Elections and Democracy PDF

Indian Constitution at Work ELECTIONS AND DEMOCRACY Let us begin by asking ourselves two simple questions about elections and democracy....

Indian Constitution at Work ELECTIONS AND DEMOCRACY Let us begin by asking ourselves two simple questions about elections and democracy. ± Can we have democracy without holding elections? ± Can we hold elections without having democracy? Let us have a discussion in the classroom on both these questions by using examples from whatever we have learnt so far in the previous classes. The first question reminds Shankar. Copyright: Children’s Book Trust. us of the necessity of READ A CARTOON representation in a large democracy. All citizens cannot take direct part in making every decision. Therefore, representatives are elected by the people. This is how elections become important. Whenever we think of India as a democracy, our mind invariably turns to the last elections. Elections have today become the most visible symbol of the democratic process. We often distinguish between direct and indirect democracy. A direct democracy is one where the citizens directly participate in the day-to-day decision- 17 February 1957 making and in the running of They say elections are carnival of the government. The ancient democracy. But this cartoon depicts chaos instead. Is this true of elections always? Is city-states in Greece were it good for democracy? considered examples of direct democracy. Many would 52 consider local governments, especially gram sabhas, to be the closest examples of direct 2024-25 Chapter 3: Election and Representation democracy. But this kind of direct democracy cannot be practiced when a decision has to be taken by lakhs and 53 crores of people. That is why rule by the people usually means rule by people’s representatives. In such an arrangement citizens choose their representatives who, in turn, are actively involved in governing and administering the country. The method followed to choose these representatives is referred to as an election. Thus, the citizens have a limited role in taking major decisions and in running the administration. They are not very actively involved in making of the policies. Citizens are involved only indirectly, through their elected representatives. In this arrangement, where all major decisions are taken by elected representatives, the method by which people elect their representatives becomes very important. The second question reminds us of the fact that not all elections are democratic. A large number of non- democratic countries also hold elections. In fact non- democratic rulers are very keen to present themselves as democratic. They do so by holding election in such a way that it does not threaten their rule. Can you think of some examples of such non-democratic elections? What do you think would distinguish a democratic from a non- democratic election? What can be done to ensure that elections in a country would be conducted in a democratic way? This is where constitution comes in. The constitution of a democratic country lays down some basic rules about elections. The details are usually left to be worked out by laws passed by the legislatures. These basic rules are usually about ± Who is eligible to vote? ± Who is eligible to contest? ± Who is to supervise elections? What is the need of writing ± How do the voters choose their representatives? these rules in the constitution? ± How are the votes to be counted and Why can’t these be decided by representatives elected? the Parliament? Or by all the parties before every election? 2024-25  Indian Constitution at Work Like most democratic constitutions, the Constitution of India answers all these questions. As you can see, the first three questions are about ensuring that elections are free and fair and can thus be called democratic. The last two questions are about ensuring a fair representation. In this chapter you will consider both these aspects of the Constitutional provisions about elections. Activity Collect newspaper clippings about elections in India and any other country. Classify the clippings in the following categories: a. System of representation b. Voter eligibility c. Role of the Election Commission. If you have access to internet, visit the websites of the Election Commission of India, https://eci.gov.in, and ACE project, The Electoral Knowledge Network, http://aceproject.org and collect the information mentioned above for at least four countries. E LECTION SYSTEM IN INDIA You may have noted above a reference to different methods or the systems of elections. You may have wondered what these were all about. You may have seen or read about different methods of electioneering or campaigning in the elections. But what are different methods of elections? There is a system of conducting elections. There are authorities and rules about do’s and don’ts. Is that what election system is all about? You may have wondered why the constitution needs to write down how the votes are to be counted and representatives elected. Isn’t that very obvious? People go and vote. The candidate who gets highest votes gets elected. That is what elections are all over the world. Why do we need to think about it? We need to, because this question is not as simple as it appears 54 to us. We have got so used to our system of elections that we think that there cannot be any other way. In a democratic election, people vote and their preference decides who will win the contest. But there 2024-25 Chapter 3: Election and Representation Activity Hold mock elections in your class to elect four class 55 representatives. Hold the election in three different ways: ± Each student can give one vote. The four highest vote getters are elected. ± Each student has four votes and can give them all to one candidate or split the votes among different candidates. The four highest vote getters are elected. ± Each voter gives a preference ranking to candidates and the counting follows the method of election of Rajya Sabha members described below. Did the same four persons win the election in each of these methods? If not, what was the difference? Why? can be very different ways in which people make their choices and very different ways in which their preferences can be counted. These different rules of the game can make a difference to who the winner of the game will be. Some rules can favour bigger parties; some rules can help the smaller players. Some rules can favour the majority community, others can protect the minorities. Let us look at one dramatic instance to see how this happens. First Past the Post System Look at the newspaper clipping. 2024-25  Indian Constitution at Work It talks of one historic moment in India’s democracy. In the Lok Sabha elections of 1984, the Congress party came to power winning 415 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats – more than 80% of the seats. Such a victory was never achieved by any party in the Lok Sabha. What did this election show? The Congress party won four-fifths of the seats. Does it mean that four out of five Indian voters voted for the Congress party? Actually not. Take a look at the enclosed Less than 50 per cent votes and table. The Congress party got 48% of the votes. This means more than 80 per cent seats! that only 48% of those who voted, voted in favour of the Isn’t that unfair? How could candidates put up by the Congress party, but the party our Constitution makers accept still managed to win more than 80% of the seats in the such an unfair system? Lok Sabha. Look at the performance of other parties. The BJP got 7.4 per cent votes but less than one per cent seats. How did that happen? Votes and seats won by some major parties in Lok Sabha Election of 1984 Party Votes (%) Seats Congress 48.0 415 BJP 7.4 2 Janata 6.7 10 Lok Dal 5.7 3 CPI (M) 5.7 22 Telugu Desam 4.1 30 DMK 2.3 2 AIADMK 1.6 12 Akali Dal 1.0 7 AGP 1.0 7 This happened because in our country we follow a special method of elections. Under this system: ± The entire country is divided into 543 constituencies; 56 ± Each constituency elects one representative; and ± The candidate who secures the highest number of votes in that constituency is declared elected. It is important to note that in this system whoever has 2024-25 Chapter 3: Election and Representation more votes than all other candidates, is declared elected. The winning candidate need not secure a majority of the 57 votes. This method is called the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. In the electoral race, the candidate who is ahead of others, who crosses the winning post first of all, is the winner. This method is also called the Plurality System. This is the method of election prescribed by the Constitution. Let us now go back to our example. The Congress party won greater share of seats than its share of votes because in many of the constituencies in which its candidates won, they secured less than 50% of the votes. If there are several candidates, the winning candidate often gets much less than 50% of the votes. The votes that go to all the losing candidates go ‘waste’, for those candidates or parties get no seat from those votes. Suppose a party gets only 25 per cent of the votes in every constituency, but everyone else gets even less votes. In that case, the party could win all the seats with only 25 per cent votes or even less. Proportional Representation Let us compare this to how elections take place in Israel that follows a very different system of elections. In Israel once the votes are counted, each party is allotted the share of seats in the parliament in proportion to its share of votes (see Box). Each party fills its quota of seats by picking those many of its nominees from a preference list that has been declared before the elections. This system of elections is called the Proportional Representation (PR) system. In this system a party gets the same proportion of seats as its proportion of votes. In the PR system there could be two variations. In some countries, like Israel or Netherlands, the entire This is very confusing! How do country is treated as one constituency and seats are I know who is my MP or my allocated to each party according to its share of votes in MLA in this system? Who the national election. The other method is when the would I go to if I have any country is divided into several multi-member work? 2024-25  Indian Constitution at Work constituencies as in Argentina and Portugal. Each party prepares a list of candidates for each constituency, depending on how many have to be elected from that constituency. In both these variations, voters exercise their preference for a party and not a candidate. The seats in a constituency are distributed on the basis of votes polled 58 by a party. Thus, representatives from a constituency, would and do belong to different parties. In India, we have adopted PR system Proportional Representation in Israel Israel follows proportional representation system of election. Elections to the legislature (Knesset) take place every four years. Every party declares a list of its candidates, but voters vote for the party and not for the candidates. A party gets seats in the legislature in proportion to the votes polled by it. This allows even smaller parties with very small support base to get representation in the legislature. (A party must get a minimum of 3.25% votes to be eligible to get seats in the legislature.) This often leads to a multi-party coalition government. The following table shows the result of the 2015 elections to the Knesset. Based on this, you can find out what percentage of seats various parties got in that election. Name of List (Party) % of total Number of % of total votes seats seats Likud 23.40 30 Zionist Camp 18.67 24 Joint List (Hadash, National Democratic Assembly, Arab Movement for Renewal, United Arab List) 10.61 13 Yesh Atid 8.82 11 Kulanu 7.49 10 Habayit Hayehudi 6.74 8 Shas 5.74 7 Yisrael Beitenu 5.10 6 United Torah Judaism 4.99 6 58Israel’s Left 3.93 5 Other Parties 4.51 0 Total 100 120 2024-25 Chapter 3: Election and Representation on a limited scale for indirect elections. The Constitution prescribes a third and complex variation of the PR system for the election of 59 President, Vice President, and for the election to the Rajya Sabha and Vidhan Parishads. Comparison of FPTP and PR system of election FPTP PR The country is divided Large geographical areas into small geographical are demarcated as units called constituencies constituencies. The entire or districts country may be a single constituency Every constituency elects More than one one representative representative may be elected from one constituency Voter votes for a candidate Voter votes for the party A party may get more seats Every party gets seats in the than votes in the legislature legislature in proportion to the percentage of votes that it gets Candidate who wins the Candidate who wins the election may not get elections gets majority of majority (50%+1) votes votes. Examples: U.K., India Examples: Israel, Netherlands 2024-25  Indian Constitution at Work How does PR work in Rajya Sabha elections A third variant of PR, the Single Transferable Vote system (STV), is followed for Rajya Sabha elections. Every State has a specific quota of seats in the Rajya Sabha. The members are elected by the respective State legislative assemblies. The voters are the MLAs in that State. Every voter is required to rank candidates according to her or his preference. To be declared the winner, a candidate must secure a minimum quota of votes, which is determined by a formula:  Total votes p olled   Total num ber of candid ates to be elected + 1  + 1   For example if 4 Rajya Sabha members have to be elected by the 200 MLAs in Rajasthan, the winner would require (200/4+1= 40+1) 41 votes. When the votes are counted it is done on the basis of first preference votes secured by each candidate, of which the candidate has secured the first preference votes. If after the counting of all first preference votes, required number of candidates fail to fulfil the quota, the candidate who secured the lowest votes of first preference is eliminated and his/her votes are transferred to those who are mentioned as second preference on those ballot papers. This process continues till the required number of candidates are declared elected. Why did India adopt the FPTP system? The answer is not very difficult to guess. If you have carefully read the box explaining the Rajya Sabha elections, you would have noticed that it is a complicated system which may work in a small country, but would be difficult to work in a sub-continental country like India. 60 The reason for the popularity and success of the FPTP system is its simplicity. The entire election system is extremely simple to understand even for common voters who may have no specialised 2024-25  Chapter 3: Election and Representation knowledge about politics and elections. There is also a clear choice presented to the voters at the time of elections. Voters have to simply 61 endorse a candidate or a party while voting. Depending on the nature of actual politics, voters may either give greater importance to the party or to the candidate or balance the two. The FPTP system offers voters a choice not simply between parties but specific candidates. In other electoral systems, especially PR systems, voters are often asked to choose a party and the representatives are elected on the basis of party lists. As a result, there is no one representative who represents and is responsible for one locality. In constituency based system like the FPTP, the voters know who their own representative is and can hold him or her accountable. Shankar. Copyright: Children’s Book Trust. READ A CARTOON 29 May 1949 These members of the ruling party are trying to listen to the ‘tiny’ opposition! Was this the effect of our electoral system? More importantly, the makers of our Constitution also felt that PR based election may not be suitable for giving a stable government in a parliamentary system. We shall study the nature of parliamentary system of executive in the next chapter. This system requires that the executive has majority in the legislature. You will notice that the PR system may not produce a clear majority because seats in the legislature would be divided on the basis of share of votes. The FPTP 2024-25