43rd General Election
The People Do Not Decide the Outcome of Elections
In election periods, the state machinery, including the monopoly media and many non-governmental organizations, strive to direct all attention to those who are called the leaders of the major political parties or to individual candidates, and, for the most part, their misdeeds. This poses the issue in an election as one of personalities. It is another means to block the people from thinking and speaking for themselves and waging the battle for democratic renewal. To disinform and divert those fighting for change, attention is directed to Trudeau or Scheer and that defeating them is crucial. Anxiety is fostered by the Trudeau camp that unless Scheer is stopped there will be no democracy, with all kinds of speculation as to what that could mean. So too, the Scheer camp creates anxiety that if the measures Justin Trudeau is taking on carbon taxes are not ended, or deficits are not controlled with more tax cuts and austerity measures, disaster will overcome us. When the desired results do not occur, the people are blamed because they have moved to the “right” or to the “left.” The working class is then divided according to who they voted for and branded accordingly.
In looking at the elections from the vantage point of the working people, it is clear that the people do not decide the electoral process. They do not decide the candidates, the agenda, the massive amounts spent, the issues or the process. Thus, most certainly, their vote does not decide the outcome. It is not the people who decide who is Prime Minister or the Cabinet ministers, all of whom wield prerogative powers. Everything is decided through private deals and shenanigans. Once the electoral process fails to produce a champion, as seems to be the case in this election, then horse trading begins: a coalition of some kind of government in exchange for nobody knows what. The exception in this election is once again Quebec where the polls suggest a collective consciousness is taking shape to vote for the Bloc Québécois to protest both the Liberal and Conservative parties.
Canadians cannot tell anything about the stands individuals will take based on the votes they receive in an election, or from the large abstention rate either. Votes cannot be aggregated to proclaim a “mandate” the people give nor do they confer the consent of the governed. People vote for particular candidates, or do not vote, for any number of reasons which have little to do with what they do in the world when it comes to taking stands and defending rights. This is evident in the many demonstrations and protest actions held across the country in defence of rights, the environment, against war and so on.
The polls predicting how people will vote and stories about the divisions based on what the votes stand for serve to hide the actual relations that exist in the society between humans and humans and between humans and nature. They are meant to eliminate the work for empowerment and divert people into defending the existing institutions. One solution is to use one’s own voice to speak in one’s own name so that those who usurp power by saying they speak in our name cannot get away with it. In this election, the MLPC calls on Canadians to empower themselves by opposing both the Liberals and Conservatives so that their rejection is visible for all to see. They can vote ML (Marxist-Leninist) for democratic renewal or for an independent or small party candidate where possible to express their rejection of the cartel party system which pays the rich and dismantles social programs while it embroils Canada in aggression and war abroad.
Vote ML to Empower Yourself Now!
This article was published in:
Renewal Update No. 36, October 16, 2019
Article Link:
43rd General Election: The People Do Not Decide the Outcome of Elections
