Do I have to vote in an election?

Do I have to vote in an election? No, you don’t!



B

ack in19^th Century, there was a man named Abraham Lincoln! He was elected the 16^th President of the USA. As I recall, it was Lincoln who said the following: 

“Democracy is the government of the people, for the people, and by the people!” 

Now this is the 21^st Century. A lot of water has already flown under the bridges all over the world. Things have changed. Planes now fly in the sky! Ain’t that cool? We’ve I phones  and Internet! 

Very soon, on 19^th November, 2013, an election is gonna be held in Nepal! It is for the selection of the members for Constituent Assembly (Volume II… Who are we kidding to?). And we public again has to go for dropping our votes on the candidates. They say, it is our fundamental right to vote. I totally agree with them. Moreover, they say it is also our duty to vote ‘em, i.e. we’ve obligation to vote! A couple of weeks ago I was reading a national daily. All the tabloids are wetted by the waves of election-sensation. It is normal. One of the photo-feature made me LMFAO (Laugh my f**** a** off). It said:

“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!” 

Now what the heck is that crap? Ok all right! It might be true in case of the USA and other developed countries with similar arrangements. But let’s be real! We are in Nepal! And the election system (I couldn’t think of any technically correct word) is so bullsh*t that we can’t really vote to the person who we want to represent in the parliament, at least not always. The candidates are the representative of the political parties. They rest under the shade of their parties’ flag. The chances of the candidate being free from any political parties are negligible, and those who are lucky aren’t so lucky for the people.

The problem with the Nepalese election system is that we have no place to admit our objection to the candidate. We take part in voting, and we have to vote for at least one. But as mentioned earlier, the candidates are in favor of their respective parties. If we don’t like any of the candidates, only way to object ‘em is to disqualify our own vote, and that would mean we can’t even drop a vote correctly. We people are in a Catch-22 situation. No way out.

Let’s look at the case of developed countries. I don’t know the name but I knew about this from a Radio FM program. In some countries there is a provision made by Election Commission that if the voter don’t think that any of the given candidates deserves the vote then he or she can address their objection on the voting paper. There is a provision for disqualifying the candidate if majority of the vote is against that person. Isn’t that good?

The USA is western country. Nepal is an oriental (eastern) country. Of course, things ought to be different here. Even the definition of Democracy given by Lincoln has to be revised in Nepal. Here’s the new one:

“Democracy is the government OFF the people, FAR from the people, and BUY the people!”

Sounds pretty similar to that of Lincoln.

I hope that the “youths” don’t blindly go for the slogan “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”! That really sucks, you idiots. Take a BIG picture. Think Different!