As the politicians frequently switched camps in the recent Assembly elections, the voters of Chorao, Goa’s largest island with a population of around 6500 decided to vote “strategically” to chose their candidate and it was not random voting. It was done with a strategy which was created by a 7-member team of ‘Lights of Chorao (LoC)’.
For them Mission Chorao 2022 was a novel initiative on the lines of “strategic voting” or “tactical voting” common in first world democracies and undertaken for the first time ever in Chorao to educate voters about their voting choices and that, instead of it being just randomly personal, their vote could be consciously cast towards achieving a common greater good of our Chorao island and all its people.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
According to the LoC this is their little contribution towards overcoming a key inherent weakness of our Indian election system that is first past the post, and fostering people-centric governance and progress rather than the politician-centric tradition that has prevailed so far. They hoped that this initiative succeeds and spreads to other parts of Goa and beyond.
LoC members revealed to Herald that two weeks prior to elections their young group members pointed out an opportunity to ensure success of the ‘need for change’ by channelizing maximum of the 1200 votes to the ‘best opposition candidate with the highest chances of winning.’
The LoC hopes that their sincere and intense efforts at this election will bear fruits of a positive change for Chorao. “We understand that an undesirable outcome on March 10 could possibly have some repercussions but we believe our work will help strengthen our democracy through people active participation and by holding our political leaders publicly accountable throughout the next five years and beyond. Towards this we intend to create a public accountability extraction mechanism on the top-most Chorao priorities through regular (preferably bi-monthly) progress reports to be published by whosoever becomes our next Mayem MLA,” said an LoC member.
Also, most importantly, irrespective of the developments at the national or state or even our constituency level nobody had shown any interest to address Chorao’s problems in all these years. Hence, this election required our total focus only on Chorao irrespective of the parties, their past deeds and whatever they might do in the future. Thus “Mission Chorao 2022” was born. However, before the election-day (February 14) was over, rumours started floating that the core team had been planted by some politician. “We categorically said that it a peoples’ driven initiative and there is no political backing or support,” said one of the core team members of LoC.
To begin with, the LoC had collected background information on the three candidates, their past social work and election performances, their manifestos, etc. About 30 people of Chorao got together for a three-hour long working meeting on the evening of February 4, in which the mission was introduced. The collected information was presented before them and debated to finalise one consensus candidate to materialise the concept of “need for change”.
In the above meetings they also discussed, shortlisted and prioritised in precedence order the top three themes and top-10 priorities of Chorao and its people to be demanded from the candidates before the elections and more importantly after for the next five years.
“For long, our democracy has been manipulated right from the grassroots upwards through money-power, fear psychosis and exploitation of our voting system’s key weaknesses i.e. vote-split by unlimited candidates per seat and ‘first past the post’ system,” said Vincent Paul Toscano, moderator, LoC Mission Chorao 2022, Pandawaddo in Chorao.
He further added that, “At every election, our politicians instead of serving the people have been hijacking their democratic power for five years with no public accountability in return. It is high time that people snatch their power back from politicians by using tools like ‘Strategic Voting’ at every election and subsequently demanding efficient governance delivery from the winner through a publicly transparent progress reporting system.”
According to the LoC for the last 15 years Chorao has struggled on the most basic amenities like emergency medical services, efficient ferry services, scientific garbage management, stray cattle menace, public transport, etc, despite many representations, requests, complaints and even protests by the people.
They further added that being a single Panchayat out of 7 in the Mayem constituency and as its only island it ranked lowest on our past 3 MLAs’ priorities. Hence, the need for change was strongly felt at this 2022 assembly elections. However, the voters were divided across in Chorao and there was risking the “need for change” due to vote-split.
Lisa Dias-Noronha a German language teacher and a member of LoC executive committee from Conoldem in Chorao told Herald that, “This is the first time in my voting career, that I have objectively studied candidates and voting strategies thanks to efforts and inputs of various professionals in the village, wherein a digital platform which initially connected us during the severe initial lockdowns, became a platform for us to participate in and make a meaningful contribution to governance of our constituency to begin with, without being part of any political party.”
The idea of forming the LoC was initiated by 27-year old Xavier D’Mello, a chartered accountant aspirant and LoC executive committee member from Madel in Chorao and no wonder, he is being called by his core team members as ‘PK’ (read Prashant Kishor).
“The fear of votes splitting between two or three candidates looked much stronger after we began our analysis at the LoC forum. This had been the reality of our recent Zilla Parishad elections wherein 50 per cent votes were split between two candidates and a third candidate (who majority did not accept) benefitted and won,”” said Xavier D’Mello.
He further emphasized that, “We did not want this to be repeated. I hope exercises like LoC’s strategic voting initiative to educate voters increase across Goa so that our beautiful state and its people benefit instead of unscrupulous politicians.”
Esperance Rodrigues a retired school teacher from Ambarim in Chorao told Herald that, “Personally for me election 2022 was a totally different ball game, a very practical on the scene learning experience under the leadership of LoC. Without hesitation, I would say it was nothing less than a ‘Prashant Kishor’ experiment. Hats off to the core team for all the spade work, guidance, canvassing and above all, convincing almost 90 per cent of our people to go by the consensus choice of candidate.”
Eusebio D’Silva who runs Zeb Adventure Tours from Madel in Chorao believes that like many others he too had already decided to vote for another party before the LoC planned a meeting to decide who would be the best, for us all as a community and for Chorao in general. “My vote would have been a total waste had not LoC come up with this brilliant idea of evaluating each of the candidates on their personal strength, hard work, sincerity, winnability, etc. I wish to thank them for all that they did and will continue to do in the future. Their honesty and dedication to the community, and the island in general is priceless,” said Eusebio D’Silva.
Dr Veronica Nunes, B.H.M.S and a LoC executive committee member from Saude in Chorao told Herald that, “For the first time this election, I felt very happy to vote for a candidate who was chosen by few knowledgeable people of our community working tirelessly for days, studying the credentials of all candidates especially regarding their social work and their ability to be the voice of people in the Legislative Assembly.”
She further added that, “All this information was discussed with representatives of all wards of Chorao to finalizse a candidate whom we all as a community voted without any personal gains but for the development of our constituency and particularly our island-village.”
Savio Colaco an independent creative consultant from Bautona in Chorao lamented that, “Since more than a decade, our village has been left in the lurch with no access to basic amenities and only used as a rat run to go elsewhere. Thanks to the LoC team, who evaluated candidates based on their mandates and history, it was time to vote strategically, together as a community, focused on issues of Chorao and eventually holding the elected candidate, irrespective of the political party, accountable during their term in office.”
Bonny Fernandes and electronics engineer by profession and a LoC executive committee member from Belbhat in Chorao believed that politics was a new subject for him at this election and he got a good platform in LoC to enhance his learning and get enlightenment on a new perspective and vision to bring about a change or reform our democratic system.
“Undoubtedly our politicians are responsible for bad governance. At LoC we self-educated ourselves on how ‘WE CAN’ make a difference by using the ‘strategic voting’ approach to vote wisely and elect a good political leader to solve our pending issues and usher in development of our village,”’ added Bonny Fernandes.
