In praise of the floating voter

Yesterday Week's local council elections show that good partisan robots are on the decline in our country. Less people are ready to blindly support a political party. Research about voting behaviour throughout the world concludes that voters disillusioned with their party are more likely to abstain from voting rather than to embrace another party.

It is healthy in a democracy when voters start to have a critical relationship with political parties. It is healthy when voters start to become immune to political hype full of buzzwords and slogans that do not answer their needs. It is healthy when voters listen to politicians and ask: "What are they not telling me?" It is healthy when voters want politicians to address their everyday concerns. It is healthy when voters want politicians to tell them the truth even when it hurts. It is healthy when voters demand that politicians deliver on their promises and abandon those politicians who deceived them with empty promises.

It is good for our country that more people are ready to break the habit of a lifetime and vote for a party they had never voted for before. These are the people who do not like what their party has become and the wide gap they see between what the party says and the reality that they live in their everyday life. They feel that the time has come for them to make a change and vote for a different political party.

These people are called 'floating voters'. They have been traditionally looked at with suspicion in a society and culture that glorified fervent, militant loyalty and support. Core supporters boast that they are born into a party and will die in it. They deride "floating voters" as opportunistic, deserters, defectors, unprincipled, fickle weather vanes, putting their personal interests above those of party.

Floating voters are the first to admit that they see things from the perspective of how these affect them personally in their daily life. Such floating voters are healthy for democracy and indispensable for the good of the country as well. People uninterested in party politics have every right to demand policies that address their concerns and are beneficial and relevant for them and their families.

Politics is healthy and democratic only when it connects to people and is conducted as if people matter. Nearly 60 years ago Winston Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." A multi-party parliamentary democracy is better than other political systems to the extent that it is accountable to the citizens.

Discerning voters

In such a system different political parties set out their agendas of what they want to promote and accomplish. Voters are given the choice to vote for what they agree with. In countries with no compulsory-voting citizens are free to abstain from voting if they feel that no party is addressing their needs and articulating their aspirations.

Elections are held so that citizens can renew their trust in the party they habitually support or vote for another party if they feel that their party has not delivered what it promised. In healthy and mature parliamentary systems parties offer viable alternatives to each other. It is good to have more discerning voters who will support a party only as long as that party delivers on issues that satisfy their concerns and aspirations.

Once that party is not delivering any longer, they will change and vote for another party. Open democratic societies have floating voters and political parties know that have to work hard to shape workable policies that win the trust of discerning voters who are ready to look at competing political parties with an open mind.

It is good to have more floating voters in our country that make life more difficult for our political parties. As politicians we cannot take such voters for granted and they are right not to trust us blindly and simply take us at our word. These kinds of voters usually want to argue with us and discuss our alternatives before they are ready to vote for our policies.

Countries where floating voters cannot make their weight felt at elections have immature political systems and culture. In such countries political parties control their core supporters and simply mobilise them against each other.

Instead of putting their energies, ideas and resources into forming policies and action plans to improve the lives of as many people as possible, they indulge in political activity that consists mostly of campaigning negatively against the other party. Where political parties can take their supporters for granted, knowing that they can depend on their support always, even when they govern badly, politics deteriorates into tribal rivalry and the whole country falls behind.

So we should be glad that there are more floating voters today in our country. These are the voters who save the political parties from themselves, from becoming inward looking cabals and networks of cronies. These are the voters who can save the country if they have the courage to vote for change when it becomes increasingly obvious that a country needs change as the party in government has overstayed its mandate.