This week has been a kind of liberating D-week (Democracy).
As a UK Labour party member, I voted online for our new leader and deputy leader after a colossal defeat in last December’s general election.
As an American citizen, I had the opportunity to vote from abroad, in woohoo ‘super Tuesday’!
For those who don’t get the whole complicated US system of voting, at least for the Democratic party which (I only joined for the run up to the 2016 primaries to back Bernie Sanders). Voting state-by-state begins with Iowa caucuses in the American mid-west.
Super Tuesday saw 14 states vote in the run up to the democratic nomination at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in July.
Once the nomination has been cast, the race is on between in this case, the democratic nominee and Donald Trump.
So as he’s running again on a Democratic ticket, yet an independent within the US Senate, I voted for Bernie Sanders again.
The Gift of Democracy
It was the ancient Greeks who gifted the world with democracy. The 3 main governing bodies which now manifest in the modern-day legislature, the executive and judiciary, have withstood centuries of change and limitations of those ancient times, such as the lottery system explained in the above article.
Not all of the world has of course embraced democracy, but for those of us who have, well let’s just look at where we’ve come to and how democracy is being underhandedly sabotaged.
On one hand democracy can feel like something to celebrate, especially in the so-called free world, but with widespread voter-rigging or interference – either from within a given country or from external players with vested interests, it can often feel like – what’s the point?
Just lately in the UK alone, we’ve had Russian interference in Brexit, the Russia report itself which, seemingly has been buried until an exposing opposition comes along to demand its resurrection. the 2016 US election was the result of Russian interference, never mind the countless manoeuvres by successive US governments into ruthless so-called third world leaderships.
In the last decade alone, we have witness nations fighting tooth and nail for democracy, such as in the Arab spring or the determined demands in Hong Kong.
It’s safe to say now, the fight has come to the west for democracy as, we have been fairly apathetic or complacent for some time.
Now more than ever, as they fight tooth and nail or even via elongated wars for democracy in different parts of the world, the trend at least in some parts of the west is towards more dictating strangle holds.
With Johnson’s Tories and Trump’s GOP (Grand Old Party, Republicans) entering what looks to be dangerous secret trade talks, we too will have to fight tooth and nail for that priceless gift from the Greeks all those centuries ago.
So, stand up and be heard, cast your ballot – even if it’s for local elections because, one day sooner than we think, we just might not be awarded the right to choose.
I don’t believe compulsory voting is the answer, but it dismays me when I look at voter turn-out results and see how many people did not exercise their democratic right to vote. We would certainly miss it if one day it were taken away from us. As a woman, I feel an even stronger compultion to vote because women before me fought so hard for this right, for me, and other women like me, to shape our future.