Amid recent and imminent elections around the world, many are growing anxious about the future right here. Efforts to ingratiate politicians with the People have already been reported on the road, which means vote buying may be a timely topic!
Although illegal in many countries including the US, it continues across continents. “Vote buying can take various forms such as a monetary exchange, as well as an exchange for necessary goods or services…often used to incentivize or persuade voters to turn out…and vote in a particular way.”1
Vote Buying from the Most Vulnerable
Political operatives can easily see that those with greatest needs may be most vulnerable to vote manipulation. Vote buying prevalence has ranged from 15% in Latin America, to 48% of voters in 33 African countries, to 60% in Indonesia – regardless of laws in specific nations.1 Examples from Argentina include leverage from a “smaller sum of cash or a medical prescription” to purchase support – while cash handouts have accounted for 40% of campaign budgets in Kenya. Over time, the practice can lead to “dependency [and]…perpetuate a type of poverty trap… [with politicians’] real interest …in keeping the voters dependent on the rewards they are providing in order to stay in power.” 1
Mayday for May Elections!
For the May 14th election in Thailand, several parties are “offering a range of programmes and handouts…with the common goal of winning votes” including 50-100% minimum wage increases, cash for everyone 16 or older, tripling cash to welfare cardholders – and if honoured, would “require nearly doubling government spending” and increasing national debt.2
This Sunday also promises a Turkish election filled with promises, where incumbent President Erdogan has a “wide-ranging list of election pledges” without clear funding: From nearly doubling exports, to increasing tourism, building 650,000 homes after the earthquakes – and attracting 10% of all international students! He has also “boosted payments to pensioners and civil servants” ahead of the election.3 Sound familiar?
In India, nine congressional elections are ongoing this year. In one state, “promises would amount to 15% of [the] budget” – including monthly cash to women heads of families, electricity payments, stipends for unemployed youth, and 10kg of free rice per household!4
And Broken Promises after Vote Purchases…
While blaming the prior administration, recent retrenchments by Australian Prime Minister Albanese have prompted critics to say, “the worst thing a government can do…is to break an election promise.”
After promising “no intention” to change pension funds during last year’s election, he is using “weasel words” regarding “costs and fairness of the status quo” – causing a massive uproar down under. His Treasurer cited inheriting a “trillion dollars of debt” before addressing disability, aged care, hospital and defense expectations of the public.5 Hmm.
In Malawi, the newly elected Tonse Alliance promised to “create one million jobs” ? yet has failed to manage budgets to IMF satisfaction. It also lacked the reserves to keep such promises amidst currency devaluation, the war in Ukraine, two cyclones, and global inflation. With elections in 2025, they will “have to convince the electorate that they deserve another chance.”6
In Hungary, winning on expectations of “stability and predictability” last April, Victor Orban’s government suddenly forced ~300,000 people to switch tax schemes, resulting in “at least 20 percent higher taxes for most” of them. Days later and four months post-election in a “blatant breach of campaign promises”, he canceled his “signature policy of subsidized utility prices” – causing electricity to double and a 700 percent natural gas increase. Meanwhile, ministers, state secretaries and MPs’ salaries were raised by 30-50 percent.7
However, in Venezuela, incumbent and candidate Nicolás Maduro demonstrated arguably the most audacious vote-buying and broken promises in 2018. His government bribed people “suffering from hunger” with food, promised “prizes” to all voters, and in one state, used government resources to distribute eight motorboats, nine ambulances, reopen an airport – and promised free fuel to another state. The “prizes” were reportedly never received. He remains mired in international sanctions pending another election next year.1,8
Notably, none of these governments produce any goods, so they buy votes with the voters’ own money – or burden them and their children with more debt!
Are They “All the Same”?
The Inter-American Development Bank found, “when parties are less credible, they spend more on vote buying and target…people that do not believe campaign promises.”9 Many here believe we are trapped in a tennis game, where we volley back and forth between the same two parties – both influencing votes directly with road repairs, groceries, travel to come home to vote, and cash, or perhaps with haphazard inducements like utility bill and grocery coupons, random duty exemptions, or reduced departure tax? Or possibly, with “free” healthcare at the mercy of future tax collections for seniors? That’s in addition to the $8.7 Million of taxes the People already pay for insuring those in government: All while recklessly overspending, humbling and starving us when creditors force cultural atrocities like GST – and perpetuating the humiliation by failing to build reserves.
Now that our borders are open, we hear chat of lowering GST instead of repealing it, since they obviously never needed GST at all! However, it bares the gravest risks of broken promises: GST holds the People hostage to increasing tens of millions in government salaries and expenses, global economic shocks, and ever more dire disaster threats. How? That law frees them to move GST on any day to any rate – hmm… 9% before election? And after, 29% when they want raises, new loans, or to buy the next election with bigger “free” programs? GST must be repealed.
Or…Will we be so impoverished by GST and other taxes that we fall into a “poverty trap” at ever greater risk of crushing tax increases and abrupt cancellation of welfare programs ? paid by taxing those taxed into needing them? Will they cry, “We poor – so you gotta pay!” after buying our votes with our own money, yet again?
Or… Will we elect leaders willing to secure our future with balanced budget legislation, restructure for sustainability, build disaster reserves ? and restore our freedom to put food on our tables, our own tables, by first repealing GST?
Demand repeal of GST – and a balanced budget bill. Now.
This article reflects cultural and economic issues raised on July 5, 2021, at the House Select Committee on GST Public Hearing. 1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_buying; 2https://southeastasiaglobe.com/thai-election-promising-policies-empty-promises/; 3https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/04/turkeys-erdogan-lays-out-promises-party-base-offers-few-details; 4https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/four-election-promises-would-amount-to-15-of-budget-randeep-singh-surjewala/articles howprint/98891020.cms;5https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2023/02/28/broken-promises-politics-paul-bongiorno/; 6https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2022-08/malawi-land-broken-promises; 7https://balkaninsight.com/2022/08/11/hungary-since-the-election-u-turns-broken-promises-and-empty-coffers/; 8https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/venezuela-isnt-on-track-for-2024-elections/; 9https://publications.iadb.org/en/vote-buying-or-campaign-promises-electoral-strategies-when-party-credibility-limited
