There has been a lot of talk about the votes that ultra-right wing and “eurosceptic” parties received in last week’s european parliament elections. Less attention has been given on the votes which were not cast at all. Continent wide the abstention rate was 43% but that ranged from 10% in Belgium to a mind-boggling 87% in Slovakia. Electoral abstention is often explained away as people being apathetic. I have met many people who are truly desperate, a lot more who have no hope for the future, but very rarely have I met anyone who is truly apathetic about their own lives. Some people abstain from the electoral process because they are philosophically opposed to voting. Many abstain because they don’t believe that their participation in the electoral game is going to matter one way or another. Others abstain because they believe that the whole process is rigged, while many more abstain because they don’t think that any one who is running actually cares about what happens to them.
There are those who say that if you don’t vote you don’t have the right to complain. I don’t agree. In many parliamentary political systems like what most European countries have there is a process known as a motion or vote of no confidence. This is a mechanism through which members of parliament can vote on whether they still have confidence in a minister or even the entire governing party or coalition. Those who lose a motion of no confidence are expected (or required) to resign. I think that overall abstention rates are better seen as “votes” of no confidence in the entire system than apathy. And when almost half of the voters choose to effectively support a motion of no confidence then the system is in serious jeopardy, far more serious than having fascist and eurosceptic representation in it.
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