Reason Wafawarova on Monday
Since the dawn of independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has held numerous elections, be it for local government or for central government. We are a country that seems to appreciate and uphold the doctrine that says elections are the most fundamental institution in a democracy, and we have always frowned upon military dictatorships that used to rule West Africa until the mid-nineties.

We believe only elections can achieve the goal of appointing policymakers in a democracy. The unanswered question is whether or not we actually elect policymakers, or we just end up electing political office holders with no ability or competence in policymaking.

Winning an election does not make one a policymaker, although the capacity to make policies can in some cases make one win an election.

We had Senator for Chikomo, Morgan Femai, who in 2012 made headlines for suggesting that women should shave their heads bald, dress shabbily, and have “liquids extracted” from their genitals in order to reduce the prevalence of HIV and Aids. The comics are irrelevant here. The serious question is how such an ignoramus was elected to the position of Senator.

Elections in principle are meant to perform three key functions. They are meant to aggregate and represent the voters’ conflicting preferences, to select competent individuals for public office, and also to discipline elected or incumbent officials by the threat of not being retained.

We have better democracy in our rural areas, where we do not need any elections to put into effect the practice of participatory democracy. There our people simply sit and talk things over, agree on certain positions, and allow the chiefs to preside over agreed functions.

We know and accept that the country is more complex than villages, and we have generally agreed that only political representation will work in the governance of states and countries.

We cannot vouch with honesty that our elections have over the years aggregated and represented the body polity’s conflicting preferences, needs and wants. Equally we cannot safely claim that our elections have helped this nation to elect into office men and women of competence.

The saddest thing is that the exposed hopeless characters never really get to be forced to resign or leave public office. They just provide humour for our economically afflicted populace, and the story ends. They remain in our midst.

We have resounding blunderers who have held public office for decades, as well as notoriously corrupt leaders who have done the same; and it becomes compelling for one to conclude that our mode of elections is not good enough to discipline incumbent officials, or to deter them from doing wrong over and over again with indisputable impunity.

We hold elections because of the fear of possible chaos that comes with the idea of direct democracy, and we are also unsure if it is possible to persuade millions of voters to pay attention to the minutiae of decision-making.

This is why it is necessary that we hold elections so we can delegate the authority to make intricate decisions on our collective behalf to a few elected officials. We cannot underestimate the complexities that come with selecting individuals to represent the various positions most members of the polity are likely to hold.

It is ordinary citizens who become candidates, not super humans from outer space. The procedure to achieve this is the electoral system manned by fellow citizens, and the intermediaries to inform the public about the available preferences are the political parties. They too are imperfect and are often run by crooked and corrupt men and women, alongside those who may be considered people of integrity.

We are currently a very polarised society whose various views and opinions are very difficult to reconcile. We have supporters of the ruling party who believe the opposition is made up of cry-babies. The opposition on the other hand is convinced that our electoral system is the cause of its failure to win elections.

An insight into the political parties shows an opposition whose only notable campaign policy is the promise for democracy and something called a “new Zimbabwe.” The ruling party on the other hand keeps promising emancipation of the indigenous Zimbabwean as well as state-assisted economic empowerment for the black citizen.

It is as if we cannot achieve democracy with economic empowerment at the same time, or that we cannot democratically empower the indigenous citizen on the other.

The medium voter scenario where only two main parties provide the real choice for national leadership has not helped matters too much in Zimbabwe. It has resulted in increased polarity, and sad to say, in an unbelievable amount of dogmatism, jingoism, and outright irrationality.

Repeated elections have rewarded unscrupulous politicians in some cases, with imposition of candidates playing a major role in the retention of some characters in public office.

It is hard for the voter to punish incompetent or corrupt politicians in an environment where candidates find their way to the ballot box by corrupt means. This is the biggest challenge we are facing as a democratic nation that believes in electoral democracy.

There has to be a legal mechanism to ensure that the voters can punish incumbent wrongdoers in politics, denying them the right to repeat their incompetence in the future.

Voting is essentially the temporary delegation of the right to exclusive decision-making authority, and that is why only people with enough brains to make meaningful decisions should find their way into public office.

Ideally voters are better off with more frequent elections, but our elections have seemingly increased with decreasing economic development. That is a sad indictment on us all.

Voters are better off with far-sighted candidates or incumbents.

Voters are better off with higher values in public office, not the Chef culture where those in public office primitively believe that society owes them privileges, just because they have been elected into public office.

The media have a role to bring accountability in our leadership. But even some of our journalists have been found to be working in cahoots with some notoriously corrupt politicians. Of course, monitoring of politicians cannot be perfect, but we must come to that point where those exposed cannot escape unpunished.

Offending politicians are taking advantage of the polarity in our politics, the factionalism in our political parties, and some are even taking advantage of ethnic differences in the country.

We hear proven thieves of public funds pleading victimisation on the grounds of ethnic minority status. A thief cannot be less guilty because he hails from a minority tribe, or because he does not belong to a majority tribe.

Equally a criminal does not become less criminal because he hails from a majority tribe.

We have rogue miscreants that have gotten away with murder because of the patronage in our politics. These are people who know whose bread to butter for illicit gain, people who do terrible things in the name of furthering the interests of those in positions higher than theirs, or even in the proclaimed interests of assumed political parties.

Sometimes we have told ourselves we are controlling moral hazards ahead of competent candidates. That is not right.

We must ensure that our politics are not as counter-productive as to give us a scenario where the candidates of choice are like the two arms of a two-armed robber — a scenario where our electorate is put in a position where voters are supposed to elect between dysentery and diarrhoea.

The Americans, for instance, cannot even agree on the legitimacy of their new president. Elections must resolve problems, not create them.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death.

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.

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