Thursday, June 14, 2012

Should India have a two-party system?

Are not you frustrated by the lot many Scandals, Huge Money laundering by govt. officials?
IF your answer is yes read on.. and support the initiative.

We the people of India keep comparing our system of government with that of the other large, successful democracy - the American one.
The two big questions that keep recurring in such discussions are -
a) Is the presidential form of government better than a parliamentary system
b) Is a two party system better than a multi-party system
I will try answering the second question in today’s post -
The US political landscape while essentially a two party system does not mandate any candidate to have to belong to either of these two parties to become part of the electoral process?
There has been a 3rd alternative that has never really been “viable” but always thought to be a spoiler / the skew factor in what would otherwise be a simple 2 legged race – remember Ralph Nader of the Green Party in the 2000 presidential race? There are independent candidates in America too.
Thus to think that there are only 2 parties in the US is incorrect. What is correct is however that 2 parties dominate the election land-scape. One of the reason these 2 parties continue to dominate the voting landscape is because of the resources at their disposal. Over these years they have built efficient systems to raise funds, to build networks with voters and for information dissemination. Thus for any party to survive and grow against such well entrenched opposition they would need to have access to similar sources of funds, similar networks of individuals and so on. Hence it is becoming increasinly difficult for a third party to become a true alternative. The current alternatives to the big 2 parties are local and not national phenomena.
 In India the political landscape is dominated by 2 parties – the Congress and the BJP. These parties have alliances at the state of regional level where regional parties have a more relevant message. It has been observed that regional parties are having a greater say in national politics and this is because they provide a greater draw in local political races.
 Today we have a situation where we can create a new political party because we feel that the existing parties don’t quite represent us and this is a great freedom. We are not part of a system that creates barriers of entry to new political parties and stifles their growth. Freedom is about having the power to choose and having the ability to choose an existing political party or form a new one is something we enjoy today and since when did we start giving up our freedoms?
Proponents of the 2 party system do point out that a 2 party system is inherently more efficient than a multi-party system. They have pointed out that because people are not able to form splinter groups and factions there is a chance of more stable governments.  I am not an expert on governmental efficiency or stability but will definitely endevour to find measures for these parameters and evaluate the performance of either system of government against the same. Can you help? Do comment.

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