General Election 2014, a Performance Review of the leaders

2014 General Election in our country is round the corner. The first phase of the election is less than a month away. Expectedly the political scene is warming up with the contestants plunging headlong into the election battle.

The political as well as the atmospheric heat is going to intensify in the coming days and by the time the election process begins in mid April the deadly combination of political and atmospheric heat can be unbearable for the contestants. But our political aspirants are brave hearts and are prepared to go to any length, to undertake any hardship to succeed in their mission to serve us, the people of this country. They say that their hearts bleed for the people of this great country especially the poor, the downtrodden and the minorities and therefore theirs bull’s eyes are the Parliament from where they can serve the suffering humanities.  Some cynics and their numbers are quite large who however feel that the lure of power and the endless perks and privileges that come with it and the opportunity to amass wealth are the driving force behind the mission of our leaders. But then our leaders are too thick skinned and mentally too strong to be affected either by the scorching heat of the impending summer or the uncharitable remarks of the cynics. They do not care about the reports that keep coming occasionally that their assets have doubled or trebled within five years of their getting elected to the positions of power. 

While election campaign has already started in full swing, with all too familiar endless speeches by the contestants and rallies organised by different political parties, rhetoric and barbs, posters and graffiti on the walls, expert analysis and debates on the press and electronic media, we find some new interesting features in this General Election like campaigning through social net working sites and most interestingly the sharp rise in the number of Prime Ministerial aspirants. While the number of candidates keeps on increasing every year, this year being no exception, there had not been any occasion in the past where there had been so large number of claimants for the post of Prime Minister.  On a very conservative estimate there are at least eight claimants for this high position this year.  A large number of regional leaders have expressed their aspirations for this position. These satraps are the supremos in their respective regional parties and are using their leverage to clamour for more powers for the states in the name of federalism.  Each of these regional leaders wants to have at least a decisive say in formation of the next Government at the centre if not the position of Prime Minister for himself or herself.

All political parties including the two big national parties it appears have come to the conclusion that there is no alternative to coalition Government at the centre. This is in spite of not so happy experience of the working of the coalition Governments of the past. The pulls and pushes of the various coalition partners had hampered smooth functioning of the Government and prevented formulating many policies and programmes. The word policy paralysis has come to be associated with this type of coalition Government.  While the two big parties are desperately trying to get as many allies as possible, the various smaller and regional parties are weighing the pros and cons before deciding which side to align with. Some parties are keeping their option open till the election results are out.      

Ours is a democratic country where we should be having a Government for the people, of the people, by the people as they say. Democracy means a form of Government in which the people can vote for their representatives to govern the state on their behalf. Election on the basis of adult franchise is therefore the most important ingredient of democracy. However in a democracy people’s participation in governing is limited to exercising their franchise and electing their representatives for the various levels of the Government. People have actually no say in the actual running of the Government which is left to the elected representatives. It is therefore of utmost importance that the right type of people are elected as our representatives. It is unfortunate that people with dubious background and no proven record of competence not only contest but also get elected and occupy high positions of power. No political party has shown any inclination to amend the electoral laws to prevent the entry of people with criminal background into the electoral fray. Notwithstanding the efforts of Election Commission and the Supreme Court to cleanse the election system, not much has been achieved in this direction mainly because of unwillingness of all the political parties to cleanse the system.

Notwithstanding many imperfections our democracy has survived unlike many of our neighbouring countries, people are showing more and more enthusiasm to exercise their franchise, people from different walks of life are coming forward to enter the electoral battle and most importantly the politicians have started realising albeit slowly that the voters can no longer be fooled by tall promises only. The people now expect performance from our rulers, results and not mere promises. The General Election 2014 should be an occasion for performance review of our politicians and political parties.