Forms and Consequences of Political Apathy in a State

Forms and Consequences of Political Apathy

Political apathy appears in many forms. Some of the distinguished forms of political apathy are:

1.       Refusal to register: Voters registration are essential aspect of election which the electoral body takes very seriously, it is the pre-condition for voting in an election, some citizens see registration of voters as a waste of time, so people give excuses to ignore the exercise.

2.       Refusal to belong to a political party: political party is a body of people who come together with the goal of leading the state or country. It is through political party an individual can aspire to any political position or emerge as a candidate for election.

3.       Refusal to fight or protest against rigging and other electoral malpractices: electoral malpractices is a situation in which electorate and electoral bodies falsifies and manipulate the electoral process, especially voting in order to ensure that an unpopular candidate wins the election which could be in form of ballot snatching, multiple voting etc, such nonchalant attitude helps wrong people to emerge as leaders.

4.       Refusal to vote: Refusal to vote is a situation whereby the total number of votes cast is very low compares to the total number of registered voter, this is the most common form of apathy, many eligible voters deliberately avoid to vote.

 5.       Refusal to participate in electoral process: This is refusal to participate in series of events or activities such as debates, seminars, campaigns etc.

Consequences of Political Apathy

Political apathy is not without its effect. Some of the negative effects of political apathy in any political system include:

1.       Threat to Democratic dispensation: When a politician wins an election in where there is high level of political apathy in election, such a winner wins with a minority vote. Such winning does not give the winner confidence that she is a popular political representative in a given area.

2.       Elections are not representative: Results of elections are supposed to be based on majority feelings. With political apathy, such is difficult.

3.       Political Apathy hinders good governance and decision making: Political apathy leads to bad government. When elected political leaders win with a minority vote, such leaders feel reluctant to mobilize majority citizens in the area who might not have voted for him or her. As a result, such political leaders fail to organize good governance or community development related meetings in local communities as most of the residents might not be coming to such meetings as they fell that the political representative concerned is not a leader of their choice; and is not popular in the area.

4.       Political Apathy retards community and national development processes: instead of a political leader to concentrate on spending more time facilitating development related projects, he or she might spend more time justifying that he or she is current ward councilor, member of parliament or a current president.

5.       High voter apathy is a vote of no confidence in political representatives as most citizens feel there is little or nothing they benefit from spending time and energy voting for someone who might benefit more from politics while a voter gets poor and poorer every year.

6.       With political apathy, most elected political leaders at whatever level of political representative rarely or never go back to their respectively areas to consult and work with the electorate on local community or national socio-economic needs and challenges.

7.       Increase high voter apathy can erode checks and balances, accountability, rule of law, etc; this leads to bad governance.

 <<< Also read on Causes of political Apathy in a State>>>

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