Elections: For whom and for what?

A critical examination of elections in Sri Lanka

It is an election festival once again.  The whole country is getting ready for the big fight where two war heroes meet in the Presidential election ring. According to the government’s spokesperson, apparently President Rajapakse has finished what he planned for six years in four, so he is expecting a fresh mandate for more work. Mind you, this is not it, as the term of the present parliament expires in April 2009 and the Government will have to call for the parliamentary election also within the course of next four months. All these elections will surely cost a humongous amount of public funds which could have been easily allotted to ease off the present economic burdens of the citizens. Therefore, this election festivity, for sure raises public concern as to for whom these elections are really meant for and for what. In this light, this paper attempts to critically examine the role and the delivery of elections in Sri Lankan politics focusing on voter participation.

In support of elections
Elections are a necessity for democracy. Because, they provide a mean through which citizens can choose their rulers to rule them for a few years.   Hence, scholars of political science would no doubt consider elections as one of the most important events in a democratic society and expect effective citizen participation in them.  In fact, the conduct of elections has been used as one of the important measurements in gauging the quality of democracy of any country. In this context, regular elections, free and fair elections and particularly higher voter participation will be certainly a very good measure of a healthy democracy of any country.

In theory, free and fair elections provide citizens an equal opportunity to elect a political party or a candidate that they think is the best to represent them in the legislature or executive, reflecting their policy and ideological positions. In addition, elections allow citizens to hold their rulers accountable for their conduct or misconduct and thereby ensure their influence on the decisions of the government. Thus, in an ideal democracy, rulers would always stick to the policy preference of their constituency and more importantly deliver what they promised during the election campaign.  In this context, there is no doubt that elections are instruments in empowering citizens, especially the marginalized majority, irrespective of the motive of those who announce elections. So, in essence more elections are better than no elections.

Participation elections
There are four different types of elections; namely, Presidential, Parliamentary, Provincial Council and Local Authority elections. Compared to many developed nations and mature democracies, voting in Sri Lanka is at impressively high. For example during the 2005 Presidential election, in 15 out of 25 districts voter turnout was almost 80% and in the rest of the districts other than of those in the North and East -where Tamil community was forced to refrain from voting-, over 70% participated in voting. Of course, this voter turnout varies from one type of election to other. On the contrary, in most of the western established democracies, election participation has been declining during the past few decades raising concerns on the future of democracy in those countries. So, on the basis of voting, one may want to call Sri Lanka is a vibrant democracy than those so-called mature democracies. In fact, does this high voter turnout indicate that we enjoy higher quality democracy and that we have a great deal of enthusiasm in elections? Perhaps the central question here is why do people (Sri Lankans) vote in elections?

The normative answer would be that people vote because they want to take part in electing their rulers and influence the public policies of the country. Rationally speaking, a single vote would never affect an election involving more than ten million people. If one does a cost benefit analysis, it is always rational to go to work or engage in your own business than participating in elections or voting for a party. So, then why do people vote?

Rationality of irrational voting
People do participate in voting for various reasons. Those who are members or strong supporters of a political party/candidate, participate in voting not only to add a vote to their party or candidate but also to express their solidarity with their party/candidate in a celebrative manner.  They make sure to exhibit their party choice to others by wearing clothes in colors that are representative of the party to encourage the silent party supporters.  There are others who are not strong supports of any party/candidate but they too participate in the election eagerly as they consider voting as their civic responsibility. These people generally wear white cloths or sober colors to indicate their neutrality while strongly believing the importance of using the secret vote. There is another group that I am interested in this paper, which does not fall under any of the above mentioned groups. For them an election is neither an occasion for celebration nor a chance to fulfill their civic duty. For them elections are potential instances that could endanger their income avenues, their freedom and security or other opportunities.

Recently, I visited a rural village in Batticaloa for some research work. This village was under the LTTE control a few years ago and people live in extreme poverty with no proper income avenues. I was talking to a middle aged (she claimed that she is 46 years old) mother of six children. She did not have any clue about the Eastern provincial council for which she had voted a year ago. This prompted me to ask her why she voted.  She gave me an answer which was very rational given her circumstances and life conditions.  She had apparently thought that refraining from voting is a violation of law and that as a consequence she and her family would have had to face punitive action from the security forces stationed in her little village. Further answering how she learned about the candidate, she said she knew nothing about who contested in that election, it had been the village committee leader who gave her a few names and asked her to cast her vote for one of them. This is not to suggest that security forces were intimidating people in that village but to highlight that even things like insecurity and fear of arbitrary arrest also sometimes have forced people into participating in voting.   Of course, one can argue this example as an isolated incident and cannot be generalized to our society. However, I believe that this story has a great deal of importance in our examination of the role of elections in our society.  In the coming elections, citizens of two provinces who were under military control either of the Government or of the LTTE for more than a decade will now participate in a democratic election. A fair number of these people must have spent years in various IDP camps with no clue about the world outside of those camps.  Unless authorities restore normalcy and address their insecurity, as this story suggests, an election would not allow them effectively participate in choosing their rulers.

We hear many stories about the way elections are held in the tea plantation areas. There were instances where some polling booths reported 100% voting even with no spoiled votes. Doesn’t that sound dodgy?  Extreme poverty, high illiteracy and Trade union dependency has made these communities vulnerable to being robbed by the politicians and their henchmen trade union officials. Their social condition allows politicians to buy their votes at a cheap cost either with a bottle of arrack or a packet of milk powder. Their free expression is limited by the heavy unionization of the community. There are limits to the alternatives and independent sources of information.  Hence the electoral participation for these unfortunate people is not more than pleasing their trade unionists that they greatly depend on.

We boast about the long history of welfare policy in the country. This tradition has made people believe that they are looked after by the government and that it is a responsibility of the government. I too believe that the government holds the responsibility of looking after its citizens without letting market forces rob them. However, I feel disgusted with the way these welfare schemes are being used by the politicians to rob the democratic rights of the poor. We had the dry ration card, Janasaviya in the past and now it is Samurdi that focuses to ease off the burdens the country’s poor communities. Since politicians and their local agents hold the discretionary on deciding who should get and who should not, these welfare schemes have always been shamelessly used as a bargaining tool for voter allegiance. As a consequence, these poor people have to fill the audience of the election rallies of the ruling parties, participate in the village meetings and worst of all; they have to refrain from expressing their opinion and criticizing the rulers. One such beneficiary said that he voted in the last Eastern provincial council election because he was scared that if he not cast his vote, the village politician will notice him and it would cost him his ‘Samurdi”. Even if this person’s claim is a mere perception, it shows what encourages the silent masses in participating in elections.

Conclusion
Therefore, we should not blindly interpret the high voting participation in the country as a reflection of a flourishing democracy.  Because, as I explained, the conditions such as pandemic level of corruption, extreme poverty, physical and livelihood insecurity has left hardly an option for the majority of the citizens other than for scrambling  to do what rulers want them to do. Their rationale in participating in elections would be somewhat different to the economic logic of the urban middle class. Their rationale for participating in the election is motivated by the need to ensure their security, enjoy uninterrupted livelihood opportunities and continuous access to the Government’s welfare schemes.

In such circumstances, can citizens make their views known and persuade their fellow citizens and force representatives to adopt them? How could citizens participate effectively in elections if all the information they can acquire is provided by a single source, say the government, or, for that matter, a single party, faction, or interest? Hence, at present, frequent elections may not be of any use to a majority of the Sri Lankans, contrary to the normative expectations. Unless and until, life conditions of those people (perhaps a majority of Sri Lankans) are normalized, mere voter turnout would not be effective and elections would be only limited to being a symbolic ritual to remind us that we live in democratic country. Finally, without effective participation in elections, citizens would soon lose their capacity to influence the agenda of government decisions.

This reminds me a phrase of Robert Dhal in his book ‘On Democracy’, where he said that ‘silent citizens may be perfect subjects for an authoritarian ruler; they would be a disaster for a democracy’.

Author: Pradeep Peiris is a pollster and he heads the Social Indicator, the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives.