Powers of a strong institution : Lessons from the ECI
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 21, 2012 -
It is evident that all the political parties, including the Congress are not in favour of another round of repoll and what is interesting is that this has come about even as more damning reports/allegations/charges and counter charges of electoral malpractices have been pouring in.
On the other hand, signals emanating from the side of the ECI point to a likely round of yet another repoll. There are reasons for the opposition to suggestions or demands for repoll and prime amongst this is of course the expenditure cap of Rs 8 lakhs, the pressure on the candidates and the workers and of course for reasons which must be obvious to all.
Pitted against this is the stand of the ECI that the election should be conducted in its true essence. The novel idea of comparing the photos of the voters taken on voting day against those affixed on the Electoral Photo Identity Cards has opened a can of worms and has gone a long way in establishing how blatantly proxy voting, impersonation etc were resorted to.
A telling story of how election in this part of the largest democracy in the world has been reduced to something of a farce and take the unaccounted but nevertheless significantly ‘visible’ show of money power and gun power and the complete story emerges to tell an unhealthy tale.
It is this unhealthy tale which has been rearing its ugly head in the form of non-governance, absence of accountability and the arrogance that has become the defining characteristics of successive Governments down the years.
There may be different takes on this, but the very exercise of electing the people's representatives has come to be viewed as the first step to decide which direction the land and the people should proceed and it is against this backdrop that the ECI appears to have struck a tough posture to correct the flaws which have been an inherent part of every election in this part of the country.
Despite the many flaws and shortcomings that one witnessed during the election on January 28 and which have been confirmed during the post poll examinations, the State Election Office has done its job and one interesting point that has emerged and should be taken note of is the fact that the ECI is able to send the political class scampering for cover with tails between their legs, because it is an empowered institution.
This is an important lesson that Manipur can and should learn. The prime reason for the all round chaos and decadence that Manipur has been witnessing and the total absence of the rule of law is the disempowerment of the different institutions which are there to dispense their duties which directly affect the daily existence of the common people.
This has not happened by chance or through any natural process of evolution but by engineering a thought process and ingraining them to such an extent that it has come to be passed off as the system itself.
We have already spoken about the ugly fall outs of institutional collapse witnessed all over the State and apart from learning a lesson or two on the positives of ensuring a free and fair election, what the people can and should learn from the election process is that one antidote for the malaise afflicting Manipur is empowering its institutions.
If the ECI and by extension the office of the Chief Electoral Officer is able to crack the whip and keep certain things in line, then there is no reason why governance cannot be put in place by strengthening the available institutions.
The question is whether the type of people we send or elect as our representatives will have the moral compunction to strengthen the institutions which are there to do a job or ride rough shod over them.
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