Pushing the finalisation of party candidates till the day of filing of nominations, may be a compulsion for major political parties, but it’s an absolute travesty of the unwritten moral contract that parties and the people have in democracy – the contract of transparency and the opportunity to chose wisely.
Can a real tangible, well thought out choice be made by the voter, when he doesn’t know, in half the constituencies on an average, the candidates of the two main parties, a day before the filing of nominations begins? The equation is pretty simple. Elections do not happen daily. They do after a gap of close to five years. If in five years, a party is unable to decide who their next candidate will be, who can lead them to victory in his /her constituency, the chances are that they never will. What they do at the last minute, as they freeze a name barely hours before the nomination, or worse still in the closing stages of the last day of filing of nominations, is nothing but a compromise.
This is different from a party which makes it obvious that a certain person will be their candidate but delays the actual finalisation. One can live with that. But to have virtually no idea of who at least one of the main players will be to challenge the principal player, is unfair.
Voting, or the participation in one of the most inclusive exercises in a nation’s democratic history, is serious business. It cannot be trivialised like this. The process that can be now presented involves, giving ample time for the people to even decide who to pick. At least three months before elections, all recognised parties, un-recognised parties must issue a short list of two candidates from which they would finally pick. Now two months before the elections, parties need to officially announce, their candidates. This is the time when Independents must also finally announce their plans of contesting. Once this is announced, it cannot be changed unless due to very pressing circumstances.
This will serve multiple purposes. They will be no haggling over alliances and tie ups till the last moment. Independents will have to make a choice early and stick with it. Unrest and rebellion within parties can be quelled or “settled”, and most importantly, people will get two months to listen, hear and ask questions from the candidates rather than vote for last minute candidates in a hurried, ill thought out decision.
It is time that even the campaigning style changes. Once the candidates are declared, the first month of the two month period before polling date should be for constituency acclimatisation. This is the time all warring candidates must come on one platform for three hours for a live TV debate with questions. The second month can be used to fine tune strategy and manage internal conflicts and be at hand to resolve them.
These changes cannot be on paper or discussed in the media. There are enough reasons for these thoughts to find official resonance, so that they can be taken as important inputs.
It is high time political parties are put on the front line of electoral reform. And the people of Goa have every right to demand preferential treatment, if for nothing else, then as a gift for being so patient.
