The rise of coalition government has its root in the emerging significance of small regional political parties and the success of a few independent candidates in the state electoral politics. Multiplication of political parties as well as the availability of independent candidates (not affiliated to any recognised political party) has offered a wide array of choices for electors to make a determined voting decision. Our Assembly, thus, is composed of representatives from diverse political backgrounds, each committed, at least in spirit, to the political party on which ticket she/he emerged victorious. However, it remains elusive as to whether the virtue of owing allegiance to political party principles and loyalty to political party they belong to have been responsible in limiting our representatives from serving the people to the best of their ability, or has it just been the abject incompetence of our representatives leading to policy paralysis affecting the development of our state.
The intellectual ability, visions for the uplift of the state and its people and the confidence portrayed by the contesting candidates during the electioneering, when such are accounted for, are essential attributes of our representatives highly regarded. Nevertheless, such hyped abilities of our representatives do not generally translate into action. This paralysis could be partially because of the party politics which finds wide acceptance throughout. When a representative is elected to the Assembly through a certain political party ticket, she/he is automatically renounced her/his political beliefs and adopts and abides by the manifestoes of a political party. In a way, a representative is limited to execute the visions into reality. A representative is under pressure to perform on the sworn collective ideals, which, most of the time, overlooks the interest of a specific locality.
Though, a bi-party (two main political parties dominating the Assembly as treasury and opposition in the present instance) system has certain limitations on individual representatives in delivering service, a multi-party (coalition government for the sake of present discussion) system imposes a stricter restriction on political parties to stay committed to the party manifesto. In a coalition government, party manifestoes are compromised for accommodation as a group of political parties come together to form a united government. Even recently, our state has seen lopsided development as adjustment has been resorted to for the sake of keeping afloat a coalition government.
Now, the question arises as to the policy paralysis, poor execution of government policies and programs, uneven distribution of developmental activities, weakening state agencies leading to proliferation of corruption etc. Coalition government has its own role in bringing about these political maladies. In a coalition government, no party is the sole owner. The government survives on the confidence of the majority. Any trace of disappointment to the coalition partners may provoke the affiliated units to part ways. Hence, under this contained environment, a representative is artificially incapacitated to serve the people according to one’s best abilities as one’s ideals are sacrificed to keep the coalition partners intact. Such could be held culpable for poor policy formulation, underperformance, dismal corruption index, etc.
Moreover, recent instances of forming opposition-less government by the elected representatives rendered the party politics redundant. Existence of multiple political parties has lost its relevance as the elected representatives all have forgone the importance of party principles, relegated ideologies to just an exchangeable commodity.
Experiment of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly in successfully staging an opposition-less government on two occasions widely laid exposed the possibility of a future government sans party politics. A party-less representative democracy was traditionally practiced in the now defunct Council of Elders in villages. Each clan in a village nominated representative(s) to the Elders’ Council completely innocent of party affiliation, and they then take decisions by consensus. In the present context, nomination and consensus may work contrary to expectations. Instead, election and voting, as is presently practiced, without the interference of political parties can be an alternative. Such is being projected as an indigenous electoral representative democracy. Under this projection, an electoral constituency may witness as much candidates as it deems qualified, attracting vast talents from diverse backgrounds including, but not limited to, economists, agronomists, technocrats, educationists, bureaucrats, social activists, or even experts on local knowledge, without subjecting the determination of a qualified and eligible candidate to the prejudicial scrutiny of a political party.
Three demerits of a party-less electoral politics are elucidated further. Firstly, many eligible and qualified intending candidates are practically discouraged from contesting election due to party patronage. Those who secure party tickets are theoretically placed in an advantaged situation, primarily due to party funding of an electioneering process. Party politics further influences voters decision-making in choosing a candidate subjectively premised on the prospects of forming a ‘ruling’ government post-election, thereby negating the independence of voters in electing the right candidate. Secondly, party politics has deeply penetrated into erstwhile pristine villages. It has not even spared the petty elections to constitute a Village Council, tearing a simple village administration to the core. We now have villages that are polarised along the political party lines to the point of never seen each other eye-to-eye. Almost every village functionary is identified with one or the other political party and create artificial fence within. Party politics is one of the fundamental reasons for bulging societal fragmentation, or in other words, it destroys our unity. And thirdly, party politics contaminates the ideals and virtues of an individual representative. A member of a political party, when elected, is expected to relinquish ones political beliefs in order to comply with a predetermined set of objectives of a party to which one belonged. At times of unpleasant political development, one is positioned in a diametrically contrasting worldviews which comes into direct conflict with one’s own. It eventually has a negative impact on the output of an individual performance in public service.
A party-less election is a forerunner to what Dr SC Jamir had hinted about the viability of a future arrangement in the event a solution is arrived at, i.e., an opposition-less government. A party-less electoral representative structure will work in contrast to present system. Under the latter framework, a candidate will first fetch an approval from the party whereas in the former, any person who is committed to public service is under no party obligation to contest election, to serve and to come back to his people after five years with her/his progress report. Voters will be free from considerations including probability of a party forming a government but will exercise universal franchise based on the integrity of a candidate and the progress card of its previous representatives.
A party-less representative democracy can never be a complete panacea to the problems, including the declining role of the opposition bench in the Assembly. It could, however, be tapped as a unexplored resource wherein a vast pool of talents can be drawn from richly divergent fields, and that too, no longer condition to the subjective prejudice of political parties (in determining and sponsoring a winnable candidate) but by the will-power of the sovereign people in choosing who should represent them.
Nukhosa Chüzho
khozch@gmail.com
Kohima