Electioneering is a practice foreign to the spirit of Bahá’í
administration. However, it is necessary to distinguish between electioneering
and those activities which should be entirely natural and normal in Bahá’í
communities. Bahá’ís travel and teach the Faith, they go pioneering, they
represent the Faith in relation to non-Bahá’í agencies, they serve in positions
of responsibility. There is no reason why such services should be carried on
anonymously. Bahá’í voters have to acquire the maturity to estimate the
character and true capacities of their fellow-believers, to be able to
distinguish between a person who is self-sacrificingly serving the Cause with
all due modesty, and one whose activities are carried out with the primary
purpose of bringing himself or herself to the attention of the friends.
Bahá’ís, nevertheless, are subject to all the pressures and
standards of the prevalent culture of the society in which they live, and can
only too easily be unconsciously influenced in their behavior by the accepted
norms of that culture. One of our challenging tasks as Bahá’ís, however, is to
establish, through our personal conduct and through the pattern of life in our
communities and institutions, those cultural standards which Bahá’u’lláh wishes
us to uphold.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 18 August 1996, written on behalf of the
Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; Online Baha’i Reference
Library of the Baha’i World Center)
