Clowns

WITH THE start of the campaign for the local elections, the noise and people traffic have trebled. This has always been the case during election season; and ordinary people just can never seem to bear the additional trouble.

We know that candidates need to present themselves—actually it’s more about their names being shouted accompanied by campaign jingles parodied from famous songs; but for them to start so early in the morning and converge on one location, this is asking for trouble.

Never mind that no one can understand the jingles as they are all playing simultaneously; never mind that candidates and their campaign people are banging on doors and gates; and never mind that campaign leaflets and pamphlets are being tucked on doors, windows and gates. The real issue is whether these acts should compel a voter to vote for them.

No one can gauge a candidate’s fitness for office through a three-minute jingle; even if they would play this non-stop for hours. Nobody can judge a candidate’s fitness through their campaign materials; we all know those are either manufactured or embellished accomplishments. And no voter can evaluate a candidate’s qualifications by a mere smile, handshake and useless greetings.

The elections are supposed to be the process where the people voice their opinion by voting into office the people they believe will be of great help to them. Unfortunately, in the flurry of jingles, pamphlets and handshakes, the very reason they are running for office has been shuffled out of the deck.

It is of no wonder that most voters either rely on name recall—which would serve those who have advertising budget and actual famous people—and whom they personally knew, either by being a classmate in school or a former neighbor. And the result of this process ends up in mostly clowns being elected into office.

Clowns who neither know nor understand what they are supposed to do once in office. Clowns who do not have any grasp of the crucial and urgent issues of the country or the place where they were elected. And clowns who only ran for office either because it is a family tradition or a way to gain power that would later pave the way for them to pocket money from government projects.

We deserve the leaders we elect. And as soon as we recognize and comprehend this, we neither have the right nor wherewithal to complain about it once we realize our mistakes. The elections are supposed to be the means to correct those mistakes. But as most of us really do not take the elections seriously nor understand the repercussions of our decision on who to vote for, then we are condemned to repeat this vicious cycle every three years.