Two doors.
Behind a door is an evil and behind another is yet another evil but of a different species. Which door would you choose to venture through?
In many cases especially in politics, it is about choosing the lesser of the two evils. Sometimes, we talk so much about choosing the lesser that we overlooked the third option: not choosing at all. Indeed, many voters have expressed their unwillingness to make a decision when presented with two evils. I was part of them for awhile until I began to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
I deplore being having to choose between two evils but that is the case I will be facing for the upcoming election. There are only two candidates contesting in my constituency; one is from UMNO and another is from PAS; being having to choose between a racist and an Islamist party is a real turn-off.
Presented with limited options, I had to ask myself, do I need to vote at all?
Regardless the options, I do feel strongly about voting. I blame this on MTV, with its incessant messages extolling the virtue of voting. I bought so much into it that if I were given a chance, I would not hesitate to vote in the 2004 US Presidential Election. What made the urge greater was the options presented by the day; between Bush and Kerry, my choice was clear. Living in a liberal bastion of Ann Arbor and close to the Bible Belt made the decision easier to make.
I feel strongly about exercising my right to vote because I believe those whom consciously fail to vote practically relinquished their moral authority to discuss matters of collective importance, from state to the federal levels. Rightfully, every individual has a say in the governance of a state, especially so if those individuals are taxpayers. They have a stake in setting the direction of their state and refusal to vote should not affect that. Yet, a normative statement is not a positive statement. Positively, failure to vote means one disenfranchises oneself from the system.
An event in Iraq provides a clear example how failure to vote causes one to be irrelevant. In January 2005, Iraq had an election to appoint various representatives into its national assembly. The Sunnis mostly boycotted the process and as a result, the Kurds and the Shiites dominated the house.[1] Regardless how the boycott affected the legitimacy of the election, the house was formed to draft a brand new constitution for the war-torn country. Due to limited participation from the Sunni, the Kurds and the Shiites could have a free hand in writing a new constitution, the supreme law of Iraq.[2]
The rationale for refusal to participate in Iraq in 2005 is different from the Malaysian scenario but the effect is still the same. Those that refuse to vote make themselves irrelevant to the system. Unless, of course, if you are planning for a bloody revolution. Yet, a free election is a revolution in its own way.
All that does however only explain why it is imperative to vote. It does not tell how one breaks the false dilemma of choosing between two evils. I will touch on that soon.
[1] — Read Iraqi legislative election, January 2005 at Wikipedia. Accessed February 28 2008.
[2] — The Sunni Arabs’ January 2005 election boycott and the simultaneous campaign of intimidation of Sunni Arab voters by the insurgency resulted in only seventeen Sunni Arabs elected to the 275-member Assembly—a very low number compared to the proportion of Sunni Arabs in Iraq, conventionally estimated at 15 to 20 percent. By contrast, the Kurdistan Coalition List won seventy-five seats and the predominantly Shia United Iraqi Alliance won 140—an absolute majority that in theory, if not in fact, gave the Alliance the ability to write a constitution without the involvement of any other political grouping. [Iraq’s Constitutional Process II: An Opportunity Lost. Johnathan Morrow. United States Institute of Peace. December 2005]
