We all love the 'ideal' in life. The ideal home, the ideal job, the ideal partner and an ideal nation, all amounting to a perfect life and perfection is the ultimate we desire, isn’t it? So, how about a perfect political scene, the ideal one that gives the nation a facelift and all us voters a breather from the war of the parties. Imagine our political arena dominated not by parties but by agendas. How? Read on to find out.
The present day voting is completely party based, with each party listing out long agendas, more or less similar to the others with only a few points which are unique. Our ballot papers have lists of parties and the voter has to mark the symbol of the party of his /her choice.
Now imagine a ballot paper where we have manifestoes in place of party names and the voter has to choose the party whose manifesto he/she finds best for a particular issue or portfolio in question.
For e.g. we have a ballot paper with list of portfolios on one side, like – education, finance, health, industry, external affairs etc (listed one below the other). Printed one next to the other, in front of each portfolio is the manifesto of each party in brief, regarding that issue. The voter’s job here is to mark the agenda of his/ her liking for each of the portfolios. The party that gets the maximum votes for its manifesto gets the portfolio for that term. Let’s say, Party A wins- Agriculture, Party B wins- Education and Party C wins- Finance.
This not only eradicates the importance of symbols but also makes the agendas more important than the party. Thus parties if want to be re-elected would have no other choice but to perform in their respective portfolios.
Voters too would be more alert and active in participating rather than just stamping a party out of loyalty or emotions or false promises.
However, all this is being said presuming the voters to be not just literate but, also well educated (again the most ideal of presumptions!). It is thus most important for us to educate ourselves as a nation and invest our time and efforts into this long term project, if we want to see our nation come out of its political mess and move towards becoming a super power in its true sense one day.
That would be an ideal situation we all long for and its time we work towards it, rather than just dream of the perfect nation, doing nothing in actuality. Because, dreams become reality, only by action. Rest, is all utopia!
