Making the right choice in an election

All elections for national and local positions are always important because they determine the kind of governance we will experience during the term to which we elect our leaders.

The winners will determine in varying degrees the kind of life that we will live in the next few years.
           
Therefore, it is ideal if we look at that kind of life and see whether the candidate will indeed be able to help us experience it.

One difficulty, I suppose is that each voter has his own criteria for choosing a candidate. They range from the personal to the eclectic, to that handshake to that lofty economic promise of jobs and higher incomes. Some would vote for financial reasons. All and all, the elections will, therefore, be the aggregation of the individual criteria.

What is termed as the “will of the people” as expressed in the result of the elections reflect the kind of elective officials we want to lead us.

Thus, in this system the result is assumed to be always correct in so far as those who voted are concerned. I say assume because it is only after these officials serve that we can say we were wrong. That is, if they do not perform as we expected them to then we can say our collective decision was wrong. (However, by then damage to our communities may already have occurred).
           
Politics is not an exact science. There seems to be no foolproof formula that can ensure that we will always make the “right” choice.

The conduct of governance these days is also complex that many factors influence the efficacy of leaders. Even the most learned may not be the best administrators and legislators.
           
This really leaves us in a quandary. And yet, it is an important exercise in a democracy and so we must live by it and always take the risk that our choices may not always be right. Conversely, we always hope that we make the “right” choices.