have been speaking out – saying that they will be voting and encouraging others to do the same. Political parties, if they haven’t already, should be paying keen attention. This, it is believed, is the anatomy of the new voter, who will place his/her X next to a symbol based how he/she views the leadership behind it. It is believed that these new voters are savvy enough to see beyond pie in the sky and will be looking for actual workable plans. While such voters are still in the minority, they represent a shift away from the old ways, which could gain traction and momentum in times to come. This is a development that could finally see Guyana winning rather than any one political party. And when Guyana wins, everyone wins. May that time soon come.
