Interview VoiceOver 2015 members: election fever worldwide

VoiceOver members as election observers

The elections are looking quite different in Colombia this year. "After eight years of the government of President Alvaro Uribe, we now have six candidates to choose from", Arturo Arguello from Colombia explains. In the first round of the election in May, Juan Manuel Santos, the protegé of the current president, won almost 47% of the votes. His main oponent is Antanas Mockus of the Green Party.

Arturo: "The two favorite candidates represent traditional politics and security versus a new and fresh approach. Santos' main card is his war against the guerillas. Mockus promises to end corruption and violence." Mockus calculated that the last years between 5.2% and 6.3% of the national budget has been spend on war instead of development. 

Irresponsible voting
Arturo is not so much worried about the actual elections, but about the irresponsible voting by many Colombians. "When I ask people why they prefer a candidate, they answer with arguments that reflect a vote for sympathy and not a conscious vote. A lot of people do not know what candidates are proposing. Moreover, a couple of days after elections, no one cares anymore. Everyone just complains about everything. If we really want to change our reality, we can’t wait for the (next) president to do everything; we ourselves must act!"

In Suriname, votes are not being won by a nice face. What people vote for mostly depends on their ethnicity. "Suriname has known a history of ethnic politics, namely that certain races vote on certain parties", says Madhawi Ramdin. This ethnic party-propaganda is somewhat changing. "Nowadays politicians recognize that by portraying themselves as ethnically neutral, they can increase their number of supporters. For me the priority is that the future government will try to maintain economic growth and stability. Furthermore, they should try to attract foreign investment."

Faith in Burundi
Burundi is another country where presidential elections are soon being held. For a long time the country was ruled by a Tutsi minority, that was fought by rebel groups in the civil war. In 2005 Burundi's first democratically elected president was inaugurated. Different from then, not the parliament, but the people will now directly elect their president. "Burundians are excited by the idea that they are going to elect their own leaders", Justine Nkurunziza comments. Although not everyone has faith in the elections, she says.

Part of the people in Burundi is not able to vote, since they do not have a National ID Card. "In order to get a voting pass, you have to have a National ID card. Many people, especially poor and vulnerable women, do not have such a card. In some areas, people were refused the ID card just because they were not of the same party as the administrative in charge of delivering the cards. The United Nations intervened and funded the distribution of free national ID cards. Unfortunately this support came in somehow late and consequently some people didn't manage to get it before the first elections rounds."

Relatively peaceful
"The big fight over power is between the two former rebel groups. Just before the communal elections there were rumours that the parties had been arming their youth wings. This caused tensions, but so far it has been relatively peaceful." Nevertheless Justine still has a fear. ""When the leading party will win, I fear that they will continue with the corrupt and bad governance of the last five years." 

"We all learn by mistakes", Justine concludes. "The mistakes that are made during these elections,  serve as an example for the future. We need to educate the population on electoral matter early enough. Check if all voters have all the required documents. Democratic process and civic education is, in the end, an ongoing process."