The last time I walked into a polling booth, I walked out with a blank ballot paper. Not out of laziness and not out of cynicism, since I voted for thirty years, with the care of a man afraid of getting the candidate's name wrong. I walked out with a blank ballot because I had understood something unpleasant: every vote cast without conviction is an approval, an agreement signed with one's eyes closed. I had been signing for thirty years.
I know what you are thinking, because I thought it myself: this way you hand the country to the worst of them. But we have been handing it to the worst of them for decades, by accepting that the only available choice is between variants of the same decline. Our vote is the fuel of the system, and those who govern know it better than we do, which is why every five years we are asked to fill the tank.
Turning off the tap works, and it has happened before. In Bangladesh, in 1996, 147 MPs resigned demanding elections under a neutral caretaker government. The ruling party went to the polls alone and took 278 seats out of 300, but only 21 per cent of the electorate turned out. That government lasted twelve days, and within weeks parliament was rewriting the constitution.
Power can clear a square. It cannot govern a void.
Hence ten conditions, written and measurable. A binding “None of the Above” on the ballot. Political money published within forty-eight hours. An independent anti-corruption authority. Fair airtime and open archives of political advertising. A vote anyone can verify. Candidacies opened up. Citizens’ assemblies that must be answered. Recall of elected representatives. Conflicts of interest made impossible. Public data released, with penalties for those who stay silent. Not one of these is an invention: each already exists, in some form, somewhere in the world.
The hardest part is still missing, and I will not pretend otherwise: a place where that No is declared, counted and published. Until it exists, our absence stays indistinguishable from silence.
The day those ten conditions become law, we will vote again. Not a day later.
Consent is earned.
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Who is behind this
One person, Cristiano Gentili. There is no party, no organisation, no membership and nothing to sign up to. Write to [email protected].