Reflections

Declining quality of our elected representatives
The recent amendments of the constitution, lowering the voting age to 18 years, is to
be welcomed, for it adds another 47 million voters to the electoral process. But what is
vexing is the quality of the representation in our parliament. With the years, the
quality has declined considerably and our elected representatives appear to be
promoting the interests of their political bosses rather than the will and aspirations of
the people.
No wonder then that, when the Janata Dal was being formed, the main quarrel was not
on policies and programmes, but on who would be the chairman of the parliamentary
board. Because the chairman has the power to give tickets to candidates who, if
elected, will raise their hands in his favour.
In Britain, just as they have a shadow cabinet, they also have a prospective candidate
in each constituency. The candidates are selected by the political parties, but since
they are nominated well in advance of the general elections, the candidates have time
to serve and cultivate their constituency and the voters too have a chance to judge their
character and conduct.
In the US, they have a system of primaries through which the candidates of the two
parties are selected by the party faithful before the general elections.
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