Thursday, October 11, 2007

Don't be pushed to vote its your right

I went to see my tailor friend, she was very busy with orders being December a month when most people want to have new clothes for Christmas and the new year or to show their relatives up country when they travel that they are from the City or a town.

This was in 2002 after elections, I asked her if she managed to vote being so busy, she told me she was planning not to go and finish some orders. However her plans not to vote where cut short when her husband told her if you don’t vote you will not come back to this house.

She informed me that she was to vote at a different polling station from her husband but the husband made sure he took her to the queue at her station before he left for his station. So I wondered how he would know if she voted, she told me he said he will know when she comes back if she voted or not. She didn’t take him seriously but went ahead and cast her vote.

When she went back home she found the husband already home, the first thing he asked for was to see her fingers. She stretched her palms to show her fingers and the husband sighed aha good girl you can go back to your work. He saw the purple ink on one of her fingers, which is normally applied after voting.

This story made me realize that many people especially women do not vote until they are pushed to do so by a spouse or a parent. One thing that many people have not realized is that its is ones constitutional right to vote and the benefits of voting.

It is very bad when someone who has not voted starts criticizing the elected government yet their vote would have counted to get the government they want in.

My appeal to Kenyans who are in a position to vote (I don’t know if Kenyans in the Diaspora can now vote from where they are?), to turn out in large number to choose the leaders they want.

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