1. Long term reform: It is evident that India neither has any direct
constitutional provision regulating the functioning of
political parties, nor any legal sanction establishing political parties as a
necessary governmental regulation for the political parties. Moreover no
specific laws are enacted to control and regulate the parties in India. In view
of the international practice some countries are having specific laws while
others are not having like India.
The Federal Government of Germany has thoroughly
institutionalized the structure of political parties, by introducing the 5%
clause, which makes it
extremely difficult for minority or splinter parties to form and flourish. The
Canadian practice of Registration of
Party or Party foundation is very comprehensive. Parties are registered on
certain conditions and party leaders are selected through a
national leadership convention composed
of provincial party delegates voting as individuals rather than as a bloc.
Like Germany and Canada, India needs a
detail specific law. It will discipline the parties and they will get directions
for different activities from such available legal frame. In the absence of any
such law they are managing according to their short term gains and keeping
political
ethics and values aside. Above all they are not taking into account the public
interest utmost. This is the reason
criminals and illegal money is dominating the Indian politics in disguise. If
law will mandate that only clean person without criminal records can be
candidate
in the elections then criminals will not be fielded as candidates by the
parties. In non existence of any such law it is very difficult even for the
parties to avoid fielding such persons having criminal background under
different types of pressures, situations and circumstances.
The other most glaring evil with which Indian political
system is highly infected is misuse of illegal money- particularly in elections
and in forming the government in case of lack of required majority. Its role is
like black money of the Indian economy. In case of clauses in proposed specific
laws on all such issues things will be better than now on different fronts
related to Indian politics. Indian political parties are the holy mother of
political leaders and actors and political system. Unfortunately, India doesn’t
have any specific and comprehensive law to regulate and discipline the holy
mother.
Short term reforms: Indian politics is open to any one with a very minor
restriction of age and sound mind. No screening test is taken before entry and
no systematic capacity development practice is in place after joining it. Under
these circumstances, our politicians are lacking required knowledge and skills.
This in tern is affecting the good governance. Irony is that all departments,
sectors and fields are having such
program in place except political field. Why it is so. It is very difficult to
find its reasoning.
UNDP, USAID and other international donors and institutions are active in this
area. UNDP initiated the Asia Young Leaders in Governance (AYLG) initiative
addresses the need to build a critical mass of young leaders in the Asia
region, who will be trained as leaders in democratic
governance processes. It recognizes that young leaders are an important
constituency that requires further attention and investments to enable them to
serve as more effective leaders for the future, but it is not exclusively for
the political leaders. It is a mix of different groups. To develop political
leaders, managers and actors for the first time a private institute MITSchool
of Government
Pune (Maharastra) has created a platform for such young men and women to
assimilate and adopt the intricacies of government functioning. Yet, no public
institute is started and no public intervention. Fortunately, at least some
private initiative has been started to train young leader before they enter into
the politics. There is no exclusive program for the capacity development for
political
actors who are in this field. All initiatives are, in places, are adhoc
arrangements. International organizations are also not having any exclusive
program for the young leaders.
Therefore, under this
situation, India needs to have an exclusive training program for the young
leaders. It is a basically capacity development approach as a
new field in a systematic way.
Program: Preparing young and future Indian leaders for the 21st century’s
challenges through building their capacity by providing them opportunity to
learn the best national and international practices about party, economic and
public management. UNDP, Government of India (GoI), Election Commission of India
(ECI), Institutions active in this filed, NGO -National Election Watch (NEW)
and the Association for
Democratic Reforms)for
good governance, all national and regional parties registered with ECI and
national and international donor agencies will be involved. The proposed
duration of training will be for two months, one month in India and one
month outside the country. The program of training will be designed with
keeping the following in focus:
Making ready for the role of
Government actors (For MP, MLA, Minister, Mayer, to village head man)
1. The main focus in the role is
how to make a balance among government, public, bureaucracy, party etc. It is a
multidimensional task and really challenging.
2. Policy formulation, reform and
its efficient and successful implementation. How to make and implement pubic
policy (demand driven policy and supply
driven policy): theory and practices with case studies.
3. Which are the 20 best economically
performing countries in the world. Why they are performing well? What are main
factors and reasons of their
performance? Which leader did what, how and why and when (time of policy
implementation and reform plays a major role)? It will be better if leaders’
interactive sessions are organized to make the program more effective useful
and fruitful.
4. Who are and were 20 best leaders
in the world who perform superb at each level of government in government
official
capacity. Their study will sharpen the acumen and the best practice of one will
be the rule for others without experimentation.
Participants: To begin with, young leaders up to the age of 45
years should be getting the chance to learn. It can be later extended to
include older leaders. Every national and regional party has youth wings. In
each training batch parties will nominate
their young leaders up to the age of 45 years. The number will be fixed
according to resources and strength of the batch with national party’s
nomination more than regional one in each batch.
Funding: Whole expense on each participant can be
shared: contribution by the parties (5% - token amount to make them serious
towards the program and awareness generation), contribution of central
government (30%) and state governments (15%) and 50% donations from donors and
NGOs
in the leadership of UNDP.
Key actor, Co coordinator, owner of the program: The
election commission of India as all registered political parties is its
clients.
Additional benefits:
1) It is a form of the one best effective political
reform.
2) If such systemization is practiced in politics in a
professional manner it will attract the educated youth to join politics which
is not a trend now and it may change the trend in reverse direction. Then
choosing politics would be by design and not by default. As a result the
problem of criminalization of politics will be addressed to some extent.
3) It may prove a boon to Indian politics as it aims at
professionalizing the political management. It will reduce the economic wastes
of money during the elections and in other political activities.
4) It will bring good competitions among the politicians
which may lead to over all enhancement of efficiency.
5) It will reduce the usual frictions and conflicts which
develop between political actors and bureaucracy.
6) It will be a model and can be implemented in other
countries with similar situations.
Reference:
1. http://www.un.org/democracyfund/XAboutUNDEF.htm
2. http://mitsog.com/
3. www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/
4. UNDP – Democratic Governance Group - Oslo Governance Centre, July
2005
5. http://aptel.gov.in/pdf/constitutionof%20india%20acts.pdf
6. http://www.adrindia.org/
Thanks and Regards,
Heera Lal
EMPA -10, Maxwell School ofCitizenship and Public affairs
Of Syracuse University , Syracuse .
Apts-220, Building No. 2
121 Lafayette Road, Syracuse,NY,USA-13205
315-214-5558( landline); 315-395-0291( Mobile )
[email protected] ; [email protected]
http://heeralalpcs.blogspot.com/
________________________________
From: Amitabh Thakur <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sat, 3 April, 2010 11:56:13 AM
Subject: [bm] Electoral reforms
Friends,
The 5th National Conference on Electoral and Political Reforms is being
organized by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election
Watch (NEW) on April 10 and Apr 11, 2010 at Bhopal. The Chief Guest of the
Conference shall be Shri Navin Chawla, Chief Election Commissioner of India
along with Dr. Quraishi, Election Commissioner.
I shall also be participating as one of the panel speaker in one of the
sessions on 11/04/2010. The topic of our discussion is "Important issues in
Electoral Reforms and achieving them along with many other".
It would be great if I could be provided some important issues/input by this
august group as regards the important issues in electoral reforms that you feel
are highly pertinent today. This will help me bring these issues for discussion
at this Forum initiated by the much-celebrated Sri Trilochan Sastry of ADR,
whose seminal efforts in this field have gained huge attention and have paved
way for some of the great electoral reforms we have seen in the recent times.
Something important might germinate out of this.
Waiting for ur kind response.
Amitabh Thakur
IPS,
Currently at IIM Lucknow
# 94155-34526
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