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Direct Vote and Democracy

The basis of democracy is that every individual has occasion to exercise his or her vote freely to choose individuals for a particular seat or post. This vote is not transferable and cannot be exercised by proxy. Given the basic concept of adult franchise, any indirect vote is bound to be controversial, particularly since it transfers the basic individual right of choice of electors of one constituency to another individual who then takes a solitary decision on behalf of others which may not be really representative. In third world countries where individuals are invariably more susceptible to the influences of power, money, etc than in western countries, there is always the possibility that for various considerations the indirect vote may be cast against the actual aspirations of the basic unit of a democracy, the individual citizen. Therefore, it inculcates an element of corruption at its very inception. Moreover, it circumvents the process of a candidate’s accountability before the masses that is one of the basic premises of democracy.

The Federal structure in Pakistan is composed of the directly elected National Assembly and an indirectly elected Upper House called the Senate. Albeit peopled by some very fine men and women for the most part, the indirect elections to the Senate (each Province has equal number of seats with a number reserved for technocrats, etc) offers an opportunity for chicanery inasmuch as the Electoral College is composed of the members of the respective Provincial Assemblies (with Punjab having the maximum of 240 electors for 20 Senate seats i.e 12 electors can vote into office a Senator while at the other end of the scale Balochistan’s 45 electors vote also for 20 Senate seats, i.e. only 2 votes to get a Senator elected). While the Senate is supposedly a higher body than the National Assembly (NA), this lop-sided indirect elections to fill its seats contradicts its higher status, undercutting the basic principle of exercise of adult franchise to fill all electable slots in a democracy. It gives an inordinate advantage to those with money and/or influence to become members of the Upper House. Conceivably those who have made their money illegally and do not want to go through the exhaustive “accountability before the masses” process of a full fledged election campaign, can avoid the elections to the Provincial (PA) or National Assemblies (NA) and “purchase” the small number of necessary voters to get elected to the Senate by either giving “donations” to individual legislators or to the political party whose support they want. One should not forget that this concept of indirect vote was firmly rejected by the Pakistani populace in the form of Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s 80,000 Basic Democrats who formed an Electoral College to elect (Provincial and National) legislators, etc as well as the President. The Opposition to this concept stemmed from the fact that the masses were effectively disenfranchised by the indirect method and that the smaller number of elections could be influenced to cast their vote in particular manner by various means, some of them coercive in nature. The same principle must apply to the Senate, being a higher body than the National Assembly, it’s claim to legality can only be borne out if its members are directly elected by the populace. To give continuity to the democratic process, direct elections to the Senate, where members’ terms should only be of four years, can be held during the mid-term stage of the NA (and PA) elections (whose terms must also be shortened from five to four years as per Ms Benazir’s pre-election promise).

An important and positive announcement has been made by the Prime Minister Ms Benazir Bhutto with respect to reviving the Joint Electorate System. The present separate electorate system is favoured mainly by the religious groups who contest the claim of the minorities to exercise equal vote as for the Muslims. In effect they are cutting their nose to spite their faces because in any case they are now sitting in the Assemblies with such individuals who could normally not get elected in a joint electorate system unless they really had electoral merit. Today, while western democracy is much closer to the original concept of democracy than others, where do they keep special seats reserved for their minorities? The separate electorate system is divisive, it works against the unity of the nation by alienating the different minorities as not being part of the mass electorate. It gives a clear signal to the Christians, Hindus, etc that they are not to be treated as equal citizens of the State. When you have such a built-in self-destruction mechanism to subvert the loyalties of one’s own citizens, why should we worry about the other factors that militate against the integrity of the country? In another illogical arrangement, the whole country is the electorate in the present separate electorate system for the minorities. While logistically an impossible exercise for candidates, it allows persons who can command a core group of only about 1,000-2,000 people to be representative of hundreds of thousands. This is not logical and must be done away with immediately. We note that PM Ms Benazir has appealed to the Leader of the Opposition, Mian Nawaz Sharif, to support her contention for a Joint Electorate System. In the supreme interest of integrity and unity of the country, this non-partisan support should be immediately forthcoming to correct this farcical anomaly.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that the three tiers proposed for the Local Bodies system in Punjab are all to be voted for directly. This is a logical conclusion of all factors necessary in a democracy. At the grassroots level and thereby up the various levels those elected must have a direct mandate from the people and should not rely on backroom deals, influence-peddling and money-wheeling to become so-called “elected” representatives. The only change one would recommend is that once a village/mohalla Council is elected on a slate basis with the members being inducted on the basis of maximum votes in order of priority, whether they are 3 or 7 or 11 elected members (depending upon the size of the population), there should be a second round to determine who is the highest vote-getter in the Constituency so as to be the Chairperson. Similarly those who are aspirants for the second tier i.e. the Union/Ward Council must have got at least 20% votes in the first tier elections for the village/mohalla Councils to qualify for eligibility. Unless a candidate gets 50% vote in the first round there must be a run-off elections as explained in an earlier article (The Majority Vote) to determine the majority vote of the populace. This principle must be followed for the next tier i.e. District Councils, Town Committees, Municipal Committees, Municipal and Metropolitan Corporations with the proviso that only those who qualified for the Run-off election in the second tier vote are eligible for being aspirants for the third tier. Those who aspire to be candidates for the Provincial or National Assemblies or the Senate should have grassroots support in their Constituencies by being at least eligible for the second tier of the Local Bodies. If a person cannot get at least a few thousand votes at the basic unit level, what are his credentials for higher candidacy? Without going into the controversy of whether Senators Gulzar and Waqar are loan defaulters or not according to the list presented to the NA by the Agriculture Minister, Mr Talpur, the fact remains that a cursory enquiry reveals that these gentlemen do not seem to have many roots in any of the constituencies of the Punjab and that before 1985/1986 not much is known about them. However, Senator Gulzar came “so close” to being nominated for the Speakership of the Senate, a heartbeat away from being the President of Pakistan. Without casting any aspersion on father and son, one condemns a system that “elects” those who cannot even relate to any particular constituency in the Province, a case with most of the Senators. The system is supposed to be democratic but contradicts the basic principle of adult franchise at every elected representative tier and negates the grassroots approach that is the very essence of democracy. While one may disagree with Ms Benazir and Mr Wattoo on any number of counts, their suggestions about the Joint Electorate System and direct elections to every tier of the Local Bodies system, seem to be rooted in democratic norms and not influenced by narrow partisan compulsions, at least on the surface. These suggestions must be modified to reflect transparency and carried to its logical conclusion. Our body politic must be cleansed from its various man-made aberrations. In the supreme interest of the nation these reforms (after due adjustments) must have complete and unreserved support from the Leader of the Opposition.

Our country is bedevilled by nepotism and corruption. The germs of these maladies lies in the “selection” rather than the “election” process that is presently in vogue in this country. The mechanics of our democracy is very wrong. While one cannot doubt that many corrupt individuals will still get through, the exhaustive election process up the various tiers will severely curtail their chances. The direct mandate of the people is the one person-one vote process which must be the ultimate and direct arbiters of candidacies for any elected office. Similarly by adopting the “grassroots approach” of qualifying the candidate aspirants for Provincial and National Assemblies as well as the Senate by making it obligatory for them to be part of the Local Bodies elections from its basic unit upwards, we would have ensured that the candidate aspirants for higher elected office must be deeply involved with the respective constituencies they are supposed to be representative of. Every elected office in the country including the Presidency must be directly elected by the people on the basis of adult franchise. That is the only way of making sure that the democratic system serves its main purpose, ameliorating the many problems of the masses.

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