The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; it ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation. One provision specifically outlaws literacy tests and similar devices used to disenfranchise racial minorities.
Democratic elections allow the African people to express their will to make political choices actualized by the guaranteed right to vote and be voted for.
Elections provide an avenue for participation in public affairs by the electorate in determining how they will be governed. This choice secures a serving government’s legitimate authority and promotes and protects human rights. Elections, therefore, are subject to human rights, norms, and standards and scrutiny through human rights monitoring.
“Kenyans first voted in 1963. Commentators will point out that the 1963 vote was informed by great enthusiasm fuelled by the devour engendered by the spirit of liberation. Men and women voted as Kenyans, children of a new land. They were from different ethnic backgrounds but their ‘Kenyanness’ was given its pride of place.”
Sanitizing Kenyan Politics by PLO Lumumba.
Elections in East Africa (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda) mirror each country’s culture and a political system like those elsewhere in Africa and the world.
Over short campaigns, elections reflect and precipitate economic, political, and social disputes along with fissures in national sentiments, continuous efforts to access and control power, and demographic, social, and territorial changes.
We should examine elections as moments in which power performs, as opposed to the widely held belief that they are a mechanism to achieve significant change. A creed constantly broadcast by international institutions and candidates. We should also consider elections a political resource, a direct history experience.
In this regard, elections rarely deliver the radical changes they promise of consolidating democracy and bringing about social harmony.
Promises are often embodied by candidates who appear sent by providence at a critical juncture. This perspective on elections and voting supplements more common political science approaches that use statistics and mappings to assess improved democratic consolidation and the “free and fair” quality of an election.
Elections are being criticized, and opposition leaders are calling for reruns. But are opposition parties putting enough effort into campaigning? There is a trend of opposition parties crying foul and screaming for reruns after elections. Is this their role, or are elections genuinely not working across the continent?
Do you feel like your vote makes a difference? Are opposition parties in your country doing their job effectively?
