Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The dictatorship of majority and the useful vote

I wanted to come back on one of the issue of the last presidencial elections. French people were scared that far right leader Jean Marie Lepen might reach the second round of the elections. In 2002 people, mainly from the socialist party, accused voters to have voted for small parties, and because of it, the social party could not reach the second turns, because it losts many votes in the process. They then decided to create the concept of the "vote utile", which can be translated by the useful vote. Hence, the socialist party asked left voters to vote for them instead of smaller candidates, because they would not reach the second round anyway. Therefore, it is more useful to vote for the big party than the small ones.

To me, it is very rude to have this way of thinking. Then it reminded me about a discussion I had in high school with one of my economy teacher, about the dictature of the majority. Indeed, majority represents a majority, that rule a country without any regard for the minority. The majority has voted, but it does not take into consideration the 49% of people who had not voted the same way.

To conclude, democracy might not be the perfect type of society, but it is not the worse. But to ask people to vote for them because of a useful vote is to me a shame. People should be able to vote for their will, their conviction, and not to calculate who has the most mathematical chances to be elected.

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