Choosing Right Leaders

Parmeshwar Devkota

The Election Commission (EC) is holding elections to the federal and provincial parliaments today. Voters are electing their representatives under both the first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR) systems. Prior to convincing voters to use their conscience to elect the genuine, accountable and responsible candidates, let’s trace the history when from the voting system began. 

The history of voting is long and confusing. In the ancient time, Greeks practised it not to elect their head of state or government, but punish somebody, banish or ostracise others, and execute the people who did not follow the set rules and religion of the society. The best example of this is that as Socrates did not agree that he corrupted the youths and introduced new religion in Greece, among five hundred juries, the majority voted to kill the great philosopher by forcing him to drink poison called Hemlock. 

The voting system was in the primitive stage at that time. They used bits of broken pottery parts for voting. They used to write their names on pottery bits and cast them as votes. So, it is considered the rudimentary stage of voting system. In the medieval period, religious groups of Europe implied the voting system to choose their own officials. 

But, in the French Revolution, Geneva-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet advocated for political selections which was provisioned in the constitutions written by French, Polish and American revolutionaries in the 17th century. Herbert Tingsten of Sweden, A.L. Lowell of Britain and other demographers revised, updated the election procedures and incorporated data system in it.  

The history of voting in Nepal is not very old, but we have been following it continuously after the advent of multiparty democracy in 1950. The Panchayat rule also used the voting system to elect Panchas. But, what is a matter of surprise is that the majority of voters are not happy and satisfied with the leaders they have elected. The voters express their grudge regarding the working style as well as the performance of their leaders. 

If this is the case, the voters should take precautions this time around and cast their votes for the right candidates because this election is different from the previous polls in two respects. First, the political parties used to be more organised and the cadres were more aggressive and committed to bullying the voters in the past. Second, the candidates and political parties used to have vote banks, that is, certain parties and leaders used to get the total votes of certain area, community or group. But, the voters are free and they have an immense choice to select the pro-development candidates from among many contestants. 

So, the voters must spend much time selecting the genuine candidates as their leaders for nation building. From today, we, the voters, must stop expressing our grudge over the selected leaders. Instead, we must select the right leaders remembering an adage made by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.” If we select leaders to meet our own interests, we have no right to expect the nation’s development from them and we must stop expressing our remorse against elected leaders.