Election Night Special

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Five years ago I was living in Australia, watching the results of Britain's 2010 election via a neighbour's hacked wifi connection. I could only get the connection by standing in the cramped rubbish area, my laptop sitting on the lid of a bin, the connection dropping every 45 seconds with a painstaking ten or so seconds to reconnect. Each revival brought with it the anxiety-riddled fact that there had been almost no movement. Counting votes is a slow process. Eventually I gave up and decided to check it after 24 hours when the votes had been finalised and a new Prime Minister was ready to brush his cuffs for the media coverage. In fact it took a whole bunch of days for a new Government to form in what was then dubbed the closest voting in a generation, with a "LibCon" coalition formed from the rubble created by a First Past the Post system. I didn't vote that time and had no qualms about not doing so.

Today I am in Chahuites, Mexico, a tiny Oaxacan town near the Chiapas border, where E and I ended up after trying to hitchike to Pluma Hidalgo yesterday but not getting nearly as far as we'd hoped. Like almost every settlement in the country, from San Sebastian Rio Hondo to Mexico City, there are walls painted by the ruling political party of the country, the PRI, but beyond this signs of political activity are minimal. People are gathered at the market to buy vegetables and eat Pollo en Molé whilst feral dogs and wild horses canter through the streets.

Meanwhile, 6000 miles away in my home country, it is election night in what The Guardian has called on their website the "closest election in decades" and once again I am loosely following it via the internet. Once again I am an insider on the outside, a stranger with a stake in the outcome, because the result of these votes will determine the mechanics of life once I return to the UK. Once again I haven't voted and, having spent the last five months (to the day yesterday) travelling through some of the most beautiful parts of the world, care even less than I did in 2010.

But the election matters to a lot of people, particularly those who survival depends on keeping the Conservatives out - or indeed those whose affluence depends on keeping the Conservatives in. The issues of the Hunting Act and the badger cull, close to my heart, are also hinged on the election of one party or another. So they say to us anyway. For that the election hype engine has spun into overdrive during the last couple of months telling people to get out and vote. It doesn't matter who, just vote, or for god's sake spoil the ballot as a protest. Do anything to show yourself or else you don't deserve a voice. So much of a nation collected together behind once voice, recouperating stragglers into the crowd with the promise of being part of something big.

I have met people across the world living their lives without the slightest need or care for Government. From the Zapatistas of Chiapas to the families of now-earthquake torn Kathmandu, national governments have proved little more than hindrances to people wanting to live their lives. It seems only in the neurotic, tightly-wound citizens of advanced capitalist countries that the ritual of a General Election receives more emphasis than methods of living individually and communally without hierarchy. For those that have voted, I hope you get the results that you want but please don't start moaning when you realise the governmental system has failed you and your friends once again. By choosing to vote you have voiced your approval for the very structures that disempower you.

"Vote November 2nd if it seems right to you, or don’t vote if you think it just holds us down. Just tell me what we’re gonna do on November 3rd to make sure there’s no Government left to elect two years from now."

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