Today, the entire country anxiously awaits the upcoming parliamentary elections, set to take place in October, seeing the nation’s attention, energy, intellectual potential and moral standing currently fully channeled toward them. The overall predominant thought is that the incipient electoral social, political, and possibly economic effect can and will change our lives so drastically (and mostly to the best) that, as a result, we will not have anything more to do but sit back and enjoy the felicitous outcome of the voting. As a matter of fact, this is not just an indigenous Georgian phenomenon of public character; the United States (or any other country to wit) acts in the same exact way: Americans, like us Georgians, are likely living in high hopes that the November presidential election will be wrought with the power to alter their lives for the better.
Yet, those electoral promises and hopes are usually far removed from what actually happens as a consequence of the voting effort. At the end of the day, the entire pre-electoral din and racket, and the vote-counting hullabaloo, rarely turns out to be worth the electoral struggle we undertake throughout the exultant process. Indeed, it generally happens, when everything is over for another four years and all goes back to its old routine, that we discover with certain reservation that not much has changed in our personal lives, wallets or refrigerators. Then why do we use so much time, energy and money on a prospect that matters so little, you might ask.
The answer is prompt and easy: This is what democracy is all about, and nobody has so far invented anything more suitable and optimal to put together and govern a human life. This is what you call the structure of the current Social Contract! Sakartvelo is living and developing together with the rest of the world, the majority of which has given preference to democracy, consent of the governed thereof, and to freedom of choice. The interesting invention called democracy is not fresh out of human imagination: The idea belongs to ancient times, has survived through centuries, and has reached us contemporaries safe and sound, although there do pop up sporadic controversies concerning its modern value and rationality. So, we are where we are and there is no current prospect of anything new and different coming up to substitute democracy in terms of ruling human existence. That’s why we have settled so steadily and comfortably with the principles and ideals of democracy, not even budging an inch from its rules and regulations – and elections are one of those items in the democracy rulebook.
Whatever this judgement might suggest, the main question remains untouched: if the elections are not prone to introducing any tangible changes to our lives, why should we make such a big deal out of them? Well, this is exactly what constitutes the main pain in the neck when it comes to the democratic arrangement of our lives. Yet, if we learn how to make the elections reasonable, fair, honest, faultless, and beneficial to the nation as a whole, then there is a chance that we can put up with it for a while longer, at least until something stronger is invented in our prospective robotic world. For now, as we ready to make the best choices of our lifetimes this coming October, the best thing to do might be to not use only sentiment and attitude when standing before that magic ballot-box, but smarts and calculation, too.
The West is watching after our electoral behavior, and it seems the fairness in the process is almost guaranteed. But when we are faced with that ballot sheet, all by ourselves, the choice is ours alone. That’s where we need to use our brains to give the nation better leaders and decision makers than we have ever had before. Is this possible? Yes, it is, but only if we take Sakartvelo’s future very seriously.
Op-Ed by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
