All elections for national and local positions
are always important because they determine the kind of governance
we will experience during the term to which we elect our leaders.
The
winners will determine in varying degrees the kind of life that we
will live in the next few years.
Therefore, it is ideal if we look at that kind of life and see whether
the candidate will indeed be able to help us experience it.
One
difficulty, I suppose is that each voter has his own criteria for
choosing a candidate. They range from the personal to the eclectic,
to that handshake to that lofty economic promise of jobs and higher
incomes. Some would vote for financial reasons. All and all, the elections
will, therefore, be the aggregation of the individual criteria.
What
is termed as the “will of the people” as expressed in
the result of the elections reflect the kind of elective officials
we want to lead us.
Thus,
in this system the result is assumed to be always correct in so far
as those who voted are concerned. I say assume because it is only
after these officials serve that we can say we were wrong. That is,
if they do not perform as we expected them to then we can say our
collective decision was wrong. (However, by then damage to our communities
may already have occurred).
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