Democracy upgrade: Selection of ministerial candidates for specific ministries

 It is high time we upgraded democracy. Not much has changed since the introduction of democratic principles by the Greeks. No, I am not talking about elections. Elections are what makes people to know that they are in a democracy. Free and fair elections are the hallmark of all great democracies. Elections done through physical ballot paper, electronic voting machines or in the future through websites, or through mobile phones with sims tied to the individual voter with privacy protecting and randomization tech etc. I am OK with any kind of the election process until it is free, privacy honored and protected and of-course, fair. 

 I am talking about the elected representatives. See, once we vote, like every five years, we forget the election process and are involved with the individual we have selected in the electoral process. This individual is what the public is going to interact for the next five years. So, we should put lot more effort into ensuring that the public will elect the person with the best capabilities for the job. There is a lot of feedback from the voters that they don’t have much options. Many of the times it will be the worst against junk, works against worst, worst against better worse, worst against lesser worse etc. As a voter, you are supposed to exercise your power and choose the best among the worst. This is something which the present generation is not able to digest. This fact makes many of the young voters to utilize the most important day of their life which is going to decide how they will lead out their next 05 years, on a vacation. This is a serious issue. The philosophy of democracy is totally defeated. 

The young do not want to participate in the electoral process as candidates or as voters for one and only reason. There is no clarity. There is no documented path. There is no real simple procedure laid out for any educated individual to utilize his education and knowledge more than think about all the modalities of how to win elections and how to sway voters minds. The same is with the voters. They do not know what is the differentiation factor between the candidates. These days, majority of the elections are fought on race, caste, religion and Jingoism or popularism. This is a wrong development. The young educated electorate is a global electorate. They are much above all these trivial things. They are all more about bettering human life, create a better and cleaner planet. Now, how do we make the voter to get involved, seriously in the selection process and on the way, impress the younger lot to participate in the election as candidates and enter leadership positions. 

Let us see how the present method of allocating ministries work. The most powerful/submissive candidates are given plum ministries. Either the minister selected will be so powerful, the media will never touch him or the minister is so submissive that the party leadership will take care of him and his ministry as per the party requirements. This is a serious concern. Ministries are allocated on whims and fancies, not on logical lines. My suggestion is to ask candidates to prepare like they are going to a job interview. However, this job is of the highest stature in the country. 

The election commission should call out for vacancies for the ministerial post and come out with minimum educational/emotional/personal traits which are required to run the particular ministry. The commission should also publish formats for the candidates to fill up and submit including what is wrong with the present ministerial situation, what is to be done to correct it and how it will be done, what is the vision of the candidate for the next 05 years. The parties are free to nominate their candidates. However, we now have a framework for independent candidates with a penchant for this kind of job profile. We will have many candidates who don’t like to work in the executive but be the public front end to experience the issues in the first person. These people will be in a position to guide the executive instead of the other way round. With this we will have a tight watch on the executive also. The executive normally slips into the background with the ministers being the front end. With ministers who have learnt the threads of the ministry with the aim of heading the ministry, we have a minister who understands the language of the ministry. 

The election commission, on receipt of the applications with all this info should provide wide publicity indicating the plan and vision of each candidate. TV and the internet news channels should chew into the info given and come out with feasible studies and the far-reaching results of the vision of the candidates. Newspapers should talk about each ministry and the candidates and more on their commitments and vision for the country. They should bring out the background of all candidates which in turn will help the voters to understand the intent of the candidate. This brings in the interest of the voter to understand the candidate. Now, the voter cannot escape by saying that they are not having any info. They should be bombarded with information. By information, it should be more of data and should be less of what the article writer thinks. Anyhow, now the voter need not depend on the news sources. He can download the documents submitted by the candidates and process them side by side since the applications are standardized. Comparison for the modern youth will be a piece of cake. 

There will be an excitement, buzz, discussions, arguments for and against the candidates. Suddenly your will see that the discussions of parties will vanish. The concentration is on the candidate. Now, you will vote for your best home minister, your best IT minister, your best finance minister and so on. You have chosen. You have taken the responsibility. At the end of five years, you can reward him, if he has met his commitment or you can just throw him out in the next election. When choosing a candidate for a specific ministry, you have to be careful. Because, as a whole this ministry has to work as a single machine with different types of gears, linkages, computer controls. A single gear which is out of sync can bring down the entire machinery down. There is added responsibility on the voter which was not existent until now. The voter was escaping his job in democracy quoting lack of clarity. Now, the voter has to optimize his options based on the excellent data available. We observe that the voter and the elected minister now have a bond. The voter knows what can be expected from the minister and the minister knows what is expected from him. The beauty of democracy. 

Yes, I can understand you are brimming with ideas. Go ahead, write it down. You may lose it. That is what writing is about. You inspire with your vague idea and it will give birth to many a leafs, which in turn will nurture the your idea tree. It will live long, much longer than your human life. So, again, Please write.