BLAISE COSTABIR
If you hear the starting gun, you know the race has begun. If you hear thunder, you expect rain. In Goa, hear a politician say ‘I am not happy with my party’ and the voter knows an election is around the corner. Thus political activity is gath ering pace. Aspirants are mak ing their presence felt, posters and banners are appearing and sitting MLAs who are uncertain about their re-nomination are be ginning to express their unhappi ness with their parties. A familiar question: which party next? There was a time when you belonged to a political party be cause you believed in its ideology. Today, apparently, ideology can change simply by changing the scarf around your neck. The explanations for changing parties are predictable. “My sup porters wanted me to.” Or: “I want to develop my constituency.” The first is questionable—supporters are not the same as voters. The second raises an obvious ques tion: if you cannot develop your constituency while sitting in the Opposition, why did you contest the election in the first place? We should simply elect every MLA from the ruling party. Then every constituency can be developed! In reality it does not work that way.
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Despite having ruling MLAs representing different parties and ideologies, many constituencies continue to struggle with basic infrastructure, motorable roads, healthcare, and educational facil ities. One development is remark ably consistent: the development of the politician. Look at election affidavits and compare declared assets over successive elections. The numbers can make interest ing reading. The real problem is not the politician changing parties. It is the voter’s helplessness. A vot er votes for Candidate X because Candidate X represents Party Y. The election is over. Candidate X then joins Party Z. The voter is left with no recourse.
The destination is the ruling side, because that is where the numbers—and there fore the power—are. The Speak er’s position is controlled by the majority; anti-defection proceed ings can become prolonged, and if a decision is challenged in court, the matter can continue until the Assembly term itself is over. The anti-defection law was meant to address this problem. To the ordi nary voter, it can appear remark ably toothless. The voter is left twiddling his thumbs. Only four MLAs, historically, have resigned after being elect ed on one party’s ticket, con tested the resulting by-election on another party’s ticket—and won. That tells us something un comfortable about the voter.
If a candidate can change his politi cal allegiance overnight and still win the voter’s support, perhaps the problem is not only the pol iticians—it is also the way we choose them. Presently, the voter feels “help lessness, hopelessness, heart ache, and woe” to borrow a line from the musical “Cry Baby”. The popular mood to put a smile back on the voters’ faces seems to be that the only way forward is if all current opposition parties form a ragtag coalition and fight against the ruling party. Is that really an alternative? Let me give you an example of a single constituency that is rep resentative of the situation. In the last election, nine candidates were in the fray. Four candidates polled 80% of the votes and the remaining five 20%. The winner secured just 24% of the vote— well short of a majority. This is the arithmetic of our first-past the-post system. When multiple candidates split the vote, a can didate can win without anything close to majority support. The fa miliar arithmetic is simple: mul tiple candidates divide the vote; defections can then alter the po litical balance after the election; and a government can emerge without majority support among voters. The playbook appears to be in motion again. There are already many aspir ants preparing to enter the fray in each of Goa’s 40 constituencies. Some will seek party tickets. Oth ers will stand as independents if necessary.
So what gives us rea son to believe that the outcome will be fundamentally differ ent this time? What is the real choice available to the Goan voter? Perhaps it is time to ask a dif ferent question. What if Goa stopped choosing between po litical parties and started choos ing 40 citizens? The “Enough is Enough” movement has advo cated a strong citizen platform to safeguard Goa’s future, with clear goals and with the responsibility to protect the State’s natural and cultural heritage. EiE can endorse 40 candidates after proper vetting, who agree to use their 10-point charter of de mands as a compass. Not career politicians. People who have a stake in Goa’s future. The criteria could be simple and transparent: preferably someone who is well settled and has experience in life, has no criminal cases or previous political ambitions. If more than one suitable can didate emerges from a constitu ency? Put them on a public plat form. Let the voters hear them explain how they would imple ment the ten-point charter.
Let them answer questions. Let them debate each other. Then choose one. But there needs to be another condition. Before contesting, each candidate should make a public commitment: If I change my po litical allegiance after being elect ed, I will resign my seat and seek a fresh mandate from the voters. Better still, let that commitment be put in writing. Because the fundamental principle is simple: the mandate belongs to the vot er, not to the politician. Such candidates would have one advantage that today’s candi dates may find difficult to match: they would have no political baggage. They would not need to spend fortunes wooing voters with ABC—alcohol, biryani and chicken.
They would not owe their political careers to party bosses. They would not have to explain why they were in one par ty yesterday and another today. Would they be perfect? Of course not. Would they know everything about governing? Probably not. But perhaps that is the wrong test. The question is whether Goa is willing to try something different. Political parties or politicians have not been named. In Goa to day, many politicians have been in and out of so many parties that party ideology itself has become difficult to distinguish. As the ad vertisement famously put it, they may be divided by teams but unit ed by Kingfisher. In Goa, perhaps it is simpler: Divided by parties. United by self-interest. Maybe it’s time to try some thing else. Forty citizens. Forty constitu encies. One Goa. (The author prefers to write rather than chat in a balcao.)
