Taxpayers and the youth will get a government they deserve in 2018
By Brian Sedze
Are we truly equal to exercise the democratic right to vote and in determining government policy?
The answer to that is clearly that we are not. It is judicious in the Zimbabwean context to opine that the taxpayer and the youth should ideally be at the forefront of determining government policy. Their voice must be heard through decisive and active participation in the country’s democratic processes through voting.
The reason is predicated on the fact that, the burden of financing a government rests solely on the shoulders of the taxpayer. The government debts are on the shoulders of the youth. The youth and the taxpayer must truly vote to ensure that they have a government they desire. Subsequent to voting they must direct that the fruits of their labour, present and future, be used for the economic and social health aspirations they resonate with.
The fundamental flaw and evil of the “one man one vote” model is the fact that the taxpayer is forced to pay for ideals diametrically opposed to their own. This is true in Zimbabwe as it is without doubt that the non-tax payers or those who are beneficiaries of the taxpayers sweat (often called government largesse) have their ideals driving government policy.
It is politically expedient and morally reasonable to afford each and every eligible citizen the right to vote yet the defect of the same is the trap of people voting themselves benefits at the expense of others. Frederic Bastiat said, live “the great fiction through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.”
A man should have a right to the fruits of his labour. It is viciously wrong to take the money of rational economic men to support ideals they are absolutely opposed to, such an intrusion by force which is a violation of individuals’ rights.
Yet the Zimbabwean youths,taxpayers,self-employed and employers have abdicated their role to stop thieves,corrupt,incompetent, and semi illiterate politicians lording over the society .It is the voters with rights and but no attendant obligations that direct government policy. Apathy is winning the political contest. The apathetic eligible voters are supported in this unfairness by those who vote for benefits and rights devoid of expenses and obligations.
The political parties must drive a disruptive message that when it’s said the “government” has assumed a US$1.3 billion RBZ debt it’s a euphemism that they have encumbered the youth with a debt to be supported by future tax payments.
The same applies to the IMF, AfDB, IMF, AFREXIM bank debts and domestic borrowings by the government. Soon they will make the youth assume debts for US$200million bond notes, Tel-One, Air Zimbabwe, NRZ and many other parastatals. The same applies to the cost of corruption.
The youth have no one to blame but themselves for failing to make an electoral impact by voting for government whose policies they ascribe to. The youth and taxpayer unfortunately sit on terraces doing key board analysis and social media activism. They don’t do that in UMP, instead they vote in numbers.
Treatment of every post-election through useless protests by cry bullies is just plainly an emotional breakdown, freak-out and crippling feeling of failing to cope with an electoral defeat self-inflicted by apathy.
Even if protesting cry bullies burn tyres, break windows, stop traffic in Robert Mugabe way, get international attention and cause some level of sanctions, we all know that it achieves nothing .We all have to agree that apathy won the elections. Despite the anger Robert Mugabe is our president and ZANU PF presides over our country.
The assemblage of inconsequential social media activists and protestors is an act of simply writhing in feigned agony akin to demanding pudding before dinner. Activist including but not limited to NERA, #this flag, #ourconstitution and many others should be reminded that by 2018 they must serve a starter to their constituency. The starter is that of ensuring a level playing field by deploying a message that drive people register as voters.
The politicians and their activists’ appendages must additionally craft a good and irresistible message to drive people to actually exercise their vote.Its these actions that are the first stages in levelling the playing field before dinner is served. Making people claim their cote is a good starter.
Hashtag movements are led by people who are not serious and rational but rather by people who are simply happy to be unhappy. The movements should rather expend intellect and energy in deploying a message to fight apathy. Just to put this into context out of over the three million potential voters in Bulawayo and Harare just over a one million are registered voters.
In a society where people are presumed equal the refusal to exercise a vote is an action in complicity to give a voice to those who choose to vote. If an illiterate or corrupt politician becomes your MP, a million hashtag will change nothing. The MP will simply lord over you despite your level of literacy or morals.
Our current system of seems not to be effective. It would be ridiculous to allow the ignorant be able to limit how smart you are, the weak to place shackles on your arms to limit your strength, the short to legally force you to stoop or the unattractive to require the attractive to wear hoods over their faces.
We would dismiss this out of hand as absurdity and yet we allow those who pay no taxes to have a greater voting voice, as well as those who have little understanding of political, economic, foreign policy or financial issues to lord over the direction of our country
It’s telling that the employer and the employee continue to invest in “democracy at the workplace” with monthly contributions to employee unions and employer confederations. The employer and the employee have little or no interest in sponsoring national democratic processes only until there is no industry to employ and industry to be employed.
It is critical that the employer and the employee being stakeholders of the national discourse should use the same model to allow cause voluntary monthly contributions to political parties that speak to employee or employer aspirations.Strength of political parties just like workers unions is determined by their financial back bones. As it is, most of political parties speaking to taxpayer and youth aspirations are broke whilst there is an obsession with democracy at the work place.
After voting the government does not reciprocate by treating the voters as equals, choosing instead to tax some more than others (some not at all), to provide different levels of aid and to apply laws and regulations differently. Government morphs from the protector of an environment where equal opportunity exists to the arbiter of “equality.” It is legally sanctioned inequality in pursuit of equality. It’s great to vote to direct government policy and then hold the parties to their electoral manifestos.
The knowledge that SI 64 of 2006 was just an instrument to thank employers who “lobbied” the government and sponsored a certain political dispensation is a sure way to inform industry, taxpayers and the youth that it’s never a level playing field unless you level the field by sponsoring your ideals and participating in the voting process and sponsoring your parties.
The challenge that we seem to have is that political parties so far seem impotent and incompetent to coin new and disruptive messages against voter apathy. The youth and the taxpayer should be the centre of this new message.
In 2013 I didn’t hit the streets in protest as I accepted the will of the electorate and I sucked it up. It sucks to lose. Impotent rage has little results whilst all we all do is being key board analyst and social media activists. The majority of us simply do not vote for the change we want
It is just my view and as with all views, it comes with both upside and downside aspects
Brian Sedze is the Chairman of Africa Innovation Hub and President of Free Enterprise Initiative. He can be contacted on [email protected]
