Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Rare win for voter turnout, big fail for political spin

The spin doctors are working hard today to disect the byelection results in Labrador yesterday.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Peter Penashue (pronounced Pen-A-shoo-way) went down to defeat at the hands of Liberal Yvonne Jones. Penashue stepped down in April, hours before Elections Canada released documents which showed his campaign in 2011 had accepted 28 illegal donations totalling $46,560, including from corporations and $18,710 of free flights from Provincial Airlines.

Trying to understand the results of this byelection in terms of what it may mean for the greater political situation in Canada today is kind of like trying to figure out whether the Titanic went down by looking how a life raft fares with an iceberg.

Labrador is a sparsely populated, community-oriented riding. So the Liberals trying to suggest this is a sign Canadians like Justin Trudeau and his message is at best premature. This is probably one of the most local ridings you can get in Canada. This was a byelection in which a well-known and popular politician prevailed for a party that has only ever lost this riding twice before. A byelection where the incumbent was in over his head when it came to figuring out how to finance an election (which makes the comment about Trudeau's inexperience seem rather ironic -- but that's a whole other story.)

The Conservatives who are trying to spin that this is no big deal because well, majority governments don't often win byelections and well, the Liberals didn't win it by as much as one poll said they would a few weeks ago so really Trudeau messed things up and this is a sign he is in over his head, is just nonsense and kind of smacks of sore losership.

Nobody should look at Labrador's results as a harbinger of what might happen in the next federal election in 2015.

But one thing that happened that is worth a smile, whether it's a trend or not, is that voter turnout actually went up over the 2011 general election. Byelections almost always have extremely dismal turnout.

In 2011, 53 per cent of Labrador voters went to the polls. Yesterday (and in advanced polls) 59.6 per cent of them did.

In 14 other byelections since 2006, turnout didn't just go down, it plummeted -- between 18 and 35 percentage points.

It's important to note turnout in the 2005 byelection in Labrador was also much higher than in almost any other byelection, at 53 per cent. It went up slightly in the 2006 general election to 58 per cent, dropped to 53 per cent in the 2011 general election and then up to 59.6 per cent yesterday.

So obviously Labrador again tends to be a horse of a different colour than other ridings, but still: any time voter turnout goes up, it's a good day for democracy.

Original Article
Source: winnipegfreepress.com
Author: Mia Rabson

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