Analyzing The Political Options Of Citizen X In The Last Election

Citizen X’s Ward and Candidates

There can be plenty of factors which can play a determinant role in ascertaining the voting behaviour of an individual or a community. In the phenomenon of voting both the subjective and the collective factors play an important role in determining which candidate or which political party shall be voted to power. In this particular essay, an analysis of the voting behaviour shall be presented on the basis of a hypothetical situation that has been presented which recounts the biographical and locational details of a woman of immigrant background who has arrived to Canada from Jamaica. Based on the details provided about her, an analysis of her choice with regard to whom she is likely to vote shall be provided in the subsequent sections.

For the purpose of anonymity and for convenience the woman has been named as Citizen X. She is a resident of the Jane Yewtree apartments, which is situated at 2999 Jane Street, in the ward of Black Creek, in the city of Toronto. The candidates running for the election in her ward were total eight in number. Candidate Anthony Perruzza emerged as the one to have received the maximum amount of votes in the ward bagging 36.80 percentage of votes (Caruana et al. 2018). The other candidates are as follows, arranged in descending order of the votes they have secured for themselves- Giorgio Mammoliti, Deanna Sgro, Tiffany Ford, Amanda Coombs, Winston La Rose, Kerry Ann Thomas and Kristy Ann Charles (Caruana et al. 2018).

From the provided hypothetical biographical information about Citizen X two key clues can be deduced which can exert a profound influence on the voting behaviour of her. The first and the most important factor is that of her immigrant background. She would definitely be more favourably inclined towards voting a candidate who nurtures a positive approach towards the immigrants and safeguards their interests from being encroached upon. Another reason that has the potential to generate an effect on the voting preference of Citizen X could be the relative who lives with her family and is suffering from a chronic illness, which is preventing her from doing any job. Naturally, Citizen X shall be preferring a candidate to be the councilor of her ward who shall be having favourable opinion with regard to safeguarding the interests of the citizens who are on grounds of health unemployed. The candidate who shall be supporting the cause of pension and other forms of support to help out the diseased ones and their families shall in all likelihood be preferred more by Citizen X and her likes (Caruana et al. 2018).

  In the election of 22^nd October, 2018, Anthony Perruzza emerged as the victorious. He is an incumbent candidate, and had defeated candidate Giorgio Mammoliti, who had been a councilor even before (Siemiatycki, Myer and Marshall 2014). He was running for re-election in the year 2018, when Perruzza was chosen oven him. As per the present context, the political preference of Citizen X would definitely not be favouring the election of Mammoliti given the ideological leanings he had which was far right, and such ideological positions are quite conservative and treats the minorities and unemployed people with contempt. Mammoliti had served as the councillor for over a period of two decades and the north western part of Toronto, which was under him was thoroughly underdeveloped. His region had been under the grip of unemployment. He had also not undertaken any move to champion child care and youth development programmes which shall be affordable to all sections of the society (Siemiatycki, Myer and Marshall 2014). Instead, Mammolitti had been a centre of controversy when he called the economically underprivileged population of the area as cockroaches and had used the same imagery to describe the criminals. His comment which specifically targeted the residents who formed a part of the Jane Finch residential complex was taken as an offence. He had even gone to the extent of stating that the correct method of treating them should be like spraying the cockroaches who have infested a building (Siemiatycki, Myer and Marshall 2014). The comment had raised a hue and cry since it was considered to be highly genocidal, extremely violent and thoroughly disruptive to the harmonious and all-embracing fabric of the Canadian society. The refugee crisis induced by the mass exodus of population specifically from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan had also affected Canada as the inflow of immigrants had to be accommodated in the country as well apart from few other countries (Haie 2014). However, the general public of Canada and Prime Minister Trudeau had extended a warm welcome to the refugees. Mammoliti was one of the councilors out of the two who had opposed the decisions (Haie 2014). This behaviour expressing a sense of apathy towards immigrants is something which shall not be going to serve the interest of Citizen X. Since Citizen X herself belongs to an immigrant background, and Mammoliti has a very anti-immigrant and right wing approach towards politics, naturally she would not have supported him in the election that was held prior to the one on 2^nd of October, 2018 (Haie 2014).

Factors Influencing Citizen X’s Political Preferences

The family members of Citizen X in all likelihood must have voted for Anthony Peruzza for the election to the City Council held on 22^nd of October 2018, over the other candidates. The prime reason behind voting Peruzza to power would have been in all possibility the concern for the relative who lived with the family of Citizen X. Anthony Peruzza as a person nurtures a deep sense of empathy for persons who are disabled due to health reasons and are at the mercy of the state for social security benefit schemes (LeDuc et al. 2014). He had previously voiced his opinion favouring for more protection measures to safeguard the interests of the tenants and had also called upon the government to inculcate more of policy measures which shall be conducive to the upliftment of the standards of living of the people. Those conditions include the creation of a recreation center and for more provisions to help out the educated yet unemployed ones of the country (LeDuc et al. 2014). The son of Citizen X is unemployed currently, hence voting Anthony Peruzza would be to their benefits as he had expressed an egalitarian and benevolent attitude towards the unemployed ones. The husband of Citizen X is a business owner. He has his own store which deals in upholstery at Mississauga. Anthony Perruzza shall be voted to power by her husband because he had expressed his opinion in favour of cutting down on private property tax (LeDuc et al. 2014). This particular stance of Anthony Perruzza shall be beneficial to the personal interest of the husband of Citizen X. Citizen X is herself a service employee who works as an aide to the nurse at Toronto Western Hospital, hence she shall be looking forward to voting a candidate whose policy approaches shall serve the interest of the working class people. Anthony Peruzza belongs to a working class background and had faced a lot of struggles to reach to the prestigious position he is currently holding in the country. Naturally, this shall be stirring the thought in the minds of the people that he shall be empathizing with the people who belongs to a working class background (Karp et al. 2018). So it can be deduced on the basis of the situation of the family of Citizen X that the unanimous choice of the members eligible for voting shall be Anthony Peruzza. This goes as far only the family of Citizen X is concerned. Judging upon the situations that prevails in the ward in which she lives, majority of the people shall be voting in favour of Anthony Peruzza. The ward in which Citizen X and her family resides is ethnically diverse, and majority of them are of black origin, of immigrant background. Financially, the residents of the ward are not very affluent, as they survive on an average 65 dollars a month (Karp et al. 2018). These factors have contributed to the victory of Anthony Peruzza over Giorgio Mammoliti. The striking characteristic feature of Peruzza is that his ideological standpoints are quite balanced, having both capitalistic and socialistic elements in it, which makes it possible to cater to a wide range of public.

According to Pippa Norris’ description, had ward 7 followed a multi member constituency system of election, there would have been a clash between ideologies (Inglehart. Ronald and Norris 2016). The 2018 results show that there is ample amount of support for candidate Giorgio Mammoliti which is why he came just second to Anthony Peruzza. The former had received 24.83% of votes of the total, and the latter, who has emerged as the victorious one has secured 36.08%. The difference is that of at around 12 percentage. This shows that the neighbourhood is not homogenous with respect to the interest, and multi member constituency would definitely have led to a clash between the leaders as their ideological positions were fundamentally different from each other (Norris 2014). However, in case there had been a multi member constituency in ward number 7, there would have been a high propensity for candidates Deanna Sgro to be the second choice of candidate for Citizen X and her family as she too holds liberal values like Anthony Peruzza and represents the Liberal Party (Norris 2017). However, given the low percentage of votes she has bagged in her favour, which is just 19% proves the fact that she is not as popular. This brings one to the fact that a single member constituency is the best for ward number 7 as the population is characterized by heterogeneity and a candidate who can reconcile all the differences shall be more appropriate over the others.

References

Caruana, Nicholas J., R. Michael McGregor, Aaron A. Moore, and Laura B. Stephenson. “Voting “Ford” or Against: Understanding Strategic Voting in the 2014 Toronto Municipal Election.” Social Science Quarterly 99, no. 1 (2018): 231-245.

Haie, Saba. “Rethinking Transportation Planning-Citizen Participation and Inner Suburban Social Justice in Toronto.” (2014).

Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. “Trump, Brexit, and the rise of populism: Economic have-nots and cultural backlash.” (2016).

Karp, Jeffrey A., Alessandro Nai, and Pippa Norris. “Dial ‘F’for fraud: Explaining citizens suspicions about elections.” Electoral Studies 53 (2018): 11-19.

LeDuc, Lawrence, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris, eds. Comparing democracies 4: Elections and voting in a changing world. Sage, 2014.

Norris, Pippa. “Electoral integrity and electoral systems.” In The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems. 2017.

Norris, Pippa. Why electoral integrity matters. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Siemiatycki, Myer, and Sean Marshall. Who Votes in Toronto Municipal Elections?. Maytree Foundation, 2014.