The Morality of Floor Crossing
The fundamental unit of any democracy is the individual voter. In voting for any candidate, the primary concern of the literate voter is usually the message the candidate is promising the electorate followed by the personality of the candidate. In countries where ignorance has a preponderance over literacy, it is usually the other way around giving truth to the G.K. Chesterton saying, “Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly uneducated”. Populist leaders on the pattern of late Z.A. Bhutto usually manage to make a useful mix of their personalities and their message as combined contributory factors for their electability. Bhutto’s campaign slogan, “Roti, Kapra aur Makan” was as much the theme song of his pledges as was the force of his personality. In theory, therefore, the individual candidate should be voted on the strength of his own attributes in preference to Party considerations, this is confirmed by the evidence of the voting pattern where candidates in various constituencies have to face voters having differing preferences. In contrast to preference due to his (or her) personality, in third world countries voters prefer a straight Party line based on their inclination towards a Party leader (and promises made). In the case of independents, they are voted in on individual preferences rather than any ideological Party line and as such there is no moralizing about the pattern of their vote which would be based on their personal inclination. To give one example of a Party having sway over individual personalities, the MQM swept the elections in the urban areas of Sindh in 1988 on a slate of virtually faceless candidates but both the PPP and PML relied on a combination of the strength of the individual candidates as much as voter preference for their respective Parties, the Party remaining synonymous with Ms Benazir’s leadership in the case of PPP. In 1988, 1990 and in 1993, Ms Benazir’s political charisma contributed to the individual’s victory, particularly in Sindh. The same phenomenon became true of Mian Nawaz Sharif in 1993.
Archibald Macleish commenting upon freedom gave the answer to the question, “what is freedom?” as, quote “Freedom is the right to choose, the right to create for yourself the alternative of choices. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing”, unquote. In practical terms, voting as per the Party line makes on elected legislator no better than any robot. Keeping this in mind, we approach the moral issue about the phenomenon known as floor-crossing. As aforementioned the individual voter in exercise of the right of adult franchise has a freedom of choice which he (or she) can be swayed by two major factors, the personality and the message. The second stage of choice is when the individuals have banded together to make a political party. When an individual fights an election as a member of a political party, he (or she) abrogates the right of his liberty of choice to an extent in the sense that political moralists believe that the individual is then bound to act according to the Party diktat right or wrong. This belief is based on the premise that the voter has voted first for the Party and then for the individual. The perception is further reinforced by the fact that since the system in Pakistan puts Party symbols on the ballot paper, as such our mostly illiterate voters seem to bind the candidate as the choice of the Party rather than on his individual (or her) attributes. This is a contradiction in terms in the concept of democracy, the system in vogue creates an ambiguity whereby morality is applied selectively. Anyone who takes issue with the leader subsequent to the election is reviled as a turncoat but unless he (or she) crosses to the other side can hardly be said to run afoul of the moral force restricting defection. Defection is quite different from choosing to disagree from time to time on various issues.
Having been elected to the Assemblies as the peoples representatives, the first duty of the legislator is to the masses, thereafter to the Party and the leader whose coattails he (or she) may have used to come into the Assembly. The system is faulty inasfar in third world countries because the initial choice of candidates is an arbitrary decision of the party leadership. Thereafter it is a combination of the party, the leader, the candidate himself, the political environment and the promises that are pledged that go towards electing a candidate. Having accepted to be on the Party ticket, in theory the candidate should be honour-bound to accept that whatever the party dictates must be blindly accepted by him (or her). Here, there is a moral dilemma of coming to terms with one’s conscience in case the party requires the elected legislator to do something that rails against the individual’s principles. Knowing that he (or she) has come into an elected Assembly purely on the coattails of a leader or a Party affiliation, should the legislator be morally bound to vote like a robot strictly according to the party line?
The first problem lies in the poor selection of candidates by the Party leadership rather than by the constituents themselves. There is no real grassroots approach. At this time, the only real candidacy is of the independents who rely on their own attributes and assets to get the support of the population. The Party selects candidates according to (1) electability (2) Party leader’s desires (3) capacity to spend money on the election and lastly (4) loyalty. There is no real mechanism in Pakistan to ascertain what the Party members of that constituency want. As such the candidates are a combination of both democratic and dictatorial selection. Given this situation, it is the responsibility of the Party leaders to make the correct choice of the individual or thereby suffer the consequences of disloyalty. Simon Cameron said that “an honest politician is one who, once when he is bought, stays bought” unquote. Unfortunately in our country, a small coterie of legislators keep changing sides in accordance with the highest bid. This tilts the balance to destabilize the political system.
MQM elected representatives have remained by far most impervious to coercion or monetary considerations, followed by PPP legislators. Both the PPP and MQM workers are dedicated souls. Despite the travails of many years of Martial Law, PPP stalwarts remained loyal to the Party. Those who left the Party were forced to do so through extreme coercive measures rather than monetary incentives, those who left on their own did so not because of their own individual ambitions but rather because of the indifferent attitude of the Party leadership towards them and the complete sea-change in ideological make-up that has seen PPP being transformed from a leftist party to being even right of the centrist PML (N). People like JA Rahim, Mairaj Mohd Khan, Shaikh Rasheed, Mustafa Jatoi, Rao Rasheed, etc were forced out rather than making a deliberate choice themselves to leave the Party. Similarly much maligned leaders like Jam Sadiq Ali, Mir Afzal Khan, etc only left the Party when they realized that there was no future for them within its ranks because of the ambition of its nouveau leaders. In the case of MQM, the growing militancy of a small coterie around Altaf Hussain caused some hitherto hard-core elements to defect. In all fairness the only real defections mainly because of monetary considerations has been from the PML. If “Horse trading” has become a fact of Pakistani politics, the maximum business has been among PML legislators giving truth to the Anatole France saying. “In every well governed State wealth is a sacred thing, in democracies it is the only sacred thing”. In Pakistan, the spread of largesse has subverted many a loyal among legislators, it has become endemic to the system.
Frankly speaking, if one expects the legislators to go strictly according to the Party rather than according to their beliefs and conscience, then the Assemblies are no more than debating clubs since the elected representatives, whatever their personal preferences for an issue, would then have to vote like programmed machines. Carrying this argument further, only the independents and those parties not in the ruling coalition or the Opposition should go through the exercise of casting their vote since the Ruling Party and the Opposition members would at best be robots who perforce would have to cast their vote according to the Party dictate. Unfortunately this is against the basic concept of democracy where there is a freedom of choice for even the individual voter. This is quite different when the survival of a government is at stake. One can moralize that the legislator should be able to vote his/her preference except when it comes to a no-confidence vote where he or she is either morally bound to vote for the Party. As such in pure technical terms whatever it comes to the clear choice between two Parties, floor crossing is morally incorrect. There may be an outside case here for abstention also but the honourable thing for the member elected on a particular Party ticket is to resign his (or her) seat rather than cross the floor.
The primary responsibility of preventing floor-crossing is that of the Party in making correct choice of candidates. A good example of rank opportunism is in the Province of Sindh where in the 1993 elections, candidates of Pir Pagaro’s faction of the PML opted to go along with Mian Nawaz Sharif because of his increasing popularity in the interior of Sindh and then abandoned him like a shot when their purpose had been served. Mian Nawaz Sharif should have had the perspicacity to choose dedicated workers to be party candidates rather than such turncoats. Even if a majority of the candidates Mian Nawaz Sharif had so chosen had not been elected that would have been a long sight better than being associated with those who used him only as a platform of convenience to come into the Assemblies.
While there remains a contradiction in the system, moral force militates against floor crossing. Whereas every legislator must vote according to his/her preference on issues whatever the Party line, the onus lies on the Party to make a correct choice so that when it comes to a crunch during either a vote of confidence or a no-confidence vote, the elected legislator should either vote along with his (or her) Party or should resign.
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