ELECTION AND REPRESENTATION    

Why representative democracy? As all citizens cannot participate in decision-making, Therefore representatives are elected who will make a decision.

• Direct democracy in ancient Greek societies directs the participation of citizens in decision-making.
• Indirect democracy- people elect representatives who will make decisions.
• What can be done to ensure election in a country in a democratic way? The Constitution ensures this laying down some basic rules.

1. Election Method in India- First Past The Post (FPTP) System

• The entire country is divided into 543 constituencies.
• Each constituency elects one representative.
• The candidate who secures the highest number of votes in that constituency is declared elected.
• Whoever has more votes than all other candidates is declared elected.
• The winning candidate need not secure a majority of votes.
• This is called FPTP (candidate who is ahead of others, who crosses the winning post, first of all, is the winner. This method is also called a plurality system).

2. Proportional Representation

• In this, once the votes are counted each party is allotted the share of seats in the parliament in proportion to its share of those.
• Each party fills its quota of seats by picking many of its nominees from a preference list that has been declared before elections.
• 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 country is treated as one constituency and seats are allotted to each party according to its share of votes in a national election.
• The other method is when the country is divided into several multi-member 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 voters exercise their preference for a party and not a candidate.

3. Why did India adopt FPTP?

• FPTP is simple while PR is complex.
• In FPTP clear choice is presented to voters not simply between parties but specific candidates.
• In PR voters choose a party, therefore, no one representative represents and is responsible for one locality.
• PR is not suitable for giving stable government in a parliamentary system.
• FPTP encourages voters from different social groups to come together to win election in a locality
• In a diverse country like India, the PR system would encourage each community to form its nationwide party.

4. Reservation of Constituencies

• In FPTP candidate who secures the highest vote in a particular constituency is declared elected this works to the disadvantage of the smaller group, particularly in the Indian social context (caste-based discrimination).
• So reserved constituency –all voters in the constituency are eligible to vote but the candidate must belong to only a particular community or social section for which the seat is reserved.
• This provision was made initially for 10 years and as a result of successive constitutional amendments.
• It has been extended up to 2010. The Parliament can decide to further extend it when the period of reservation expires.
•  The number of seats reserved for both of these groups is in proportion to their share of the population of India.
• Today, of the 543 elected seats in the Lok Sabha, 79 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 41 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
• Reservation of consistency decided by the Delimitation Commission.
•  This Commission is appointed by the president of India and works in collaboration with the Election Commission of India.
• Appointed to draw up boundaries of constituencies all over the country.
• The quota of constituencies to be reserved in each state is fixed depending  on the proportion of SC or ST in that state
• After drawing the boundaries, the delimitation commission looks at the composition of the population in each constituency.
• Constituencies that have the highest proportion of the ST population are reserved for ST.
• In the case of the SC commission look at two things.
• It picks constituencies that have a higher proportion and spreads these constituencies in different regions of the state.
• The proportion of Muslims in the population of India is about 13.5 per cent. But the number of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha has usually been less than 6 per cent, less than half of their share of the population.
• A similar situation prevails in most State Assemblies. Muslim women are not going to get any share in any of these systems.

Special majority: A special majority means a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, and A simple majority means more than 50 per cent of the total membership of the House.

Free and Fair Elections: The true test of any election system is its ability to ensure a free and fair electoral process. The election system must be impartial and transparent. The system of election must also allow the aspirations of the voter to find legitimate expression through the electoral results.

Universal Adult Franchise: All adult citizens are eligible to vote in elections. Till 1989 an adult Indian meant an Indian citizen above the age of 21.  By the 61^st Amendment, the eligibility age was reduced to 18.

5. Independent Election Commission

Article 324 of the Constitution provides for an independent commission for superintendence, direction control of electoral rolls and conduct of elections.

Article 324: (1)

The superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections to Parliament and the Legislature of every State and elections to the offices of President and Vice-President held under this Constitution shall be vested in a Commission (referred to in this Constitution as the Election Commission).

• To assist the commission there is a chief electoral officer in every state.
• The Election Commission of India can either be a single-member or multimember body .till 1989 it was a single-member body.
•  The chief election commissioner presides over the election commission but doesn’t have more powers than other election commissioners.
• They are appointed by the President of India on the advice of the Council of Ministers.
• The Constitution ensures the security of the tenure of CEC and election commissioners.
• Six years term or continue till the age of 65 years whichever is earlier.
• CEC can be removed before the expiry of the term by the president if both houses of parliament make such a recommendation with a special majority.

Functions

• It supervises the preparation of the voter's list.
• It makes every effort to ensure that the voters’ list is free of errors like the non-existence of names of registered voters or the existence of names of non-eligible or non-existent.
• Determine the timing of elections and prepare an election schedule.
• The election schedule includes the notification of elections, the date from which nominations can be filed, the last date for filing nominations, the last date of scrutiny, the last date of withdrawal, the date of polling and the date of counting and declaration of results.
• During this entire process, the Election Commission has the power to make decisions to ensure a free and fair poll.
• It can postpone or cancel the election in the entire country or a specific State or constituency because the atmosphere is vitiated and therefore, a free and fair election may not be possible.
• The Commission also implements a model code of conduct for parties and candidates.
• It can order a re-poll in a specific constituency.
• It can also order a recount of votes when it feels that the counting process has not been fully fair and just.
• The Election Commission accords recognition to political parties and allots symbols to each of them.

The Election Commission has a very limited staff of its own.  It conducts the elections with the help of administrative machinery. During the election process, the administrative officers of the State and central governments are assigned election-related duties. The Election Commission has full control over them. The EC can transfer the officers, or stop their transfers;  It can take action against them for failing to act in a non-partisan manner. The Election Commission of India has emerged as an independent authority.

6. Electoral Reforms

• FPTP should be changed to some variant of the PR system.
• At least 1/3^rd of women elected to parliament and assemblies.
• Stricter provisions to control the role of money in elections.
• Decriminalisation of politics.
• Complete ban on caste religion appeals in the campaign.
• There should be a law to regulate the functioning of political parties and ensure they function transparently and democratically.