This quirky thing they call *the vote*

I have rarely found myself thinking more deeply about the concept of democratic election and what exactly it is that a vote means.

In my own country, South Africa, the trade unions, with support from the Communist Party, are staging mass protest marches. Their gripe is with corruption and the way the ANC’s Jacob Zuma administration is plundering public resources with the help of the Gupta family that not so many years ago arrived here from India.

The problem with the protests is that it is the already suffering public and the already suffering economy that are bearing the brunt of the disruption. Sometimes it is worse than disruption. How often does it happen that demonstrators vent their anger at government by destroying both public and private property.

Surely the simple answer is to use the vote to register disagreement with those who are responsible. Sure, it does not always work in the aggrieved party’s favour, but that is what is meant by democracy.

We’ve indeed had good examples of what a quirky think the vote can be in recent times.

We’ve seen how it propelled Donald Trump into the White House, heralding an episode in American history that is as perplexing to the rest of the world as it is to most Americans themselves.

We’ve seen how it resulted in the British turning their back on Europe, unloading uncertainty upon the UK as it has upon the European Union .

We’ve seen how it has brought to the surface an element in Germany that all who remember the two world wars will be watching with a sense of discomfort, if not trepidation.

What, I keep asking myself, is it that makes so many people exercise their vote, only to find themselves in so many cases blinking in shock afterwards at the result it’s produced.