By Joseph Akim Gordon
The political effectiveness and quality of political participation is the function of multiple variables, this includes political commitment, good governance, rule of law and application of democratic credential. Politics that are devoid of justice, equality, racism and tribalism and other negative sectoral tendencies.
The involvement of poor in politics, in many cases, the poor is marginalized because of manipulation by the rich, the opinion of the poor is not seriously considered, the economic status of the poor matters a lot as far as politics are concerned, the use of money or other resources can be used to influence a poor person participating in politics in other countries even level of education is essential for a given political position the level of education for a given political position is vital in other countries you will be allowed to contest a political position only with minimum education qualification . Being poor will not prevent you to contest a political position. Poverty, however, will prevent you to active participation in a situation where one is supposed to provide logistic and to entertain the constituencies, poverty will however reduce your popularity in the political game.
Politics has become a monopoly of wealthy countries, for instance, in the Western world, to become a political figure, one must attain certain level of educational standard and massive expenditure for political campaign.
In the international fora like the United Nations and others, the poor countries are dragged by economically powerful countries, any country that makes decision to vote contrary to the wishes of the wealthier nations.
When a poor country votes against the wishes of the rich countries, they will block or suspend the flow of development funds or assistance to the poor countries, for this reason, the poor countries are often scared to oppose the wealthy countries so the poor are not free to make an independent decision so the poor will of course do the will of the wealthy countries or else you are denied the resources from the wealthy countries.
For these reasons, the poor countries must do their utmost to develop economically so that they are not trapped to do the will of the rich and ignoring your true position and once the poor countries climb the ladder of prosperity, they will cast their votes independently ignoring the wishes of the wealthy countries.
Similarly, the politics even in South Sudan is connected to availability of resources to the politicians the more resources the politicians have the more influential the politicians can draw from the constituencies, money plays leading role in the political campaign, for this reason a poor politician will have little influence in politics, in many cases politicians will make sure to invest in the political campaign this is a sure way to climb the political ladder. We have seen political defections from one political party to another the driving force is simply dictated by availability of resources that will determined your political status.
Many people refer to politics as dirty game but as a matter of fact, politics like any other subject-matter is not dirty but it is the individual that can be referred to as dirty. On the same token, there are people, likewise, who oppose the consumption of alcohol, when seen misbehaving after getting intoxicated with alcohol. When they commit crime under alcoholic influence, the next day, when they are sober, they put the blame on alcohol, the intention of committing crime is there but alcohol has given them courage to do so. Alcohol plays catalytic role, but when taken in excess it affects the body system, here the blame is not alcohol that caused the crime but the individual that has caused the crime, likewise, if food stuff is taken excessively, it becomes poisonous to the body, it is not the mistake of food, but the person who consumed food in excess is to blame.
In reality politics should not be commercialized, because you may have good politicians who are ready to do much for the citizens but getting into politics prove difficult because of lack of financial resources. But the voters should note that those politicians who are spending a lot of money to buy the votes do not have an agenda for supporting the citizens, so the citizens, should realize that the poor politician might have the interests of the people at heart, so despite the level of poverty, give a trail to a poor politician.
The author can be reached through e-mail: akimgordon555@yahoo.com