An Election Held During Pandemic and Economic Crisis
- K.C. Adams -
Indigenous
youth and their supporters gather on the BC legislature steps during
February 2020, holding discussions and other programs to work out how
to have their voices heard and rights recognized.
BC Premier John Horgan has called a provincial election for
October 24. By calling an election, the NDP minority government
unilaterally broke an agreement with the Green Party to govern
until next year. The surprise election has been characterized as
an NDP shock-and-awe attack to gain absolute control of the
Legislature.  The election
farce is designed to stop the movement of the
people towards their empowerment. Suggesting an election of a
certain cartel party will solve the problems the people and
economy face is a massive disruption and fraud. The people must
remain faithful to their own efforts in organizing actions with
analysis to defend their claims and the rights of all and not
fall prey to the deception of this election in the service of the
rich. The ruling elite use election frauds to convince working
people to see solutions to economic and social problems in voting
for a cartel party rather than through their own empowerment and
independent organizations dedicated to building the New.
The
election during the pandemic and economic crisis exposes
in a dramatic way the failings of the current electoral process.
The election as it has unfolded reveals the absence of democracy
for the broad masses of the people and their alienation from any
possibility to participate meaningfully in choosing the
candidates in the election or subsequently the members of the
government. Premier Horgan called the election on
September 21. Anyone
wishing to run in the election had to register with Elections BC
by October 2. No other party was privy to the call of the
election. This meant that the polity and their collectives had
only eleven days to choose and register candidates. This fact
alone exposes the outdated and backward method of choosing
candidates, which effectively excludes the vast majority of
people and their collectives from a process the state-financed
political parties dominate. In a modern democracy the selection
of candidates should be a most important process that directly
involves the people and their collectives. Otherwise, the vote
for a government representative becomes meaningless. State-financed
political parties and monopoly-controlled mass
media dominate a corrupt electoral process where cartel parties
of the ruling elite are brought to power not leaders chosen by
the people and their collectives. The corruption is proved by the
reality that only two state-financed parties, the NDP and
Liberals, had enough money and employees to register a full slate
of 87 candidates. Even the Green Party fell short with only 74
candidates. Other parties dropped out altogether or fielded a
smaller number. Ten parties in total will run at
least one candidate, plus 24
independents, for a total of 332 registered candidates. The 10
parties participating in the election is down from 18 parties
that presented candidates in the 2017 provincial election. The
current 332 candidates are also fewer than the 371 candidates in
the previous election. During a press conference,
Sonia Furstenau, the new leader of
the provincial Green Party, expressed dismay that her party was
fielding fewer candidates than in 2017. She accused Premier
Horgan of taking advantage of the NDP's position as governing
party and its receipt of favourable media coverage during the
pandemic. "We were blindsided by this unnecessary
election call, we had
exactly zero candidates nominated because we believed the
Confidence and Supply Agreement and the legislation that ensures
we were supposed to have an election on a fixed election date in
October of 2021 -- we believed that the NDP government would
abide by their agreement and by the law. They didn't," said
Furstenau. The state-financed political parties,
the public relations
marketing companies, the neo-liberal think tanks and biggest
monopolies and cartels operating in the province control the
choice of candidates and decide the issues that dominate the
election and mass media. Within the electoral process itself and
mass media, the polity and its collectives play no role in
deciding the official issues of concern and what an elected
government should do to uphold its social responsibilities to the
people and society, and to hold it to account if it fails to do
so. Because of the provincial pandemic health
restrictions, this
election reveals the truly undemocratic character of the
electoral process. No all-candidates meetings in the ridings are
scheduled. Very little mass work can be undertaken. News of the
election appears in carefully controlled sound bites and ads in
the imperialist mass media. The only discussions surrounding the
election take place within small collectives mostly outside of
any direct connection with the electoral process. Almost
immediately after calling the election, the NDP began
airing campaign ads on TV and elsewhere attacking the Liberal
Party and telling the people the issues in the election. These
were soon followed by an onslaught of ads from the Liberal Party
attacking the NDP and presenting its own version of issues. The
NDP and Liberal ads and news coverage, their attacks on each
other, and their promises and policy objectives are aimed at
disempowering and depoliticizing the people, turning them into
voting cattle and negating their own organizing and fight for
their rights and claims.  Members of the
polity are reduced to consumers of a show to
convince them to vote for this or that cartel political party.
The defunct liberal-democratic institutions, including the
electoral process, are incapable of mobilizing the people to
discuss the concrete conditions, sort out what has to be done to
solve problems, and come to some agreement and consensus on
finding a new direction and aim for the crisis-ridden economy so
as to meet the needs of the people and society, and to humanize
the social and natural environment.
On the eve of
the election call the BC government issued a report in which it
decried the economic conditions and the insecurity of the
people: "In Canada, economic activity fell by an
annualized 38.7 per
cent in the second quarter of 2020 -- a record drop in such a
short period of time. In BC, the unemployment rate increased to
13.4 per cent in May from 5.0 per cent in February.... The
public-facing service sector was hit very hard, with employment
declines concentrated in retail trade, information, culture and
recreation, and accommodation and food services. Women and youth
were especially affected [...] The result was a situation in
which the most vulnerable people in the labour market bore the
brunt of the slowdown.... Nominal retail sales in BC experience[ed]
its largest monthly decline on record in April. [... BC had]
149,600 fewer jobs in August compared to February."[1] The
liberal-democratic election fraud cannot solve the very
real problems facing the economy and people. The measures the
government has taken and its promises and those of the
opposition refuse to address the failed direction of the economy
and engage the people in discussion and mobilization to defeat
the pandemic and to find and implement a new direction to stop
paying the rich, increase investments in social programs and
defend the rights of all. The people are determined
not to allow the election fraud to
divert them from organizing to claim what belongs to them by
right. Through uniting with their peers and engaging in actions
with analysis to solve the problems of the failed economy and its
liberal-democratic institutions, the people are determined to
empower themselves to build the New. Note
1. See "Economic
Recovery Plan for BC: Restructuring State Arrangements to
Strengthen Provincial Pay-the-Rich Economy," TML
Weekly, October 3, 2020.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 38 - October 10, 2020
Article Link:
An Election Held During Pandemic and Economic Crisis - K.C. Adams
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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