Tuesday September 25, 2012
Election English
MIND OUR ENGLISH
By FADZILAH AMIN
’Tis the season to get all hot and bothered about the upcoming general elections. To prepare yourselves, get acquainted with some political terms.
ARE Malaysian politicians already electioneering unofficially? In other words, have they taken to the hustings before the date of the next general election is announced?
The mass media certainly give the impression that some of them have, while speculation about the date of the election, which must be held before March 8, 2013, has been going on for months.
In the United States, politicians are definitely out on the hustings for their presidential election on Nov 6 this year. The candidates have been nominated, and we get a lot of news on the two main ones, as they go on the campaign trail.
Electioneering? Campaign trail? The hustings? What do those terms mean? They are some of the terms often used in connection with elections in a democratic country. Others include swing state/constituency/voters, floating voters, electoral system, outright majority, hung parliament, majority government, coalition government, minority government, electorate and suffrage.
Electioneering is defined as “the activity of making speeches and visiting people to try to persuade them to vote for a particular politician or political party in an election” (OALD). Also, a campaign trail is not a long path in the belukar or woods to get to the prospective voters, but “a series of planned events in different places taken part in or given by a politician who is trying to be elected” (CALD). These may, of course, entail walking on rural trails, but most of the time, the politicians in the United States and Malaysia are whisked from one “planned event” to another in cars and aeroplanes.
The term the hustings has an interesting origin. While it now means “the political activities and speeches that happen before an election and are intended to win votes” (CALD), it actually had a physical origin. In England, a “husting” was “a temporary platform from which, previous to the Ballot Act of 1872, the nomination of candidates for Parliament was made, and on which these stood while addressing the electors”(OED).
There are many references to hustings in a novel by George Eliot titled Felix Holt The Radical (1866), set around the time of the First Reform Act in 1832. The following quotation would give some idea what they were like:
“The show of hands having been pronounced to be in favour of Debarry and Transome, the business of the day might be considered at an end. But in the street where the hustings were erected, and where the great hotels stood, there were many groups, as well as strollers and steady walkers to and fro.” (Chapter 30)
Nowadays, of course, the references are only to the metaphorical hustings of the CALD definition, as can be seen in the following quotation in a US newspaper about former President Clinton helping current President Obama win the election:
“Mr Clinton is to head out to the hustings this week in the swing states of Ohio and Florida ... The Obama campaign has not announced the rest of his schedule, but he’ll be deployed extensively in the Midwest, where blue-collar voters remain skeptical of Mr Obama but enthusiastic about Mr Clinton.” (Toledo.blade.com 9.9.2012)
What do swing states mentioned above mean? No, they are not states full of cool clubbing people (called “swingers” in the 1960s), but those “that may swing often decisively either way on an issue or in an election” (online Merriam-Webster Dictionary). These are the places where politicians need to campaign most, so that more people will swing their way! In Britain, there are swing constituencies, as can be seen in the following quotation:
“The car industry was – and still is – a major employer in the crucial swing constituencies of the West Midlands – and a vital source of export earnings.”
(BBC News website, April 7, 2005)
The people who haven’t made up their minds before an election and don’t always vote for the same political party are referred to as swing voters, often called floating voters in Britain.
After the results of a parliamentary election are announced in a country like Britain, or our country Malaysia, which largely follows the British parliamentary democracy model and its system of elections (electoral system), a few things can happen to determine the kind of government that will be formed.
A party or an alliance of parties standing as one group (e.g. the Labour party in Britain or the Barisan Nasional in Malaysia) may win an outright majority. This means that the party or group of parties has won more than 50% of all seats in parliament, which is at least 326/650 in Britain or 112/222 in Malaysia.
The leader of the party or group of parties will then be asked to form a government, which is referred to as a majority government. If the majority is fairly large, this kind of government is likely to be stable.
The alternative is when no party or group has won an outright majority, although one of the parties or groups has won the largest number of seats. This situation is called a hung parliament, although at that stage the new members of parliament haven’t yet been sworn in.
It has never happened in a Malaysian general election and seldom happens in Britain, but it did in the last British general election of 2010. In that election, the Conservative Party won 307 out of 650 seats, while the Labour Party won 258 seats, with the third most popular party, the Liberal Democrats winning 57 seats.
What happens when there is a hung parliament? In Britain and I think in Malaysia, too, the incumbent government, whose prime minister still holds office, has the first opportunity to form a government by trying to persuade one or more other parties to join in a coalition with them, so that they can have a majority in parliament.
If that fails, the party with the largest number of seats will then be invited to either form a coalition government with one or more other parties, or to rule on their own in a minority government. In 2010, the incumbent Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown could not persuade the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition with his party, and had to make way for David Cameron of the Conservative Party, who succeeded where he failed.
A minority government is vulnerable to a vote of no confidence if all the other parties in parliament “gang up” against the ruling party. Nevertheless, Harold Wilson in February 1974 did form one, with his Labour Party winning only 301 seats out of the 635 parliamentary seats then. However, he had to call a second general election in October that year to strengthen his party’s position, and managed to get a slim majority of three seats, which was enough for him to form a majority government.
The Malaysian electorate (those eligible to vote) will have to wait and see when our general election will be called. I hope most of us will exercise our suffrage (right to vote), to ensure that Malaysia works as a true democracy.
> Fadzilah Amin used to teach English literature at university, but after retirement started teaching English language. She is an avid watcher of political activities, but limits her participation to voting in elections. Mind Our English is published once a week on Tuesdays. For comments or inquiries on English usage, please contact the writer at fedela7@yahoo.co.uk.
Source:
RSS
