FOR A FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS: MY MYOPIC TAKE

picture source: google

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