Only Five Percent – (PIP #38)

By Louise Peloquin

     The last couple of weeks have offered followers of the world’s political scene a pretty exciting roller-coaster ride.

Headlines like “Starmer In, Sunak Out as Labour Wipes out Conservatives” dominated UK news on July 5th.

Reformist lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s presidential vote “but will have difficulty bringing the country out of isolation” stated CNN on July 8th.

On July 9th, Reuters announced: “French voters deliver a win for the left, a blow for Le Pen (the right) and a hung parliament.”

     2024 election results will crucially affect the planet and its inhabitants. Exercising voting rights contributes to saving it.

Edouard Fecteau’s June 30, 1944 editorial is not outdated.

L’Etoile, June 30, 1944

The revolutionary spirit is growling across the entire universe, in countries ravaged by the scourge of war as well as in countries supposedly at peace.  Newspapers only announce revolutions and counter-revolutions.

     Each group desires a new order but, to obtain this new order, the principles of democracy are left behind. One battles against the dictator Hitler but one uses the same means and the same tactics to force one’s conception of a new order.

     And thus, revolution is growling everywhere.

     Fewer than ten percent of the electors in Germany turned out to vote when Hitler took power in the country.

     Fewer than ten percent of the electors went to vote in France just before the war, leaving the reactionary group take control of the country.

     Only eight percent of the voters went to vote when Benito Mussolini took control of Italy.

     In the United States, one announces that only a little more than five percent went out to vote during the Massachusetts primaries. The percentage is about the same in all of the states.

     And people say all politicians are the same. They do not work for the interest of the country but for their own advancement.

     The consequences will be disastrous and the results will be most catastrophic. This apathy on the part of the voters will be felt before long because the reactionary group, the minority, voted, and voted in its leaders. These leaders will be able to demonstrate, with figures in hand, that the people are no longer interested in taking part in elections and will have a certain reason to completely do away with them. The last elections in Massachusetts cost an average of $2.00 a ballot.

     The voters, no longer interested in elections, abstain from exercising their right to vote. They will be replaced by these little groups of reactionaries which gradually eat away at the principles of our democracy. (1)

Edouard Fecteau

1. Translation by Louise Peloquin.