In a group of two, one should be a leader, the other a follower. This is the wisdom. It is indispensable to avoid chaos in decision-making and action-taking for managing affairs peacefully and successfully. This principle works at international/country level where political parties form governments. Governments are inevitable because they protect their country from foreign invasion, aggression, interference, guard against any internal disorder and work for welfare and well being of their people. They maintain law and order. Laws are vital for a society to function orderly.
They provide parameters for everyday behavior of citizens. Sans laws life would be unsafe and the events unpredictable. Governments are formed for a term as enunciated under their respective constitutions. Reasons, situations for change and methods of change are also scripted. Some governments survive & serve full term and thereafter go before public to seek fresh mandate through elections. Some end midway and prematurely due to state failure, military coup, civil war, rebellion, defection or non-confidence motion. The latter two being provisions in constitutions of some countries are resorted to as routes for change.
In political lexicon defection means moving of a person from one party to another party for some personal benefits. It is shifting allegiance from the party on which a person previously got elected and crossing floor to a different party now. A defector is a person who abandons allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to other, changing sides in a way which is considered unbecoming by the first state. More broadly it involves giving up a cause, person or doctrine to which one is bound by some tie as of allegiance or duty. Likewise a no confidence motion is a vote regarding if a person in a position of responsibility at the government or the management level is still relevant and deemed fit to hold that position.
It is a floor test which discloses that elected parliament, senate or by whatever name that house is called, no longer has confidence in them. Every member of the house has a right to move a no confidence motion if the member feels that elected government does not enjoy confidence of the majority of that house. Regime can also be imposed on a country by any overt or covert foreign intervention through a coercive diplomacy, trade or economic sanctions etc. According to dataset by Alexander Downes 120 leaders were removed through foreign imposed regime between 1811 and 2011. The list may have additions definitely as on date.
From their members the political parties float candidates to be elected by the electorate through adult suffrage. All the political parties have their election/party manifestos and agendas to pursue in and outside the government respectively. Manifesto is a published declaration of a party showing its ideas, intentions, options, views & motives regarding the public and the governance. Its content and presentation before public allure and motivate the electorate to subscribe their vote to the party concerned. People cast their vote in the name of a leader followed by its party. Casting a vote is not mere pressing an EVM button or stamping a paper ballot against an election symbol of a candidate but an expression & endorsement of faith in the honest & able leadership qualities and capabilities of that party.
It is reposition of trust in favour of such candidates as party sponsors. People vote them to get elected to form government of their liking. They exchange loyalty for governance under and by that leadership. A party that gets required number of members forms the government headed by the party leader. In case the majority is short of required number, alliances or coalitions with the willing parties are made on mutually pre-agreed terms & conditions to form and run the government. It is seen that when some rapacious members in government do not get ministries or the desired portfolios and term they start rallying and collaborating clandestinely with the opposition parties to bring down the ruling government by hook or by crook including defection and non-confidence motion. The agitating members side with the opposition which fishes in troubled waters and incites the wild emotions to entice the disgruntled group with promises of greener pastures and El Dorado in the new formation.
The trick outnumbers the ruling dispensation to collapse and see the door to demit the office. The numbers win the game as heads count and minds or morals lose. The representative character, which is principle of democracy giving immense powers to parliament, is injured. Here erupts breach of confidence and betrayal of trust of the electorate concerned with such candidates. The voters do not make candidates victorious to join another party which had not floated them. They cast their vote in favour of a party keeping in view its leader which has been the thumb rule principally. They never vote for or expect and admit of any horse-trading in any sense of political process by virtue of fiduciary relationship between the two. Thus after empowering others the voters themselves get disempowered and feel dishonored. Although they pledge trust with such candidates yet is not a carte blanche for the members or the ministers to act unbridled as per their sweet will without having approval from the source of their power.
It should not be construed as a blank document signed in advance by the voters to be filled in later by the members. Even though if some elections happen to be fought sometimes on non-party basis still the party influence works in their favour the decision-making process of the electorate. Thus most of the candidates owe much to the party than their person.
If the rule of law and the constitution are to uphold the confidence & trust in a democratic set up of a cabinet government which is said to be of the people, for the people and by the people, they may require the members who make a case of defection or non-confidence motion to have at his/her cost fresh public consent for such move for change of/in regime rather than dethroning a previously elected government or plunging the country again into elections by altering affiliations post elections. Sanctity of public trust enjoins that snollygosters have no place in political offices and other power positions. If breach of contract is illegal in other cases and enforceable at law for remedy, should this brazen deceit which stabs the democracy with dictatorial cuts go un-cured by constitutional, legal and the government experts lurks in the minds of thinkers?
The author is a former Sr. Audit Officer and Consultant in the A.G’s Office Srinagar.
