Dear Editor,
Since the election for a Toshao was held in Capoey, the villagers are now split into two factions. One claims that the election was rigged with outsiders being allowed to vote after a tie, which saw a new election one week later. The new Toshao has told the discontented villagers that she made a breakthrough with the tie, and that she speaks for over half of the Capoey electorate.
According to half the villagers, however, the election was rigged.
There is already non-cooperation between the two factions, and the newly elected Toshao is losing support. The Capoey villagers now realize that it is not possible to secure people’s power any more since the senior and junior ministers in the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs have neglected their plea for an investigation into the election. One of the greatest dangers confronting the divided community is the growing belief that the Amerindian Act 2006, is so manipulated as to make peaceful change accomplished through the working of elections, virtually impossible.
The dissatisfied faction has now embarked on a civil resistance and a non-cooperation campaign against the new Toshao, and are calling on other villagers living outside Capoey to help them in their struggles.
Many of the grosser defects of the elections for Toshaos and village councillors can be corrected if the voters’ lists are posted outside of the place of poll 3 months before the election is held.
The villagers may criticize the election but they do so as spectators. They claim that they do not do so through any acknowledged right to be considered part of the village. They vote at periodical Toshao elections but for the rest they seem to look on from the outside. For them, an analysis of the situation must take them beyond the results once compromise is found.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan