by Dr Kirsten Haack, Senior Lecturer in International Politics
There are a number of special days – rites of passages – for everyone in life: some count first communion or confirmation, the first day of drinking legally or being able to drive a car, others count leaving school, graduating, getting married, becoming a parent – you name it… Voting for the first time rarely features and yet it encapsulates all of the above: becoming officially an adult and a fully fledged member of the state and the society that constitutes it.
As a child, back in the seventies, my memory of voting day was that my parents dressed up in their Sunday best (German elections always take place on Sunday, unlike the UK where it is always a Thursday or Tuesday in the US), only to spend about 20 minutes going to the primary school across the road and tick a box. Voting was clearly a special event that was to be taken serious. And while dress codes have changed, voting is still a comparatively rare and therefore special event. It is both a fundamental right and a privilege.
My first election happened at the age of 21 because, annoyingly, the previous general election had been scheduled for exactly one week prior to my 18th birthday, not making me eligible to vote. My excitement was such that I kept going on about it quite a bit while visiting my friend in Tunisia in their hometown on the edge of the Sahara. Regretfully, it may have seemed like the boasting of yet another know-it-all Westerner. However, the experience of Tunisian police state showed me that voting can be an important expression of freedom IF, and that is a big if, they do indeed serve the purpose of selection and accountability.
To my friend my excitement seemed alien because Tunisians would not see any change from casting their ballot and yet, opting out was also not considered an option because questions by the police for non-attendance were feared. In Tunisia elections were used to confirm leadership rather than to contest it. As Ottaway (2004) reminds us, the ambiguous character of semi-authoritarian states such as Tunisia [at the time] is deliberate: while they embrace liberal democratic features such as elections, as well as limited civil and political liberties, semi-authoritarian states feature mechanisms that prevent the turnover of power and allow little to no room for debate of either the nature or site of power. Political competition in these so-called democracies is a ‘fiction’, according to Ottaway
Thus, spending 30 minutes of your time to make a cross can be a celebration of freedom, if you so wish to see it…. and that may deserve your Sunday best!
References: Ottaway, Marina (2004) Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-authorianism, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.