It’s nearly election week in the UK and to be honest I have no idea who to vote for. My current position is:
It’s dispiriting and I’m not the only one who feels that way.
It’s not just the issues. I accept that there will be no party in a post-Christian nation like the UK or Sweden (the two nations where I can vote) that will represent my views or anything close to them. It’s not even that the leaders are lacking in charisma, character and competence and even all three. No, the problem is that they are offering me different kinds of awful and I don’t know how to compare them.
Do I want to vote for the party that is anti-semitic? No. How about the party that doesn’t know what biological sex is and wants to overturn a referendum? No, not them. How about a party that is xenophobic and hurts the poor? No, I don’t want to vote for them either.
I have significant problems with all of the parties standing in my constituency and I’m not sure if any of those problems are surmountable or not. I’m doubtful, and so, for the first time ever I’m considering spoiling my ballot or simply not voting. I may end up voting tactically but I greatly resent lending legitimacy to some positions or leaders I find thoroughly unacceptable.
So I have a problem with the issues, the candidates and the leaders. But there’s a bigger problem that all this points towards and that is that democracy itself is rotten.
OK. Maybe not quite that bad. But I think some reforms here or there wouldn’t go amiss.
How to fix or improve how democracy works is a question that is being asked in the UK and the US and in many other developed democracies.
Voter apathy, deep suspicion of politics and institutions and a divided society are not easily nor quickly fixed but the first-past-the-post (FTPT) system should be retired. Check out the work of the Electoral Reform Society for more information on voting systems.
I may have lost hope in our politicians, institutions and systems but I’m not without hope even if I expect it to get a bit worse before it gets better. Instead, I’ll try and take Matthew Hosier’s advice to be thankful for the material blessings, be broad in lament, generous to politicians and to remember who in Christ we are.
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