About the Club
The Hong Kong Student Association (HKSA) being a Hong Kong cultural club serves to promote culture and heritage to all interested students from Hong Kong. The group’s core purpose is to provide a strong network for its student and staff members to interact and encourage high member participation. Nonetheless, the club is supposed to provide opportunities for their counterparts from other countries to experience more about their country and culture (HKSA 1).
The April 2014 Elections
As per the constitution, each office position that is to be elected is supposed to be publicized. In this respect, the constitution states that the mandatory election meeting(s) shall be held every semester so that every active member can attend. It is also mandatory that officers who had served the previous semester attend. The constitution also provides for only active member of the association to participate in election activities. Likewise, only active members are allowed to run for intern and elective posts (HKSA 1-2).
Before the election, communications for publicity in forms of e-mails and mobile phones messages were sent to members to inform them about the upcoming Annual General Meeting that would be held on 25 March 2014. In the meeting, the former president announced that new seven officials of its Executive Committee would be elected. The seven posts to be elected included the president, internal vice-president, external vice-president, secretary, treasurer, publication secretary and coordinator. This was also to involve General Association Affairs and Year Plan Idea setting. Before, the communication had made it clear that running for any elective post was open for any member who was active during that academic session. As usual, the then president announced his interest to hear back from any member (HKSA 2-3).
As per the constitution, Election Committee was formed three weeks prior to the election date. It included independent senior advisor, the recent president, and other three assisting members from the Executive Committee; all of these officials were to renounce their interest in vying for any post. The committee was then mandated to make rules that abide with the club's by-laws, which were approved by all other officers in the Executive Committee. Thereafter, the Election Committee announced the election venue as Classroom Building and the date as 23 April 2014. To encourage attendance, the then president also announced a free dinner for all during the elections. All executive committee members were elected on a simple majority, through secret ballot, and it was the duty of the outgoing president to publicize the results to all members through emails, messages, social media like Facebook and newsletters/ magazines (HKSA 3-5).
During the election, each member was entitled an equal voting right of one vote. The election board ensured that all active members passed the quorum of two thirds as per the constitution, or else it would have been pronounced invalid. Both nominated and independent members were allowed to contest in the election; it was also permitted for one to vie for more than one post, so long as he could resign others to hold one (HKSA 5-6).
Link of the HKSA Events with a Political Experience
According to Counterpart International (para. 1-6), taking into account that Cameroon has been a country that continues to face many political challenges, with its political landscape being dominated by one political party since independence, it was eminent that political, civil engagements were needed. Initially, the president had an uncontested mandate of appointing every member of the election board, making the whole election process to be believed neither free nor transparent. Therefore, USAID in its project, Strengthening Civic Engagement (SCE) for Cameroon, sought to encourage citizen participation in the country’s democratic processes. The organization, just as the HKSA in empowering every member with equal voting rights, sought to strengthen capacities of the countries citizens by engaging several civil societies. To ensure that a clear election process is set up, the project empowered the civil societies to pressure the government to come up with an election program. Analogous to the HKSA’s independent advisors, certain members of civil societies were trained to monitor the country’s elections. As already mentioned in the HKSA’s process, on publicity, USAID sought collaboration with the media to educate citizens and emphasize about fact-based election coverage. In this regard, the organization had to train journalists and grant them tools that could cover the elections fairly, giving only accurate information to the standards of international best practices. Grants enabled the civil organizations to sensitize Cameroonians, through posters, flyers, community based meetings, outreach campaigns, sports, radio programs, newspapers, gadgets among others.
It is important to note that the SCE was speaking the interest of Cameroonians and enhanced their involvement in the election. The program also encouraged knowledge sharing and domestic monitoring initiatives. In this capacity, it managed to bring together government and independent stakeholders to provide solutions to long term electoral problems in the country. For instance, the newly acquired biometric voting systems enhanced accuracy and efficiency in the electoral process. Just as the HKSA could amass over two-thirds of members in the election exercise, it has been noted the project doubled the election turnover (Counterpart International para. 6).
Why Civil Engagement Is Important
Tolbert, McNeal, and Smith (24- 26) note that the civil engagement is a major project that will see many citizens participating in direct democracy through the ballot. This strengthens democracy and makes citizens of a country politically active. Civil engagement will therefore bring citizens to vote in large numbers, which will send a clear message to the government about its progress of affairs. Moreover, the project of civil engagement if successfully carried out will see citizens of a country having good relation with policy-makers. It is crucial in improving the making of the policies themselves, to result in good governance (Tolbert, McNeal, and Smith 28-30). If a government honestly dedicates its efforts in making sure that the civil societies and citizens are surely engaged, it is evident that it will earn the trust from them, which will in turn strengthen its civic capacity for it to function better. Studies have shown that it will be easier for such citizens to render their support to public organizations either in monetary terms, in initiatives to advance political and good governance courses in their country. Pluralists have it that when diverse groups participate in an election with varied reasons, the government will be aware of their specific needs (Tolbert, McNeal, and Smith 30-34). In fact, some political schools of thoughts such as Progressive Era reformers argue that when a citizen participates, directly in law making process, he will have a positive attitude towards the government (Uslaner 2-3).
Conclusion
Works Cited
Counterpart International. Strengthening Civic Engagement in Cameroon
(former).Counterpart.org, 2011. Online 2014, <http://www.counterpart.org/our-work/projects/sce>
Hong Kong Student Association (HKSA). Constitution, 2002.
Tolbert, Caroline J, McNeal, Ramona S, and Smith, Daniel A. Enhancing Civic Engagement:
The Effect of Direct Democracy on Political Participation and Knowledge. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 3.1 (2003): 23-41. Print.
Uslaner, Eric M. Civic Engagement in America: Why People Participate in Political and Social
Life. College Park: the University of Maryland, 2007. Print.
