FOR A FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS: MY MYOPIC TAKE

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The Indian elections are finally over and as the closest neighbor and friend; many Bhutanese may have followed it with interest. For Bhutanese though, elections in India is seen as a massive exercise that, irrespective of which party  comes to the power, the time tested friendship between the governments, leaders and people of the two countries will remain unaffected and continue to grow stronger between the two closest neighbors.

                                   

 Conducting elections in India especially the parliamentary election in the world’s largest democracy with a population of over one billion people and with almost 900 million eligible voters is by no means a mean feat for the election commission of India.  Despite coming under severe criticism over several election issues and allegations of its inaction, the commission seems to have done a great job.

The seven phase elections of 2019 in India returned Prime Minister Narenda Modi and NDA with an unprecedented 336 seats in the 545 seats. India’s grand old party the Congress led by Rahul Gandhi  won just a disappointing 52 seats and has since then asked the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to find a new leader for the party by putting in his resignation and taking solid blame of the party’s debacle upon himself.

From the debates that continue to take place on mainstream media in India analyzing the just concluded elections, one thing is clear that, electorate this time had no alternative to Mr Modi and that the elections was fought not on issues but on  personality and nationalism. But, one thing is clear, Narendra Modi led BJP and NDA decimated its opponents and pushed the rest to the fringes. Not even regional parties and alliances which were traditionally strong in their turf failed to resist the so called Modi wave in this election.

 Some political analysts say that the Congress party must die a natural death for new talents to come up and yet they see Congress as the only national party that can and must rebuild and reinvent itself as an alternative. And for Congress to survive without splintering, the experts feel that it must continue to have someone from the most powerful political family in India, the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Watching the electoral process unfold in the world’s largest democracy, it gives us an opportunity to understand the process better. One thing is certain, our constitution drafting committee has done a stellar job and we have a better electoral law than even the world’s largest democracy in ensuring free and fair elections by taking care of at least three crucial factors that may affect elections.

First and perhaps the most important element in any elections is the need for a level playing field. This cannot happen if a party and its candidates fight elections with powers still vested with them. In India, the Prime Minister and his cabinet fights the general elections without having to resign which may lead to misuse of officialdom to the incumbent’s electoral advantage. Our election law not only requires the government to resign and institute an interim government to oversee the elections but forbids anything that creates even the slightest visible inequalities between the candidates.

Secondly, there seems to be no restriction on the use of media like in our case where all parties and candidates are entitled to specific and equal media coverage with even the use of social media strictly monitored. In India, even the mainstream media are found to be giving excessive coverage to a party or an individual who makes more news with the rest having a limited coverage.

The third and the equally important element is the participation of religious personalities in the elections as candidates or as patrons. In a deeply religious society, a religious figure may have a mass following and what will happen if they are allowed to contest as candidates. In our society we deeply revere and respect religion and religious figure. They are always someone who are above the realms of ordinary life and therefore are rightly considered above politics allowing elections to be fought among the ordinary beings. Some members with religious tags are elected to the parliament for the fifth consecutive terms in India despite their dismal performance.

The recently concluded general elections in India were for the 17^th Lok Sabha while we just concluded our third general elections last year. Ours is the youngest democracy in the world but, we certainly have the best electoral laws to ensure level playing field which bigger and older democracies around the world can learn from for a free and fair elections.

Gyembo Namgyal

Pemagatsel

May 27, 2019

DEMOCRACY: AN EXPERINCE OF A FORMER NEWS HACK

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” said Winston Churchill on why democracy is the best form of government. While this argument may sound true, people had to struggle and make sacrifices to overthrow tyrannical and despotic leaders to usher in democracy. It is the opposite here in Bhutan. Democracy in Bhutan was the greatest gift to the people from the golden throne with His Majesty, the fourth Druk Gyalpo as the architect of instituting democracy in the country.

Today, we are in the seventh year after the maiden parliamentary elections in 2008. The election results of the second parliament elections can be construed as how much root democracy had already taken in the country. This is a good indication and a sign that democracy, which was bestowed on the people by the monarch himself with faith in the abilities of Bhutanese people, is bound to succeed in the long run.

For the people, who always had benevolent monarchs for the last one hundred years, the uncertainties of what entails democracy was accepted with initial apprehensions. However, in the last seven years of the democracy in Bhutan, people not only enjoyed smooth transition of governance but have also enjoyed continued peace, stability and an accelerated pace of development in the country. Suddenly, there is real feeling among the people that, democracy is indeed good for the country.

In the aftermath of the first parliamentary elections, the pace of development accelerated and there was a visible sign of progress everywhere. Almost all the basic infrastructures were put in place within the five years.

And then it was time for the second parliament elections. People voted for change expecting the new government to achieve even higher grounds from the standard set by the previous government.

A good beginning has been made but, there are certain shortcomings in election rules, both for local and the parliament that people wish to see amended.

The delimitation for local government was one such area that left many people disgruntled in the last local government elections. While the fortune of small gewogs did not change, the large gewogs felt they were shortchanged. And rightly so, today, some chiwogs are bigger than some gewogs.

Functional literacy test (FLT) was another frivolous exercise for local elections. The FLT, if at all necessary must have been for an aspiring lay person to prove his basic functional literacy proficiency. The lack of clarity meant that even university graduates and seasoned civil servants had to attend the FLT if they aspire for local election, which is ridiculous.

And at the ground realities, it served little purpose in many instances. When the FLT became mandatory, many good people backed off. In some remote chiwogs, compromises had to be made to make some ineligible candidate eligible to participate in the election or risk not having a tshogkpa at all.

 At the national level while qualification requirement of a minimum of a degree to be a member of parliament is laudable, the question is whether educational qualification alone makes a candidate capable to be a leader? There are capable, outspoken and knowledgeable people but without degrees to their names who can make good leaders.

With deliberations in parliament in Dzongkha, some representatives from non-dzongkha speaking regions are stumped by their limitations in spoken dzongkha thus limiting their participation in important deliberations. How do we address this? Perhaps proficiency test in spoken Dzongkha may be necessary even for the educated people. The parliamentarians may be active behind the scene but, their active participation when the laws were being enacted and bills passed is what really matters.

Laws on merger of parties or defection of candidates must be clear or else we can save cost by going for one general multiparty election.  The shortcoming of the election law was obvious when candidates from one party joined the other in the last election.

People say that, one multiparty general election will allow electorates to choose capable candidates across party lines. Even one elected member in the parliament from one party can take a different stand while ensuring survival of that party until the next election. Some say that in two party elections, some political parties will never be able to progress beyond the primaries hence limiting choices.

Democracy is all about good governance and transparency. Transparency comes through openness and free flow of information. And information must be made available to the masses through media like radio, television and newspapers.

Supporting media and allowing them the freedom of expression will only strengthen democracy in our country. Government of the day must ensure vibrancy of free media to keep playing important role of informing the nation at all times. Media in Bhutan needs support to survive to be able to play its role. Vibrant media can only strengthen democracy and this is how our democracy will be assessed by the international community.

The stakes are high for our democracy to succeed. Since democracy in Bhutan is the gift from the throne, we must ensure that we don’t fail to live up to the expectations of Their Majesties the King and the beloved Fourth Druk Gyalpo. Democracy also has to live up to the aspirations of the people to ensure people’s confidence in elected government. People will expect politicians to deliver their promises. Anything less will be hard to accept and they will certainly express subtly through ballot.

Gyembo Namgyal

Pemagatshel

NB: This is an article contributed to Bhutan Observer’s BO Focus publication commemorating democracy day.