Rising tensions
With just one more weekend to ponder which candidate to vote for when the polling stations open on Monday morning at 8 a.m., tensions are rising. This is apparent from the senseless attack on a gathering of the Christina Party in Belvedere on Wednesday evening.
There is no doubt that the country stands on the brink of significant changes. More parties than ever are contesting the elections, there are more candidates than ever to choose from. The question is: what do they really offer? What is different this time around?
We have noticed that parties are not that caustic in their criticism towards each other and the attendance at party rallies seems to be lower than during the 2014 elections. That shows that voters have become weary of politics, politicians and elections.
Logical as this may seem, it still is a slippery slope. Politicians have created an enormous distance between their cozy lifestyles and the concerns of average citizens. They say the words that are expected of them (‘taking care of the people’s businesses) but they hardly ever walk the talk.
Then there is the effect of the Masbangu-acquittal to think about. The general reaction to this ruling – the acquittal of all suspects – is, so we hear, that it is okay to distribute money among voters. Even better (or rather, worse) we hear that parties are distributing large sums of money in the districts, as DP-candidate Perry Geerlings says in today’s front page story.
Of course that is not okay, but in the race towards a cozy $125,000 a year seat in parliament that does not require a lot of sweat, people are prepared to cross the line as far as it takes to reach their objectives.
Do we get proper representation that way? Of course not.
A complicating factor is that not all candidates and not all parties are taking part in the money-distribution game. Young candidates with a lean bank account will not be able to compete with candidates with deep pockets. Don’t guess, we all know who they are.
There is however another side to this story; it is too easy to speak of “greedy politicians” and ignore the uglier side of this game.
Transparency International has pointed out in the past, and rightly so, that corruption (because that’s what vote buying and selling is) requires the cooperation of two parties.
Without corrupt citizens there cannot be corrupt politicians. It is as simple as that. This is also why the saying that every country gets the government it deserves is so true. The more corrupt the government is, the more corrupt the people they represent are.
So there we are: in the end it is all up to the 22,302 eligible voters. Will they vote for the chicken wings, a one hundred dollar banknote or for a candidate that is straightforward and ready to bring about the change this country needs so badly?
The turnout for these elections will give us a clue about the confidence the electorate still has in its elected representatives. Amazingly, it has never been way above 70 percent which is already pretty low for national elections to begin with. A dip in that number is bad news for the reputation of politics; it would show that politicians have to improve their efforts to “handle the people’s business.”
Another benchmark will be the results of the elections in the Pointe Blanche prison. As we know since a couple of days, MP Silvio Matser allegedly recruited voters in prison in 2014 with the help of several inmates. The results were clear: out of 67 eligible inmates, an astonishing 48 voted UP, thanks to the $100 each inmate received in his Prison Cantine account.
Most of all, we marvel about the system we live in. Every time voters go to the polls they are basically doing the same thing but expecting a different result.
This time around, because of the participation of so many newcomers, the result could be different and the political landscape could change dramatically. Mind you, the key word in the previous sentence is ‘could.’ There are no guarantees for any real change.
Maybe we ought to stick to the change that has been brought about during the past couple of months under the incumbent government. It’s not perfect but we have seen more openness, more transparency and above all more decisiveness.
Two examples stand out that substantiate this observation: the progress with the government administration building and that with the construction of the new hospital.
Whatever happens after the elections, the people deserve that that progress does not go to waste.
