Greetings fellow steemers!

I'm glad to be back here on the Steem Cameroon community. Your contests are just too interesting. I love how I can express my opinions about different topics here.

Elections in my country

This is a topic that I take seriously, because since I was very young I've been aware of the irregularities that occur in these events. I live in a country in South America where elections have been arranged for more than 20 years. I'm 31 years old, and I actually lived in real democracy during my childhood, but then I experienced corruption in every possible way.

With this introduction, I am ready to face the questions. Now you know what to expect from my answers.

■ What do you think about Elections in your country:
I honestly think they will never be clean elections in my country again. It is of common knowledge that elections in this country have been rigged right after this regime got established in 1999. I mean, the last democratic elections occurred in 1998, then there have been a lot of arranged elections from this corrupt government so obsessed with power that it is almost impossible we can see a change of government in the near future.
In 2004, it was implemented a new voting system, the SmartMatic system (does it sound familiar to you?). It was allegedly futuristic and more practical because it was the first time this country would count on electronic devices for an election... The result? It was all rigged. It was later discovered that there was a complete fraud committed, and of course, nothing happened. Who cares, anyway?
Elections are very dirty here. The government manipulates people in order to get their votes by threatening them with their food and jobs. We have heard things like "you don't vote for the revolution, you don't eat" on national TV transmissions, and this is only an example of many.

■ What do you think about the electoral system in your country?
It is a corrupt system. If it wasn't clear with my previous answer, let me tell you something about our electoral system: The National Electoral Council (CNE for "consejo nacional electoral" in Spanish) has an internal database they have full control over, and what they do in order to generate more chaos when "election season" is coming, consists of getting random people they have identified as enemies of the regime (because they know everything), and change their voting address for no reason, and without notifying the person.
Also, this electoral system eliminated the only way we had to get sure people voted only once. We used to get our right-hand little finger in a hard to wash blue ink that lasted for days, but they eliminated that practice, and that's because they allow their people (militants of the government's party) have more than one ID number. Isn't that illegal? Yes, it is, or it should be! But it doesn't matter if you live in revolution and you defend that revolution.

■ How is it done in your country?
3 days before the election day, schools and other places in which elections are gonna take place get closed and taken by the military. They install the machinery along with some citizens they choose, and some people volunteer to make a quick practice that puts in evidence the election center is "clean". Machines are installed in common classrooms.
In the election day, people get in line to vote, their ID cards are taken and checked in a list, if they're in the list, they can get in, if not, they can go home and cry, curse or whatever they want. Once in, they put their fingerprint in a machine (spoiler alert: it's a trap), and then they go towards the machine, click on their candidate(s), push "vote," wait for a paper to come from the machine, and deposit it inside a box.
At the end of the journey, votes are counted by the machine in front of some witnesses, and the votes are sent to the CNE (national election council) headquarters in the capital city both via internet and physically by the military who are there all day only waiting for that moment.

■ Is it transparent and fair in your country?
Oh, no! The only transparent thing here is how comfortable the people from this government are every election day when they smile on TV before having the results, like sending a message: "We will win again," so people get demoralized and think about never going to vote again because it is useless.
Well, their corruption is quite transparent to us. We see their every move, they don't even dissimulate.

■ Assume there's no fairness and effectiveness as far as elections are concerned (I DO), what solutions can you propose to ensure its being carried out the right way?
I would first of all get rid of the entire electoral system of this country, then I would call some international organizations to witness the elections and make sure they are clean.
This is the only way to do things the right way here, because there will always be distrust in this electoral system due to what we have lived during this government. Abstention to vote is getting bigger and bigger, people got tired of wasting their time voting for nothing, young people do NOT get into the electoral system because they are not interested in voting. I think involving the international community as a witness is the solution.

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Photo taken with my Nokia 1 Plus cellphone

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