April 2008
Issue
The Mugabe presidency succeeds in curbing voter apathy. If little
else.
By Aidan McCaffery
Election watchdogs are reporting that 9 million ballot papers
were ordered for the 5.9 million registered voters in Zimbabwe.
News of this comes in the same week that Jack Straw, the UK's
Secretary of State for Justice, proposed plans for electoral
reform that would see, amongst other things, the introduction
of compulsory voting in Britain. If our eligible voters, only
61% of whom voted in the 2005 general election, showed half as
much as enthusiasm as their Zimbabwean counterparts, who aren't
just voting once, but one and a half times, then maybe we wouldn't
have the same problem with turnout that we've had for the last
decade or so.
 Yes, voters in Zimbabwe are so enthusiastic about the democratic
process that in their general election they're voting not just
once, but one and a half times. Zimbabwe's government has responded
to the election fervour by stepping up production on ballot papers,
struggling to produce enough to match their people's insatiable
thirst for voting, even if it means allowing them to come back
for seconds. It's a far cry from 61%. Try 152%. Those mathematics
tell me one thing and one thing only: Those Africans sure know
how to vote. They've got democracy down to a T (even if that
T arguably stands for 'tampering'). Let's compare the mathematics
of this enthusiasm to that of other countries around the world:
1.) The ballot figure is way ahead of China's voter enthusiasm. The Chinese are currently among the worst sufferers of voter
apathy in the world (one billion people and not a single one
can be bothered to get off their arse and make their vote count;
that's sloth for you).
2.) It is almost twice as much enthusiasm
as the freedom loving USA. Americans claim they love democracy and that they'd defend
it to their deaths, but when it comes to choosing their head
of state, each citizen only casts one vote every four years.
(You call that love, Americans? If you only get to vote on your
president every four years, you should treat it like a Christmas
dinner and gorge. Cast twenty votes in your name, then fall asleep
watching Raiders of the Lost Ark afterwards while feeling largely
over-indulged.)
3.) It is three times as much as half of a Siamese twin, if you
controversially believed said twin to be but half a person and
thus only deserving half the right to vote. (And even then only
if they weren't British, in which case they wouldn't be voting
at all).
So in a period when we British can barely summon the will to
cast anything more than a measly one vote per head, we need to
look to Zimbabwe as a shining example of barely concealed electoral
excitement. It seems not a week goes by when one of Africa's
many countries aren't at their respective country's voting booths,
and doing a whole lot more voting individually than we would
ever attempt in a lifetime.
President Mugabe (l) [Javno] and Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Morgan
Tsvangirai
Incumbent President Robert Mugabe deserves credit for the high
voter turnout the election is likely to receive. Some people might
view his presidency as a failure, pointing to food shortages, an out
of control of HIV/AIDS epidemic, the short life expectancy that has
resulted of it, and the ruins that remain of a formerly prosperous
economy (its inflation rate is more than 100,000%). But they're not
looking at the bigger picture. You want high voter turn out? Mugabe
is going to get it. If the British parliament was serious about curbing
voter apathy, then they should set about destabilizing our economy
so that it is impossible to buy a loaf of bread without at least four
wheelbarrows full of two pound coins, and start teaching school children
that the best cure for AIDS is to have sex with a virgin. Come 2010,
the voting queues would go round the block, and then some.
Of course, all eyes will be cast on the aftermath of the election.
Recent opinion polls have given MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai 28%
of the vote, Mugabe 20% and third candidate Simba Makoni 9%. Tsvangirai's
eventual tally is expected to be higher, as a third of those polled
refused to state their voting intentions; as such they are expected
to be voting against the government. If Mugabe pulls off a win, the
democratically enthused Zimbabwean population will no doubt celebrate
their exercised right to vote by having a huge party, no doubt on
the streets.
Just like they did last year. In Kenya.
Send comments on Aidan’s column to a.f.mccaffery@gmail.com |
