2023 is an election year in Madagascar. At least, according to the Constitution, it should be. Presidential elections are of particular importance since they provide citizens the opportunity to express their preferences about who they think should lead the country for the next five years. Each eligible voter should make their voice count, no matter which candidate they root for. The forthcoming elections are especially crucial since the stakes are extremely high. The winner will have the duty to govern an increasingly testy Malagasy people in an uncertain global economy and a potentially treacherous post Covid environment. A lot is riding on the results.
The magnitude of the stakes is evocative of a series of thought experiments commonly used in the study of ethics and psychology called the “trolley problem”. The most basic version of the problem, known as “Bystander at the Switch” , goes a bit like this, according to Wikipedia:
“There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two (and only two) options:
- Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track.
- Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.”
The challenge is to determine which is the more ethical option. Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do? The answer is not straight forward. It may depend on the identity of the person who will die if the lever was pulled. What if he was a close relative of yours? What if he was a genius who is about to discover the cure for cancer? Would you still pull the lever to save the larger number? Is passively “doing nothing” better or worse than actively “pulling the lever”?
The trolley problem involves stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. Is the value of one life worth more or less than that of five? Variations of the problem can be applied to many other contexts including non-life-and-death situations like politics, economics or elections.
For instance, in the election version, you, the median voter, have control of the lever through the ballot box. You see the runaway trolley coming down the track and have to choose between the two following options:
1. Do nothing, Vote to maintain the status quo or the usual predatory policy stance, hurt the vast majority of the almost 30 million Malagasy people, forgo any scope for improvements in their welfare and interests,
2. Pull the lever. Divert the train. Vote for inclusive policy reforms that enhance the welfare of the large majority and hurt a much smaller number of individuals, or special interest groups.
In this case, the key ethical question to you, as the voter, is: does the welfare of the majority count more than that of the special interest groups that benefits from the status quo? What is the right thing to do? The choice becomes less of a dilemma. Of course, the response depends on your own identity and preferences. But unless you are, or you are convinced that you are, a member of the small predatory minority, you should and will opt to pull the lever — thereby sacrificing a small elite to the benefit of the majority.
Who will be the candidate for change remains to be determined. What is clear is that whever is able to convince the electorate that he or she is the one most likely to implement inclusive policy reforms should easily win the elections. That is, if the elections are clean and fair. But that is a different issue.
Later this year, Malagasy citizens will be asked to make a choice, let’s hope that the majority will know how to pull the lever and divert the runaway train. That is the ethical thing to do.
