Election Fever Amid an Affordability Crisis

with Chidi Amuta

Democracy and adversity are strange bedfellows. Hungry and deprived people either turn out to vote or look the other way at election time. Those who participate in the electoral ritual do so in the forlorn hope that a new political cast might alleviate their condition. Yet that hope is often repeatedly dashed. Changing political seasons rarely bring about positive living conditions for the masses in these parts. The pessimism that fuels voter apathy and low turnout stems from a culture of treachery and habitual betrayal by the political elite. People look back at decades of voting rituals and the expectation of sweeter times, seeing only disappointment and shattered dreams. Yet our past is replete with election seasons and their accompanying rituals of transition that lead nowhere.

In this season, something novel has emerged. Adversity now wears a new face: the Affordability Crisis. It is a social and economic malaise afflicting different countries. Rich and poor nations alike face a widespread inability of the majority of citizens to afford basic necessities such as food, gasoline, transport fares, primary medical costs, house rents, and employment. The affordability crisis is a socioeconomic epidemic of global proportions, meeting nations where they are, whether rich or poor, developed or developing. It does not matter.

Donald Trump, in his second term, has inadvertently globalized a phenomenon now commonplace among nations worldwide. Increasingly, more and more countries are witnessing widespread hardship among the broad majority of their citizens. Living costs are escalating, and basic necessities are becoming hardly affordable. Basic indices of normal daily living—rents, transportation, healthcare, and food prices—have dramatically risen.

The specific degree and nature of these increases are, of course, localized. In most places, the nature and enormity of the affordability crisis differ, but it is mostly