A house divided
I do not believe it is inevitable that, as Abraham Lincoln said in one of his most famous speeches, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is certainly a risk, but it is not inevitable. Not if we accept the principles of democracy.
Friday last week saw the Annual General Meeting one of the Associations to which we belong. On the agenda was the election of officers for the new year.
There was a quorum of members present, so it was a duly constituted meeting. However, not everyone was able to be present and six members had sent emails indicating to whom they gave the right to cast their vote as their proxy. (Apparently, we were told later, one member had telephoned the Executive Director and told her whom he wished to vote for as President, but the meeting was not informed of this until later.) Even so, some other members were not present for one reason or another and were not represented by even a proxy.
As the various reports were considered, a few questions, (of fact and procedure), did occur to me, but I kept them to myself. On the whole, I felt that the meeting was, in many respects, well run and it represented a stark contrast to the “bazaar” that used to characterize its predecessors in the early days of the Association.
When the item on the agenda of the elections was reached, nominations were invited, made and recorded. I was one of the two candidates nominated for the post of President of the Association. Voting papers were issued, completed, and collected. The Revision Committee counted them and tabulated and announced the results. All that remained was for the formal protocol to be typed up.
It was a close vote: with just one vote between the two candidates, and one abstention. I had been elected and several people around me offered me their congratulations.
A procedural question was asked, and answered. A recount was asked for, and done. The result was the same.
It was at this point that we were told about the “telephone vote”. We were told that the Revision Committee had been informed about it before they counted the ballot papers and had decided to discount it as it was not a ballot paper which they had before them.
That vote was for the candidate that got fewer votes, so if it had been counted that would mean the result was a tie with equal votes for both candidates. A suggestion was made to hold the election again and a vote taken on the suggestion. The decision was to hold the vote again.
We were also told that one member who had cast their vote in the election had already left the meeting.
It was at that point I said that if they held a new election that they would have to do it without my participation. The additional vote was not a written ballot duly cast, recorded counted and available for inspection and so, in my opinion, the Revision Committee had been right to ignore it. The election had been held fairly and a protocol existed, (I specifically asked if a protocol existed and was told that it did). I pointed out that I understood that it had been a close result and that, as I am a democrat, I had been prepared to lose the vote but that I was not prepared to take part in a “circus”. I said that I considered the Association as too important for that I was prepared to work in support of it; to work either as President, or with my opponent, (against whom I hold no ill will), if he had been elected. However, I was not prepared to take part in these “games”.
As far as I was concerned, the election was over, the result announced, questions arising from it had been answered and a recount of voting papers had confirmed the result. I would not take part in a re-run which was being railroaded by those who were unhappy with the result … and I, too, left the meeting.
On my return to the office, within an hour of the events, I received a telephone call from a journalist who wanted to congratulate me on my election. How they knew about the “result”, (or, for that matter, my mobile number – which I rarely give out to people), I did not know. I said that congratulations were premature and that they should speak to the Executive Director.
As I had left, I do not know what happened next, although I am told by others that the meeting continued but a new election was not held. Apparently, it was decided to call another meeting, “maybe on Monday”. Monday came and went – with no news. Apparently, however, some members held a private meeting to consider the situation.
The following morning, I received in my email a message which had been sent to all members from the absent telephone voter. Although we had been informed that he had explicitly told the Executive Director that he wished to vote for my opponent, this message said that he gave his vote to my opponent to cast as his proxy. It’s only a small detail, but I think speaks volumes, especially when the message was time stamped six and three quarter hours after the election had been held and the “results” announced.
Then, on Tuesday, came a message from the office of the Association announcing the result, and that I had been duly elected.
That’s not the end of the story, however, as there were still procedural questions arising out of the affair, and not just concerning the conduct of the election and the “telephone vote”.
At the first meeting of the new Executive Committee we considered what to do next. Eventually we decided that the best thing to do would be to recognize that problems do exist and ask the membership what to do – conduct another set of elections … or not … and if they say “yes”, then try to make sure that they are conducted both fairly … and properly.
To be perfectly honest, I can’t say that I am exactly happy about the decision, even though I agreed to it, but I have to accept that there were problems and these should be addressed.
To me, it is not a question of who will be President of the Association next year. To me, there is far a more fundamental issue, a question of principle which goes to the core of our understanding of the word “democracy”.
It is the nature of a contested election, where there is a choice before the voters, that there are both winners and losers and, as such, some people are going to be disappointed by the result. It is a feature of democracy that we have to accept if we are not simply paying “lip service” to concept.
The meeting had been held and, until the final moment, it had been conducted well; according to the rules of the Association and the general rules of protocol. In particular, the election had, in my opinion, been conducted fairly and properly. If the voting had been such that I had received just one vote less than my opponent, then I would have accepted the result. I would have been disappointed, (unhappy even), but I would have accepted the result just as I have on other occasions when I have been on the losing side of a vote in the past.
In this case, however, some of those unhappy with the result had been unwilling to accept the defeat and acted with, what I consider, to have been bad grace and acrimony.
As I said, I consider the Association to be important. It is a body that represents many different members, each with their own views and opinions, and works to represent their interests, bringing influence to bear on the appropriate bodies in order to create favourable financial and economic conditions in which to operate and making the industry a modern, advanced and competitive one. As a collective body, it should have more strength and influence than a single company can, or should, have. To be honest, however, I am not sure how effective an Association can be when such “bully boy” tactics pass for the norm.
Ironically, at the moment, the Association is taking part in a donor funded project which aims to strengthen tourism Associations in Central Asia. It seems to me that the project is sorely needed but that, perhaps, it is a waste of the donor’s funds, (which, incidentally, comprises of taxpayers’ money from the donor countries), in that it concentrates on the activities undertaken by the Associations, when what seems to be needed is a basic course in PPE, (Philosophy, Politics and Economics).
Why should anyone listen to what it is said in its name, I ask myself, when such machinations lie at the base of its foundations.
The fact that the Association represents “a house divided against itself” is regrettable, but it is understandable as it consists of a disparate group of members. It is a “fact of life” with which we have to live and we have to accommodate ourselves to it. Although I don’t think it is inevitable, I am concerned that it will, indeed, turn out to be a case that it “cannot stand; at least, not in its present form.
For the record: In his speech, Lincoln was addressing the issue of slavery which threatened to divide the United States in the turbulent period before the Civil War. He said that despite this assertion, he did not that the Union would be dissolved, that the “house would fall”, continuing, “but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.” With the benefit of hindsight we can see how close the house actually came to falling and the terrible cost incurred in try to preserve the union.
Bishkek