‘Clean’ election reform aims to reduce practices such as vote buying, voter intimidation, fraudulent voting and ballot box stuffing. This may seem a laudable goal, but the reality of reform is a different matter. This paper, from the 2002 American Political Studies Association conference, looks at the sociology behind vote buying reform in the Philippines. Clean election reform is a project of the upper and middle classes, which make up the membership of the main election reform organisations. Conversely, the targets of clean election reform are the lower classes. This generates distrust of reforms among the poor, especially when attempts to discipline them are accompanied by patronising or alienating attitudes, as was the case in 2001. The poor were presumed to be desperate, short-sighted and lacking in moral or political judgement, which reinforced the belief that the lower classes were incapable of effective participation and that democracy was the domain of the middle classes.
Clean election reform in the Philippines has been marred by a lack of understanding of the poor and vote buying practices. Key findings were that:
- ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ politics mean different things to the rich and the poor. Good politics for the upper and middle classes means transparency; bad politics means corruption. Good politics for the lower classes means personal dignity; bad politics means insult and rudeness
- There are misperceptions and misinformation about the nature of some of the ‘dirty’ electoral practices on the part of the reformers. This was reinforced in 2001 by misrepresentation of ‘dirty’ practices in voter education ads
- Voter education and efforts to clean up elections sometimes have unintended consequences. In Thailand, education designed to dispel beliefs often served to reinforce them. In the Philippines, some of the Catholic poor found their political education by the church to be alienating
- The poor do not ‘sell’ their votes as often as is thought. Many people turn down offers of money. Only 38 per cent of persons who accepted money in 2001 voted the same way, and one-fifth of these people said they would have voted this way anyway
- There may be cultural or other reasons for accepting money other than ‘selling’ votes, such as a desire not to embarrass the person offering money or a belief that it is the obligation of candidates to give money or gifts to their supporters
- Money may also be seen as a ‘goodwill’ gift: A gesture of generosity from a candidate with no strings attached.
These findings should to be taken into account when embarking on reforms. Key recommendations are that:
- Reformers need to understand the people they are trying to reform. This includes an understanding of the social make-up of the country and cultural practices of its people
- Reformers need to realise the effects that their reforms will have on the ‘targets’ of their reform (for example, how they will react), so as not to provoke reactions that are injurious to democracy.
