Towards a better democracy for India
Main problem vexing our country:
The electoral system that translates votes into seats forms the cornerstone of a democratic government. Electoral system used we use in India is called plurality system, as the candidate with plurality of votes (as opposed to majority, which requires more than 50% of votes, a person can have plurality support with less than 50% backing, as long as the person is supported by largest number of voters) in a single-seat territorial constituency, wins the right to represent that constituency. In analogy with foot race in which the person who runs past the finish-line (post) first, wins the race, our election system is also called first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, as the person with the largest number of votes in a (single seat territorial) constituency, at the end of a voting period, wins the right to represent that constituency. We know that under this system, small parties of weaker segments of the society with less than 10-15% support-base stand little chance of winning any seat. On the other hand, if a party has more than 50% support in each constituency, it will bag all seats (100% seats with just about 50% votes). In fact, in multi-cornered elections, even around 35% of votes may be good enough for a party to win overwhelming majority of seats. We thus see that our system of election suffers from a fundamental flaw, that it augments the power of powerful and weakens the weak! It is Robin Hood in the reverse gear!! It is this unfairness of our electoral system that lies at the root of most of our malaise in this country. It must be uprooted and replaced by a PR system of election described below.
Election System for a democracy future:
The above mentioned fundamental flaw is tied to the system of single-seat territorial constituencies, which allows a person (or party) with plurality of votes to win an election, with the rest of votes going waste. The only way of preventing wastage of votes, and putting all such voters on the losing side without any representation for them, is to have multi-seat constituencies, wherein more than one party is allowed to win, with number of seats going to various parties in proportion to votes obtained by them. A whole state can be a single multi-seat constituency, wherein parties will go out and collect votes from whatever corner they can get. Under PR system of election, each party will get seats in a legislative body in proportion to votes obtained by it. For the sake of definiteness, we will talk mostly about Assembly elections in a state; however, the election system discussed will be valid at the parliamentary and local body elections as well. For a party-list-PR system we need party-list of its candidates. The party-lists can be formed several ways. In the older system, still in use in many countries, parties publish their prioritized lists before election, with highest priority given to the name at the top of the list. Finland uses open-list system. People vote for an individual candidate within a party-list that is in alphabetical order, without any pre-existing priority. Individual candidates’ votes get added to their respective party-vote. Priority in party list is fixed after voting, with highest priority going to the candidate who collected highest number of votes. Lists can also have pre-existing priorities, which can be altered according to voters’ input. Provisions can be made to allow any of these kinds of lists for different parties. Further, even quotas for women and SC/ST may be included. Parties will be allocated party-quotas (a certain percentage of seats out of total strength of the senate) in proportion to party-votes obtained by them. Parties will fill their party-quotas off the top of their party lists, and declare those individuals as elected.
Winning members close to the top of list of various party-lists will be considered to be nominees for the State Cabinet (SC). Members of the SC may be picked from the nominees keeping two things in mind: (a) proportionality with respect to the number of assembly seats won by a party, (b) consonance with the demography of the state. In view of the small size of the SC (7-11), and the necessity to round the numbers to whole numbers, the proportionalities may not be exact, but whenever we have to deviate away from correct proportionality, we will deviate in favor of the weaker sections of the society. All members of SC will have equal power, and will work using consensus. It will lead to greater transparency, accountability and a true and fair democracy.
Advantages of the system we propose:
list-PR described above is simple. However, its repercussions would be enormous. Even small groups, incapable of spending enormous sums of money needed to get the highest number of votes, would be able to get their appropriate share of seats. Spending huge sums of money by some parties would add only a couple of more seats for them in the assembly. This is because currently the smaller groups do not jump into the electoral fray, knowing that they would not be able to get plurality of votes, and hence stand no chance of winning any seat. Under list-PR described above, when smaller groups (parties) see a chance of gaining some seats in the assembly, they will jump into electoral fray and people having closer affinity to them will vote for them without being dissuaded by the big money and glamour flashed by the bigger parties. The value of huge spending will go down, and elections will become a thing of the people, for the people and by the people, instead of, of the money, for the money, by the money. All of Europe (with the exception of the UK and France), and nearly half of the democratic countries around the world, use PR or Semi-PR systems.
The structure of SC suggested above is on the pattern of 7-member Federal Executive Council (FEC) of Switzerland, which is the supreme governing body of that country. There, generally four major parties account for 70-80% of members of their Parliament. Rest of the members are from small parties or are independent. The Parliament elects two FEC members from each of the bigger three parties, one from relatively smaller party. However, while picking those members of FEC, they also take care of demography (75% German speaking, 20% French speaking, and 4% Italian speaking) by electing one Italian speaking, two French speaking, and Four German speaking members. FEC functions using consensus. Today, Switzerland has highest per capita income in the world.
Demerits of the present reservation system for SC/ST and one proposed for women:
In the Lok Sabha election of May 1996, BJP won about 40% of the seats reserved for the candidates belonging to the SC communities. It is a figure that is not far from the overall 36% of the total seats won by BJP and its allies. As indicated by various poll results, BJP achieved the 40% success rate in the constituencies reserved for SC communities with less than 10% support from the SC communities (for BJP). One should note that even if none of the SC voters had voted for BJP, BJP would have won most of the seats they did win. Actually, had there been reservation for Muslims, that year BJP would have won about 30-40% of the seats reserved for Muslims without getting any vote from Muslims. Wouldn’t it be funny if BJP were to bag 30-40% of the seats reserved for Muslims in spite of Muslim-hatred being the corner stone of their policy, and in spite of getting no Muslim votes at all?
Under PR, provision can be made for reservation in much fairer way, for SC, ST and women, and if the parliament so desires, even for OBC and Muslims among women. For further details, please take a look at the website:
http://therightwaytosetquotasforwomen.blogspot.com/
Author: Dr. Satinath Choudhary, satichou2@yahoo.com, Mobile: 93500 41088
Main problem vexing our country:
The electoral system that translates votes into seats forms the cornerstone of a democratic government. Electoral system used we use in India is called plurality system, as the candidate with plurality of votes (as opposed to majority, which requires more than 50% of votes, a person can have plurality support with less than 50% backing, as long as the person is supported by largest number of voters) in a single-seat territorial constituency, wins the right to represent that constituency. In analogy with foot race in which the person who runs past the finish-line (post) first, wins the race, our election system is also called first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, as the person with the largest number of votes in a (single seat territorial) constituency, at the end of a voting period, wins the right to represent that constituency. We know that under this system, small parties of weaker segments of the society with less than 10-15% support-base stand little chance of winning any seat. On the other hand, if a party has more than 50% support in each constituency, it will bag all seats (100% seats with just about 50% votes). In fact, in multi-cornered elections, even around 35% of votes may be good enough for a party to win overwhelming majority of seats. We thus see that our system of election suffers from a fundamental flaw, that it augments the power of powerful and weakens the weak! It is Robin Hood in the reverse gear!! It is this unfairness of our electoral system that lies at the root of most of our malaise in this country. It must be uprooted and replaced by a PR system of election described below.
Election System for a democracy future:
The above mentioned fundamental flaw is tied to the system of single-seat territorial constituencies, which allows a person (or party) with plurality of votes to win an election, with the rest of votes going waste. The only way of preventing wastage of votes, and putting all such voters on the losing side without any representation for them, is to have multi-seat constituencies, wherein more than one party is allowed to win, with number of seats going to various parties in proportion to votes obtained by them. A whole state can be a single multi-seat constituency, wherein parties will go out and collect votes from whatever corner they can get. Under PR system of election, each party will get seats in a legislative body in proportion to votes obtained by it. For the sake of definiteness, we will talk mostly about Assembly elections in a state; however, the election system discussed will be valid at the parliamentary and local body elections as well. For a party-list-PR system we need party-list of its candidates. The party-lists can be formed several ways. In the older system, still in use in many countries, parties publish their prioritized lists before election, with highest priority given to the name at the top of the list. Finland uses open-list system. People vote for an individual candidate within a party-list that is in alphabetical order, without any pre-existing priority. Individual candidates’ votes get added to their respective party-vote. Priority in party list is fixed after voting, with highest priority going to the candidate who collected highest number of votes. Lists can also have pre-existing priorities, which can be altered according to voters’ input. Provisions can be made to allow any of these kinds of lists for different parties. Further, even quotas for women and SC/ST may be included. Parties will be allocated party-quotas (a certain percentage of seats out of total strength of the senate) in proportion to party-votes obtained by them. Parties will fill their party-quotas off the top of their party lists, and declare those individuals as elected.
Winning members close to the top of list of various party-lists will be considered to be nominees for the State Cabinet (SC). Members of the SC may be picked from the nominees keeping two things in mind: (a) proportionality with respect to the number of assembly seats won by a party, (b) consonance with the demography of the state. In view of the small size of the SC (7-11), and the necessity to round the numbers to whole numbers, the proportionalities may not be exact, but whenever we have to deviate away from correct proportionality, we will deviate in favor of the weaker sections of the society. All members of SC will have equal power, and will work using consensus. It will lead to greater transparency, accountability and a true and fair democracy.
Advantages of the system we propose:
list-PR described above is simple. However, its repercussions would be enormous. Even small groups, incapable of spending enormous sums of money needed to get the highest number of votes, would be able to get their appropriate share of seats. Spending huge sums of money by some parties would add only a couple of more seats for them in the assembly. This is because currently the smaller groups do not jump into the electoral fray, knowing that they would not be able to get plurality of votes, and hence stand no chance of winning any seat. Under list-PR described above, when smaller groups (parties) see a chance of gaining some seats in the assembly, they will jump into electoral fray and people having closer affinity to them will vote for them without being dissuaded by the big money and glamour flashed by the bigger parties. The value of huge spending will go down, and elections will become a thing of the people, for the people and by the people, instead of, of the money, for the money, by the money. All of Europe (with the exception of the UK and France), and nearly half of the democratic countries around the world, use PR or Semi-PR systems.
The structure of SC suggested above is on the pattern of 7-member Federal Executive Council (FEC) of Switzerland, which is the supreme governing body of that country. There, generally four major parties account for 70-80% of members of their Parliament. Rest of the members are from small parties or are independent. The Parliament elects two FEC members from each of the bigger three parties, one from relatively smaller party. However, while picking those members of FEC, they also take care of demography (75% German speaking, 20% French speaking, and 4% Italian speaking) by electing one Italian speaking, two French speaking, and Four German speaking members. FEC functions using consensus. Today, Switzerland has highest per capita income in the world.
Demerits of the present reservation system for SC/ST and one proposed for women:
In the Lok Sabha election of May 1996, BJP won about 40% of the seats reserved for the candidates belonging to the SC communities. It is a figure that is not far from the overall 36% of the total seats won by BJP and its allies. As indicated by various poll results, BJP achieved the 40% success rate in the constituencies reserved for SC communities with less than 10% support from the SC communities (for BJP). One should note that even if none of the SC voters had voted for BJP, BJP would have won most of the seats they did win. Actually, had there been reservation for Muslims, that year BJP would have won about 30-40% of the seats reserved for Muslims without getting any vote from Muslims. Wouldn’t it be funny if BJP were to bag 30-40% of the seats reserved for Muslims in spite of Muslim-hatred being the corner stone of their policy, and in spite of getting no Muslim votes at all?
Under PR, provision can be made for reservation in much fairer way, for SC, ST and women, and if the parliament so desires, even for OBC and Muslims among women. For further details, please take a look at the website:
http://therightwaytosetquotasforwomen.blogspot.com/
Author: Dr. Satinath Choudhary, satichou2@yahoo.com, Mobile: 93500 41088
posted by educationforall at 4:33 AM
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