1 Do you want an undesirable candidate dumped in your constituency?
Welcome to an electoral experiment! Why wait for someone to dump an undesirable candidate for elections from your constituency? If none of the parties and none of the candidates are suitable in your opinion, why should you be forced to choose one bad egg over the other? No, we are not asking you to stamp NOTA on the ballot sheet. We are simply suggesting: select and put up your own candidate, constituency-wise! Ready?
There is simply no political party today in the state of Goa that sincerely desires to serve the welfare and interests of the permanent Goan community, sitting in its villages, towns and cities. And we already face another election. We gave 5 years to Congress (2007-2012), and they unleashed the mining scandal on the state from which it is yet to recover. Then we handed over the reins to the BJP, which has taken governance into the stratosphere, even further removed from the voters and their aspirations.
Actually, no single party has a clue where it is leading Goa to, because it has no clue itself of any destination. The state, its natural fabric, and the aspirations of its common people have been wrecked for years.
For elections every five years, it has come a habit and routine for people nominated from the top leadership of these parties to be dumped on constituencies. They never consult the public, and certainly never the constituency. There is a mad rush for party tickets from ambitious people who appear to have nothing better to do in life, but they are convinced they are capable of leading others. Politics is now in fact also big business. MLAs are routinely associated with huge fortunes, some running into an impressive number of crores. There is little public sympathy for this class of persons (except their private coteries) who only so concerned about their individual well being.
2Can high commands tell us who our candidates will be? Do you think they can impose candidates on us? Do you think they can force an arranged marriage on us without our consent?
This must change. Goa is small. It can indulge in experiments. People know each other in villages and towns. In every area, some good people can lead, but they may not belong to any political party, and nor would any party want to nominate them because they will not toe the party line if it goes against the interests of the people of the state. It is time now to try out a new model in which nominations for Assembly seats are not received like golden gifts from high commands above, but are decided on by the voters themselves, constituency wise, from below.
The rebellion against the Bhumiputra Bill is an indicator that the majority of the people of this state are wholly disgusted with the games and antics of political parties, and want something different. We always tend to forget that ultimately it is the people who own the state, the resources of the state. They own the forests, the beaches and the iron ores. They are the ultimate power that decides everything. If the people of Goa decide to experiment, and the experiment works, forget Goa, this country could change as well.
3Candidates will not be supplied. The constituency will select
So instead of facing an election in which candidates are selected and supplied to the constituency, we are ready to work on a system in which the constituency will select and supply the candidate for itself. Is this so difficult? Compare this with the situation today. Assembly elections are a pure gamble, luck, and chance. The best candidate never wins. There are no criteria laid down for candidates. One must have adequate sums of money to offer to the party to buy the seat, or the party will select someone who has convinced it that he/she has the “winnability factor”. This could be just about anybody, depending on how votes are divided and cast.
4Campaign to mobilize citizens’ candidates from every constituency can be set up with ferocity and determination.
If present elections are based on the games of roulette which we associate with casinos, it is also possible that a good and sustained campaign to mobilize citizens’ candidates from every constituency can be set up with ferocity and determination. All that is required is time. If you are willing to give Goa quality time in the next 6 months to cause an electoral revolution, that will be a bigger contribution to the survival of this state than loads of money or political contributions, or even winning a gold in the Tokyo Olympics.
5Herald is kicking off this campaign to set up citizens’ candidates. We have nobody to promote. But we will help you in the process to select the right ones
is kicking off this campaign to set up citizens’ candidates and we are going to put our whole heart and soul into it. We do not have any candidates to promote. It would be against the very principles we stand by if we try and promote any candidate of our own. Our idea is to enable active people from different constituencies to meet and plan the process of candidate selection first among themselves and then among the constituency as well.
6Importantly, your choice should be above caste, creed or religious considerations. We should not be divided
The idea is these candidates will actually be selected by the voters of each constituency, and the process will be done by widespread consultation. If you are interested in this mobilization effort, this is the way to proceed:
is in the process of constituting an advisory group of people who will visit any constituency at the request of change-makers in that constituency and assist them to start and complete the wide consultation required to recruit suitable candidates from their midst. All you have to do is to contact us and we will send you a small form to fill, after which we can fix our first meeting. During this first meeting, we will guide how to proceed. Anyone can take up this initiative, but it should not be a group of fewer than 5 names from the constituency. They are not to be members of any party. But they are eager to stem the rot that party politics has brought into Goan life, threatening it in the most fundamental ways.
7Remember, any party or formation that desires to do good for Goans can succeed only if they follow this path
We have six months. You have six months. Goa has six months.
Send us your feedback. Tell us how you can help. Let us know when we can visit your constituency. Memorize and note this email id. This will be your main communication link. change@herald-goa.com
