Development as Distraction: Give Your Vote

Worse news for the Lib Dems following their disappointing 2010 General Election display. It turns out that their paltry vote would have been even lower had it not been for a particularly radical exercise in globalised democracy. Give Your Vote was a flawed campaign addressing the lack of accountability in international politics, aiming to deliver the simple message (in their words): “In our globalised world, politics doesn't stop at the border. But democracy does. To challenge this, voters in the UK pledged their votes to people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana who are directly affected by UK policies.” To that they managed to add the usual rent-a-voice of Desmond Tutu and a random UK c-list celebrity who looks moderately old, dishevelled, and like he would have been friends with Jonathon Peel (this is essential in order to give the campaign its “alternative” status, and show that it is supported by people who have “lived” life. Unfortunately in this case it is only Keith Allen, famous for being the owner of the sperm that created UK pop-star/Chanel model/cricket fan model Lilly Allen). Top that off with a well designed website and you have a global campaign ready to go.

Give Your Vote’s outcome of the vote pledging showed that 51.3% of voters from Ghana, Bangladesh and Afghanistan voted for the Lib Dems, the party which received only 23% of votes in the UK. Imagine; could it be possible that had they not received this foreign assistance, the Lib Dems wouldn’t have had enough votes to join the current coalition? I doubt it, but straight off I have to say that I feel sorry for the globally enfranchised voters as they are probably feeling robbed by the coalition outcome of the election which has already said it will cap non-EU immigration and not set a withdrawal date for Afghanistan, and feel that the UK’s own electoral system of first past the post has let them down.

Rather presumptuously Give My Vote had already allocated anti-war to Afghanistan, climate change to Bangladesh and poverty reduction to Ghana. Also, the campaign seemed to also assume that it would be the common, salt of the earth voter who would be participating, and didn’t feel the need to make clear exactly how the foreign voters could register, nor the gender, age or socio-economic breakdown. And the same approach was applied to the results, with no voter breakdown or numbers despite numerous requests on their website, instead sticking to the rather vague quantification of “thousands”. It’s a shame, because for the experiment to work (and I wanted it to work at the basic level, even if I continue to pick holes) it at least needed to transparently provide basic information for people to interpret the demand for cross-border voting, and which agendas those participating in the vote felt they should be able to hold the UK government accountable for.

Instead, by providing no follow-up the campaign only reinforces the shallow experience of democracy for those very cross-border voters (at least in Bangladesh), which extends only to Election Day when the voter is able to select a party for government. Any accountability to the population or between parties beyond that (the mainstay of a functioning democracy), is non-existent as the government and political system then settles down to serve its own needs and ends for the remainder of the term. Specifically on the issue of climate change, for which this campaign was apparently all about, the Bangladeshi government not only fails to respond to the issue even when money is thrown at them by the international community, but exacerbates the grotesque environmental degradation of the country through supporting illegal logging, illegal dredging, illegal construction, ship breaking, the recent decision to pursue coal as the key energy source for energy production, and the failure to re-build flood defences following cyclone Aila. Instead the government and opposition currently spend most of their time arguing over the renaming of the international airport, deciding who the founding father of the country is, and accusing, trying and executing each other over 'war crimes' committed 30 years ago. 

 

But as we live in a globalised world, lets have a go at interpreting the single result that Give Your Vote provided in an attempt to analyse how the globalised electorate views the UK: 

1. It could simply be that voters in the developing world like the colour yellow, more than the colours blue and red. Or the symbol of a bird (freedom!) is more appealing than a rose (romance!) or a tree (static…).
2. But that is too harsh on our ballot-box brothers, and it could be that they are democratic visionaries. Coming from countries with broken electoral systems, they knew that first-past-the-post is archaic, and wanted to liberate us from its two-party oppression by creating a hung parliament.
3. Or voters in the developing world are primarily liberals and wanted to prove that, for after all they are the enfranchised ambassadors of the globalised world in which we live and which in theory implies a reduced role for the traditional (Westphalian) nation-state, which is also what the Lib Dems are intent on breaking down.
4. In Bangladesh, I’m pretty certain that they were disappointed with Cameron’s Big Society idea, as they already have enough NGOs and volunteers and community mobilisers and they’ve hardly improved the conditions within the country over the past 30 years. Perhaps Cleggmania had a more sustainably impact outside of the UK, whereas “Biggotgate” clearly had little impact as politicians spend more time in the Jatiya Sangsad calling each other war criminals than legislating.

This whole campaign was merely a part of the wider disappointment of the UK 2010 elections, falling into the Bono-Bob Geldolf category of image and self-congratulation over actual substance and results. It would be much more effective, though much less sexy and radical, if they were to engage with the very large 1^st and 2^nd generation Bangladeshi diaspora in the UK who have the right to vote, and to whom the UK government is directly accountable to make sure that they do vote (whilst thinking also about how their vote would affect their relatives back in Bangladesh). And combine that with helping to promote grass-roots political transparency in Bangladesh.