Blogging elections

When it comes to politics and democracies, the media play an important part in informing the population of important events and moulding public opinion of a political situation. Important to cyberdemocracy then, is the electronic media.

A free and responsible media is essential for any democracy. And I guess you don’t quite get a space more free than the blogosphere. Independent thinkers writing freely about their thoughts and ideas for all to read and respond to.

When it comes to elections, we rely on traditional media to cover the event, comment on its legitimacy, uncover the injustices and announce the final results. But, how different would it be if we bloggers were part of the media team responsible for covering the electoral process.

Matthew Buckland, GM of the Mail and Guardian has proposed this very idea to the Independent Electoral commission for South Africa’s next presidential elections next year. “Blogs open up the space for many different voices to be heard.”

According to Buckland, the IEC has responded favourably, it is now just a question of logistics. He said we it would not be logical to expect everyone with a blog to descend on the elections demanding access and permission to report on events.

It has been suggested that various blog aggregators like Amatomu be used to identify the prominent bloggers who write with authority and have an interest and insight into South Africa’s political landscape.

Great idea! There are reports of the public losing trust in the traditional media and it’s ability to give an unbiased report. Bloggers carry a lot of credibility with their readers and followers. And because blogs allow for a more personal account than traditional media, a whole new kind of media coverage can be seen; coverage that includes independent critique and that has a strong support base that thinks it credible.

But what about the voices still not heard within this great free independent blogosphere? Many of the countries rural areas are unpenetrated by the internet. Their lack of infrastructure already puts them at a great disadvantage, it would be great to hear their voices for change and allow them access to information about their political system and all the players with it.

No one solution can possibly solve all the many problems in this country but allowing more voices to speak on issues is a definite step in the right direction.

Information alone is never enough

A while ago I took a look at how well the South African government was using their website to communicate with the public in the interests of cyberdemocracy.  I thought it useful to look at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa’s (Idasa) website under a similar lens; with the question being ‘how is Idasa making use of the internet?’

Idasa is an internationally recognised public interest group “committed to promoting sustainable democracy based on active citizenship, democratic institutions, and social justice.” With its international links, the internet offers a better opportunity to communicate and mobilise than any other medium.

The organisation grew out a need for “an alternative to the politics of repression”. Their aim to create “a democratic culture in SA and strategic interventions to help the new democracy take root” make them an interesting group to look at with reference to e-politics.

Idasa uses the internet to communicate with the general public. Initiations to events and information about exhibitions are placed on the home page. One can also find articles on workshop reports, news stories (mostly about African countries) and a bookshelf where users can read reviews of books deemed important.

Educating the public enables informed decisions which would aid and strengthen any democracy. On their homepage, Idasa posts important information relevant to the programmes they run at the time. Currently they have information about their Party Funding Campaign. They also have information about community and citizen empowerment, governance and aids and safety and security to name a few.

Idasa fulfils their task of trying to create a culture of democracy by being a great platform for citizens to access information, possibly get involved and educate themselves about political issues. However, when it comes to using internet technologies to create a space for debate and conversation, the website falls short.

Idasa has a newsletter to which users can subscribe however there is no place for user feedback, comment or opinion…not even on the “peace building and dialogue” page! There a ‘contact us” page complete with the contact details of Cape town and Kutlwanong democracy centres and contacts for the various programmes Idasa is involved in.

For a democracy to be strong and for effective political engagement for the public they need to be well informed about their political landscape. Open discussion is an important part of that process. In his defence of free speech, John Stuart Mill says that even unpopular opinions should be allowed to be expressed as their authors can be corrected in an open public debate.

Access to information is essential to any democracy. However, it is useless if the public does not know the many ways that information affects them. Discursive spaces are essential for the exchange of ideas and the growth of any nation.

The downside to blogging

In the previous post I looked the practice of blogging and how it could improve South Africa’s political landscape and supporter-politician communication. Blogs seem like a great idea, however the idea is not without its faults.

Writing is a skill that needs to be mastered and used effectively by every blogger. A politician who cannot convey their ideas in an interesting and engaging way will not gain the necessary support base to sustain a successful blog.

South Africa has a rather contentious political climate at the moment where the public, and politicians alike, feel a great moral obligation to express their support for one a debate or the other. In such times, how leaders express themselves is of pivotal importance.

Commentary made in any blog is open to the public and there as evidence if one were to claim being misquoted. This means that any responsible leader cannot afford to make somewhat precarious statement like “we are in full support of ____ and we will kill for him if need be!”

Being open to public scrutiny, politicians run the risk of a tarnished image if they were voice statements or present policies that were unpopular. Instead of the flow of information, and communication, being a one way process from the top (political leaders) to the bottom (ordinary citizens), blogs are an open for commentary, criticism and dialogue. A blogger needs to constantly be on top of his game or they could come across as incompetent.

It was suggested that blogs could be used as a platform to present proposed policies and receive feedback from the public before having them implemented. This idea however is not half as feasible as it is idealistic. More transparency in the goings on of our parliament would be ideal, but the deliberative process is a lengthy one. With all the political red tape, getting any project off the ground takes ages. Adding another stage (deliberation with the public) could prove more detrimental than useful.

As noted by Susan Ward of About.com, another downside to blogging is that any blog needs a dedicated team to keep it constantly updated and to engage with user feedback. She says, “a blog that hasn’t been updated for a week is a bad user experience. From the blogger’s point of view, a blog can be time consuming and yet another deadline pressure.”

Any project undertaken, especially in politics, comes with a host of risks and benefits. True leaders are able to balance these out to make the right decision for their people.  The South African government could be far more interactive and could make more effective use of all the services made available by various technological advancements. It would do them a great service to first find a way around these risks.

5 reasons why South African politicians should blog

Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary general of the United Malays National Organization party’s youth wing insists that all electoral candidates start blogging. He says, “all candidates must have blogs…If not, they are not qualified to be leaders”.

I came across a blog post by Loic le Meur which showed the same faith in politicians blogging. After reading his list of ’10 reasons why politicians should blog’, I decided to compile a list of ‘5 reasons why South African politicians should blog’.

ONE:  at the moment it is close to impossible to get a hold any political leader, especially the higher up they are in the political ladder. A politician’s blog allows supporters greater access to them. They can post up their speeches and ideas and open them up for comment from the public.

TWO:  when run effectively, blogs are a open forum for debate and criticism. If democracy refers to “a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them”, leaders need to know what the public is thinking. Open more spaces for disucussion and criticism would serve to strengthen a democracy.

THREE: politicians can use their blog to test, exchange and share their ideas in a decentralized fashion. At the moment, the main source of information is the government’s and the various political organization’s official websites. The problem is, as noted in a previous post, these sites do not often offer effective feedback options.

FOUR: blogs would allow for a shift in the way leaders communicate with their supporters and the rest of the population. Official websites take on a formal tone that reflects not a bit of personality. Blogs, however are laid back and far more personal mediums of communication.

Thabo Mbeki has always been seen to have been an aloof president, without feeling or personality and who never engaged with the masses as is seen in some of Zapiro’s work. Now I’m not saying that a simple blog would have solved all his problems and done away with all criticism, but it would have allowed the public access to a more personal side to him.

FIVE: making use of blogs, other social and mobile media and web 2.0 strategies, politicians can reach a younger audience. Part youth leagues could make use of the ever so popular Facebook to gain support and engagement from the youth. Le Meur argues that “the Internet is the medium of the young” and I can’t say I disagree.

They are however reasons to believe that, especially in South Africa, we still have a long way to go before political blogging can be done effectively. This will be covered in next week’s post.

Cyberdemocracy: weapon or sheild?

So in last week’s post I wrote about e-voting and whether it could offer a solution for election disputes in Africa. It surprised me then to see that the very first comment on that post was all about the xenophobic attacks that hit front pages worldwide all of last week. At first the comment seemed just a tad misplaced…but then I thought about further.

Well, where better to have your say than on a blog that has stated that “with the power and wide use of the internet, public opinion can now be disseminated with greater ease and the traditional routes to democracy can be bypassed”.

If it is indeed true that “the web is an open medium that allows the average man a voice louder and more far-reaching than any other” then maybe the comment was perfectly placed to test all that I have said.

So this week I decided to put my money where my mouth is. If cyber-democracy opens new space for social commentary by the average citizen then I open this post as one such space.

Every day for the past two weeks, the nation tuned onto the news to see men with machetes walking the streets, shacks being set alight, whole townships ablaze and women singing “mawahambe amakwerekwere” (the foreigners must go).

And it was only 14 days later that the National Assembly sent in a task team to investigate the attacks. It was only on Sunday that the president spoke out in response to the crisis. It was only after 56 had been killed, 324 shops had been looted and more than 50 000 had been displaced that Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula could bring the situation “under control”.

All I want to know is, what happened South Africa and when?

When did we move from being the rainbow nation to being a nation that stands aside while people are set alight because they “do not belong here”? Since when do we owe no gratitude to our neighbouring countries for the role they played in our liberation? And since when does it take a government with a whole police force and the army (not to mention military aid from the AU and the UN) at their disposal two weeks to act?

Never have I been more ashamed of being South African…not even when I realised that Zuma was leading the race for national presidency!

Last week I was talking to my dad and asked him “when you were my age and saw the injustice all around you, what did you do?” He said, “simple, I became president of Azapo.”

Well I see the injustice and I write. I spark debate. I get the thinkers thinking and hopefully inspire the doers to do.

Maybe e-politics is just the shield we cowards hide behind. But hopefully, it’s the new weapon for war.

Could e-voting be the answer?

We saw it in Angola, Kenya and most recently in good-ol’ Zimbabwe. Any real democracy rests on a free and fair electoral process. However, as Africa has shown us time and time again, elections could mean the begin of civil war with no democratic resolution in sight.

Perhaps, if the manner in which elections were carried out would be changed, leaders would be appointed with ease and according to the will of the people.

I took a look at the concept of e-voting to see if it presented a plausible alternative for African elections. E-voting is when states use electronic technologies to either cast or count votes.

So the idea is for the voting process to work just like a trip to the ATM, you would cast your vote using touchscreen technology or a number of buttons. All ballots would be tallied electronically. This could prove to be faster and more effective than the current manual counting.

There are a number of advantages to this electoral system. With computers adding up the votes, there is less room for human error. Audio can be introduced for blind voters and zoom in capabilities would cater for those with poor vision. The screen can be displayed in a number of languages and polling stations can never run out of printed ballots.

Voter turn-out in Zimbabwe sits at less than 20%. This is due to, among many more reasons, the fact that many Zimbabweans have left their country in seek of refuge as where. With e-voting citizens could potentially place their vote from anywhere in the world if the necessary online networks and links were enabled.

South African youth are becoming more computer literate and are becoming regular Internet users. However their political engagement and involvement calls for great improvement. Creating a link between electronic media and voting could increase the number of youth voters in national and provincial elections.

However, e-voting is far from being flawless, especially in Africa. Computer literacy, for both the voters and the facilitators, would be a major hurdle. Electronics do not do away with room for human error as these computers are programmed and used by humans, who are at times impartial.

To fund such a project, the private sector would need to be called on board. Voters would be correct in questioning just how impartial the system would be if it is powered by companies with political clout and business interests.

Thabo Mbeki has been seen as good for business and a strong economy. The same would be hard to say about Jacob Zuma, as some have noted. It is totally plausible that an e-voting system programmed, run and managed by these interest would present Mbeki as the next president even if it were against the will of the people.

Even in America where e-voting has been in use, it is still under much scrutiny and heavily criticised. Democracies work only when the people trust that their vote has been counted fairly and freely. This can never happen with a system with so many flaws.