Following are four rock-solid reasons why the Government's proposed runoff vote is sheer, undeniable nonsense.
1: It is unjust. It actually punishes the original first-past-the-post winner for not winning over 50 per cent of the votes cast in a constituency, by requiring him/her to face a second poll (a "runoff").
At the same time, it rewards the second placed candidate by giving him/her a second chance to win the seat. The original winner is punished for being a "minority" winner, but the second placed candidate (who got even less votes than the original winner) is rewarded with a second chance! This is patently unjust. Not to mention patently insane. (Who thought up this nonsense?)
2: The runoff vote is unnecessary. Contrary to what the Government purports, it does not necessarily insulate an MP against a frivolous recall-petition three years down the road, since the MP may have gotten over 50 per cent of the votes cast (and not necessarily 50 per cent of the constituency's electorate; two completely different things).
For instance, in a constituency with an electorate of 25,000, if only 10,000 people vote (ie less than half the electorate) and even if the MP got 5,001 of those 10,000 votes (ie over 50 per cent), he/she, in effect, only got 5,001 votes out of an electorate of 25,000. That's just one-fifth of the constituency. How is this "insurance" against a frivolous recall? An MP's best insurance against any recall vote is demonstrably solid performance in his/her constituency in the three years before a recall petition. Plain and simple.
Furthermore, even where an MP actually were to get more than 50 per cent of the electorate (NB: a very unlikely scenario in any marginal constituency), voters and their voting-behaviours change over time, thus, even an over-50 per cent of the electorate gained by an MP three years earlier may not automatically translate into a kind of "insulation" for the MP three years later. (Again, who thought up this runoff nonsense?)
3: The runoff vote is also wasteful. It squanders the financial, material, human and temporal resources of the candidates, the political parties, the electorate and the State, because, as has been the case in our country for the past 52 years, the simple, one-time, first-past-the-post voting already gives each constituency a clear winner, who automatically becomes the MP for the whole constituency (and not just for those who voted for him/her).
Why must Usain Bolt be asked to run a runoff race before he gets his deserved gold medal, simply because he did not win the original race by some arbitrary distance? Then the organisers go and unjustly afford the second placed runner another chance to get Usain's gold medal!
Worse: if after the original poll, two or more of the non-winning candidates (ie the candidates who placed second, third, etc), were to tie (this is not impossible), this would require a separate pre-runoff poll among them to determine who is actually second placed, to then challenge the first place winner in the "real" runoff poll! How wasteful! F
urther, if after the "real" runoff poll (to determine the constituency's final winner) both first and second place candidates now each get 50 per cent of the vote (again, not impossible), a further runoff then becomes necessary! How very wasteful. The runoff vote is totally unnecessary and will constitute a wanton waste of the electorate's and the State's time and resources.
4: The runoff vote is dangerous. Firstly, it places undue anxiety and stress on the candidates, the parties, the electorate and the State, especially where there may be the need for "pre-runoffs" (to determine second place) and/or multiple runoffs (in the case of first-place ties), occurring simultaneously in many different, tightly-contested constituencies. The runoff vote is dangerous for another, more potent reason: it entrenches racist voting in a country where the two main ethnic blocs are of roughly equal size (35 per cent).
In the tightly contested marginals, where it is more difficult for any one of the two major ethno-based parties to get a majority exceeding 50 per cent of the vote, desperate, unscrupulous politicians would not hesitate to make raw, crass, rabid, open appeals to members of their ethnic bloc to "close ranks" while appealing to the crucial, non-aligned mixed minority in a marginal seat to "come back home"/or "don't split the vote" or "choose a side" (sounds familiar?). This translates to harassing a voter to vote for the ethno-based party whose supporters he/she most resembles or is least different from. Forget the issues (runaway corruption, mismanagement, wastage, nepotism, racism and, of course, crime). In the marginals, the runoff vote would exacerbate the floodgates of race-baiting, plain and simple.
Does any sane, sensible, decent citizen really want to contemplate the frightful scenario that can materialise where, for instance, the two major parties each gain 20 seats and the determination of which party is to form the government totters perilously upon a close-fought runoff poll in a final tight marginal seat, and where the final runoff result actually reverses the original first and second placings in that final constituency? Madness, plain and simple.
I have presented here four rock-solid reasons why the Government's hastily-rushed runoff vote proposal constitutes untenable nonsense. I respectfully call on all sane, sensible, decent citizens, of whatever ethnicity, age, gender, income level and political orientation, to please let the Government know, in no uncertain terms, that we see through this runoff vote proposal as nothing but a poorly disguised ploy to facilitate the Government winning in vital marginal seats (and thus retain power).
The runoff vote proposal is demonstrably unjust, unnecessary, wasteful and dangerous. It is absolutely against our beloved nation's best interests.