SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
The Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar called the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections a festival of democracy. There is nothing incorrect with the phrase or the sentiment. Festaivals have been celebrated for centuries. But festivals and celebrations become what they are when they are held aawith integrity and true joyousness.
Elections become true democratic festivals only when they follow the basic foundation of democratic elections.
Elections are about public representation. It represents people's power. aBut it can no longer be a festival if people are not empowered. This power is taken away if the choice of those who are represented is taken away completely. If the vote is the currency of democracy then the voter needs to be democratically rich.
Instead of becoming a bottom-up process where people confidently undertake a process to have a shaortlist of people in their area naming whom content can take place, voters of today have no option but to choose among those who usurp their choices aand impose.
It takes money to contest and win elections: This is the narrative sold & bought
The money game has been played so much and so often that it has become the main narrative in the elections. A man or woman with a mission, first looks at how much money he has or can raise before even thinking of jumping in the fray. Financial calculations constitute over 90% of the planning. In our very Goa, there was a time when professors, doctors, teachers, writers were requested by their society to represent them. The society and the community helped in the election process. Money was never a factor. Small contributions, mostly in kind, came from people. Yes, elections were truly a people's festival then.
But now people think that they cannot compete and win in politics without money and simply give up, thinking that politics is all about money and for those who have money.
There is corruption at every stage in a political process. And they are fought by those who built up a financial war chest to fight elections. This is not necessarily clean money. And while money and muscle power have been flagged as the biggest problems of democracy by the CEC, it doesn't seem to be a problem at all by many of those who contest. Money made through illegal trades like matka, or from funds gotten illegally by misusing official positions or vested interest candidates backed by religious forces and preachers is sued for elections
Then there are those in positions to do so as heads of parties in the state, who have repeatedly "sold tickets" to unknown people at the last moment, and themselves have lost elections and handed over wining positions of their parties to opponents.
People have to realise that and sow the seeds so the common man can be on a mission to be a leader
When we give simplicity a chance, people’s power a chance, their voices will always be carried by responsible media
There is enough wealth in people’s hearts and in their pockets filled with honest hardworking money. You don’t need more money to win elections. You simply need to get honesty and integrity on all sides to be restored. And if genuine people centric candidates decide to stand, then responsible sections of the fourth pillar of democracy will carry and amplify people’s aspirations.
It is no longer about people’s aspirations because politics has become a profession not a mission
The very reason why the political class has no fresh faces and the existence of the same batch of politicians for the past 20 years at least, limited only by death and illness is because the political class feels it is their professional right to contest elections. It is their pool and the membership of that pool is held by those who have wanted to contest in almost every election.
This has led to the top down process where politicians and their family members feel it is their divine right (though they may be entitled democratically) to be the chosen ones.
Politics has become a family succession game
In the process, someone who wants to make leadership and people-based politics their mission, literally has no chance of making it. Every constituency has the current representative and the one who came second or third. And in close to 80 percent of cases, new leadership doesn’t even have a chance to be born or grow. People hold on to power.
Even chronically ailing Chief Ministers don’t leave their chair or resign as MLAs, till their unfortunate passing. But what happens here is that the chance of any common person with a mission to politically serve his or her people is totally crushed.
Only family members of entrenched politicians play a part. A look at the current Goa Assembly proves this vehemently. Three sets of couples who are MLAs constitute 15% of the 40 MLAs, and two are sons of former ministers- Francis D'Souza and Joaquim Alemao.
The sprinkling of new faces is less than two percent. The situation is not very different in the municipal councils and panchayats.
If elections need to remain a festival, let people become a part of it in the true sense
The Chief Election Commissioner’s description of elections as a festival, can truly be the case if elections are truly about people. If they are controlled by donors and the powerful, who dictate the narrative then people are seen as puppets. The day people start thinking that it is not a festival but a puppet show, will be the end of democracy.
