Home » Media Centre » Blogs » Of Vote Buying and Vote Selling
Were it that the only polls that counted were those that take place on election day, and that those polls were the only determinant of election outcomes. However if an article in last Monday's Standard is to be believed the election day polls are not the main determining factor in the outcome of elections but more notable is that election outcomes are determined way before the poll date and money is a major of the election outcome.
According to the article:
In the last election "At least 78 per cent of voters were paid money during the party nominations."
"Central and Nyanza led in vote buying and bribery with the former registering 11,604 cases and the latter 11,304 cases out of the total 75,135 reported incidences."
"98 elected MPs revealed that in the 2007 elections, the highest spenders used Sh7 million to bribe voters. Those on the lower bribery scale parted with Sh2 million" that's almost half of the current house that are alleged to have spent 7 million shillings on vote buying. The other half of the house is not exempt from the practice either, they just spent less, "20 per cent of the MPs spent Sh4 million, 18 per cent injected Sh3 million as they engaged in election"
Yes, the argument has been made that a person's vote does belong to them to exercise freely as they wish, and selling their vote is just one of the ways in which a person may chose to exercise their vote. However vote buying is far from just a simple economic exchange. The practice of vote buying and vote selling represents short term transactions with long term implications. To quote from the article "For politicians elections have, literally, become a matter of life and death and the candidates will try to win by hook or crook...because of the huge financial investment by candidates in elections, most inevitably use corrupt means to recoup the cash they spent on campaigns once they are elected. These include getting bribes from those bidding for State contracts."
The cycle of vote-buying and vote-selling, perpetuates the evil of corruptions, the victim of which is the nation. And it trickles down to its citizens, who bear the brunt. Whose to blame is it the institutions meant to enforce electoral laws, is it the candidates, or is the people who sell their votes? All parties seem complicit in the cycle. In my opinion as voters we have a duty to vote for politicians or policies that promote the common good or that at the very least promote the values that we stand for either as individuals or a county. Otherwise what is the point of voting.
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