Dear Editor
Since the Tashao election was held in Capoey the villagers are now split in two factions, claiming that the election was rigged with outsiders being allowed to vote after a tie, which saw a new election one week after. Tashao elections are over the new captain has told the discontented villagers that she made a breakthrough with the tie, that she now speaks for over half of the Capoey electorate. According to more than half of the villagers, the election was rigged and the fraud was expanded and a new dimension was added of outsiders.
The village election will prove a watershed in Capoey’s peaceful life. It has brought the Amerindian people to a new stage in the struggle for national liberation and genuine independence. Those who criticised the election as being rigged, now admit that it was right.
The new captain policies inevitably would lead to a worsening of the social and economic conditions of the villagers since there is already non-cooperation between the two factions, that with growing dissatisfaction, the captain would embark on a course of denial of civil liberties and force. The new elected Tashao, is losing support. Apart from the strife of interest at the council level, there are growing contradictions between the village council and villagers as a result of the alleged rigged election.
The Capoey villagers now realise that is not possible to secure people’s power anymore since the senior and junior ministers have neglected their plea for an investigation into the rigged election. One of the greatest dangers confronting the divided community today is a growing belief that the Amerindian Act 2006 is so manipulated as to make peaceful change, accomplished through the working of Tashaos elections, virtually impossible. If that notion is generally believed, democracy in Capoey Lake is finished.
Since the thrust for change by the villagers will take new and dangerous forms leading inevitably either to repressive measures by those who control power or alternatively, the overthrow by means that are outside of the Act 2006. But in Capoey where the villagers struggle is sharper, peaceful change has been blocked. The dissatisfied faction has now embarked on a civil resistance and a non-cooperation campaign, against the new illegal Tashao,since they deem that the election was not free and fair,they are calling on the other villagers who is living outside of Capoey, for the expansion and intensification and to help them in their struggles.
These villagers, told me that the Amerindian Act 2006,is likely to be lifeless if it is seen by the electorate as an instrument to be operated by the captains and village councilors, while their only role is limited to the election of those from time to time. Many of the grosser defects of these Tashaos elections can be corrected if the names of voters lists are posted outside of the place of poll three months before the election are held. Out of the spoils yielded by the system some benefit did indeed trickle down to those below. It is improbable that this came about as the primary objective of the flawed system.

The villagers may criticise the election as rigged and fraudulent but they do so as spectators. They claimed that they do not do so through any acknowledged right to be considered as part of the village. They vote at periodical Tashaos elections but, for the rest, they seem to look on from the outside. For them an analysis of the situation must take them beyond the results once compromise is identified.
Yours faithfully
Mohamed Khan