As election time nears, we must think wisely

Letters

THE long-awaited season has finally arrived and everyone will soon stand before the ballot boxes to decide his or her leader for the next five years.
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century.
Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government.
This process is also used in many other private and business organizations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.
In PNG, elections have always been a multi- million kina exercise for both the Government and the candidates.
The Government spends on the smooth progress of the election while the candidates spend in securing votes from among the citizens.
In that way, the amount of cash expanded among the citizens is very huge giving rise to high cash flow but then its only for a short period of time which is only once after every five years.
After the election period is over, everything evaporates, all that remains is a few posters on tree trunks, and on walls of houses and the people try to resume to normal living but hunger strikes sooner as all the time has been wasted on election.
Some young teenagers lose their virginity, others become pregnant from unknown persons, some marriage runs into dispute, HIV/AIDS spreads like bushfire to name a few and many other devastating aftermaths.
In a Melanesian society where the bond between each member of clan, tribe and community is interconnected and strong, the mentality that a particular candidate belongs to a particular group of people is also perceived to be strong.
So the people tend to say that this candidate is from our area and we must all make sure we cast our first preference vote to him and give away our second and third votes.
Just imagine an election without tribalism mentality.
All candidates will have access to all the people and more people will have time to choose a good candidate of choice.
Again it all boils down to the degree of literacy among the citizens, Wisdom and critical thinking, careful and vivid conscience.
Citizens will start making right choices if they are literate and can think clearly, make wise decisions with vivid and sound conscience.
Hope we make the right choices and all we need is a clear conscience and wisdom.

Nigl Bii Nem
Japan