Citizen incompetence

Citizenship in free societies is a political enfranchisement that allows adults to constitute an electorate and so determine the leaders and laws of the nation. However, in every country there are many citizens who do not understand the organization and function of government, the legal system of their nation, their national institutions and goals, nor prevailing current issues. The electorate contains many people with no information, little information or wrong information on the personalities and programmes of the political parties, and the achievements or lack of them of incumbent office-holders. This lack of competence leaves them open, at best, to ineffectiveness and a neglect of their own interest; and, at worst, to susceptibility to emotionalism in the exercise of their electoral power that could lead to national disaster. This incompetence is not a failure of formal education but is a product of multiple factors: on the one hand, the lies and confusion in statements of the government, the political parties and their allies, and the media; and on the other hand, the general absence of compulsory political involvement, or at least, voting, at all levels, local through national.