Does your vote really matter?
I do not know how to put it…
It is complicated…
It depends…
But yes, it really does matter more than you think.
Yet, let us see a broader perspective.
A leader or government is wanted or unwanted to rule or administer a country by people, internal friends, internal enemies, and external friends and external enemies. Yes, the enemies would prefer a certain candidate that would suit most their own interest. The more independent the country is, the less important his friends and enemies (other than the people) are. The sad thing is that most of the countries are not independent, not self-sufficient and heavily reliant on foreign resources or heavily indebted. In this case, the vote makes not much difference or even worse, none of the candidates are likely to bring a change or advancement or something good for the people but may only perpetuate the unpleasant situation or even worsen it.
If the country is exporting a lot their own resources then a certain ruler is more valued outside the borders than inside the borders, like for example: Russia, China, Iran. Their rulers are very much observed worldwide and many lobbies are lobbied around if at all possible to favor a certain ruler. Most of the time these powerful and independent countries may have a strong ideological ruler but they are ruled by a team of politicians that are strong patriots that perpetuate the system.
In any case how ever much a candidate is favored on un-favored by its internal and external friends or enemies, your vote counts massively to the idea that a candidate is voted and its legitimacy is a direct consequence of your vote. So you have to vote for 2 reasons: first reason is thatthe low votes expressed by the population questions the legitimacy of the candidate, and 2nd-ly because your vote shows the fact that the candidate is voted, not pushed by questionable forces there even they may be, but the fact that a voting session was organised placed the relevant explanation.
Many times in not-so-independent countries where the candidates are manipulated by “deep state” or external foreign intervenient forces, the votes are relevant as always but the number of votes is “altered” to serve these external forces.
In this case, the countries run an “approval rating” to still find out the real peoples vote . This approval rating should indeed reveal the people’s choice in a more accurate picture.