Don’t waste your time on unregistered voters

Don’t waste your time on unregistered voters
By The Post
Mon 04 Oct. 2010, 04:00 CAT

Without many of our people registering as voters, all the talk and arguments about next year’s elections will amount to very little, if not nothing. At the risk of boring our readers, we feel there’s need to delve deeply into the issue of voter registration because if most of our people who are eligible to register as voters do not do so, the government will be elected by very few people. And as we have stated before, an election in which the great majority of our people of voting age do not participate cannot be said to be democratic.

A government chosen by a small group of people is not a democracy – no matter how democratic its internal workings may appear. For people to feel that the government rests upon their consent, the great majority of them must have participated in choosing. And this is what makes elections the central institution of democratic representative government because in a democracy the authority of the government derives solely from the consent of the governed.

The principal mechanism for translating that concept into governmental authority is the holding of free and fair elections in which the greatest possible number of citizens who have reached the voting age participate.

Therefore, voter apathy, deliberately not registering as a voter is incompatible with one’s duty as a citizen because the right to vote carries with it a corresponding duty, the duty to vote. And free, fair and constructive elections would translate into a reality when the voters take their responsibility seriously. They would also become a reality when politicians take their responsibility seriously. It is a duty of every qualifying citizen to obtain a National Registration Card and register as a voter and when the time for election comes, vote for the candidates of his or her choice. It is also a duty of every politician seeking elected public office to mobilise his or her supporters to obtain National Registration Cards, register as voters and indeed vote when election time comes. But we are seeing very little of this.

Citizens are not registering as voters in large numbers. And politicians are not mobilising their supporters to register as voters. Our political parties don’t seem to be interested much in mobilising their supporters to register as voters. They seem to be much more interested in lobbying for adoption as parliamentary or presidential candidates for their political parties or pacts instead of mobilising their supporters to register as voters. If the enthusiasm they are showing in mobilising voters to vote for them in parliamentary by-elections was extended in some way to the registration of voters, there would be very few of our people who would not find their names on the voters’ roll. If this voter registration apathy is allowed to continue, those who have not mobilised their supporters to register as voters will have their chances of winning next year’s elections greatly reduced.

The most important issue that our politicians should realise when it comes to elections and who wins them is that in democratic elections, the struggle is often not to determine which candidate or political party commands the greatest public support, but who can most effectively motivate his or her supporters to convert their support into votes. Having huge rallies is a good demonstration of popular support. But that’s all it does. It doesn’t guarantee anyone electoral victory. We say this because there are people who attend rallies or meetings of political parties without registering as voters. There are also others who, for various reasons, religious or otherwise, don’t register as voters and as such do not participate in elections. All these do appear at political rallies or meetings but count for nothing when it comes to elections because they don’t vote. Even the MMD, as the ruling party, is not doing much to mobilise our people to register as voters. We hear this is intentional because they believe that if the voters’ roll is maintained the way it is with a smaller number of voters, they will stand a better chance of winning.

They believe that the new people on the voters’ roll will not vote for them but for the opposition. And because of this, they are doing everything possible to ensure that this voter registration exercise does not capture many people. We don’t think this approach to voter registration can be justified by a ruling party. The ruling party, as facilitators of elections, have a serious responsibility to ensure that as many people as possible participate in elections. We also urge the opposition to be open and constructive in participating in the electoral process and in addressing the issue of voter registration. If what the MMD think is correct, then it is much more to the benefit of the opposition to ensure that as many people as possible register as voters because that will increase their chances of winning next year’s elections. But we are not seeing any spirited effort from them on this score.

The Electoral Commission of Zambia also don’t seem to be doing much to promote the voter registration exercise. Extension of the period in itself will not do much to ensure that more people register as voters. It must be accompanied by measures that address the many problems that this exercise was facing at its inception. Many people complained about the continually shifting registration centres. By the time one reaches the centre, one is told that those carrying out the registration exercise have left for this or that place and sometimes for an unknown destination. This problem is worse in the rural areas where people walk long distances to a centre only to find that it has relocated to some other distant place. Here, the problem of obtaining National Registration Cards is even worse. It is extremely taxing for a person to register as a voter under such conditions.

Even in the urban areas, these highly mobile registration centres have been found to be a problem for many people. There’s need for the Electoral Commission of Zambia to address this problem and other legitimate concerns people are raising over this voter registration exercise. Constructive dialogue should be encouraged at all times on key electoral issues such as voter registration. We don’t have much time remaining to next year’s elections. We therefore need to address some of these problems with a high sense of urgency. Those who have not started their campaigns for next year’s elections are late and should start immediately. And their election campaigns should start with voter registration by ensuring that their supporters have registered as voters. It's no use chasing the wind instead of targeting only those who have registered as voters. Unregistered voters are not worth pursuing in an election campaign because they have no votes to offer – and elections are about seeking votes. Why waste time with a person who has no vote to offer because they have not registered to vote? Therefore, start your campaign with voter registration!