Some countries have prime minister as their head of the
government, whereas some other countries are run under the governance of the
president. Whoever is the head of the government, generally a major power is
assigned to that official by the constitution of the country. USA is governed
by a President as the head and India by a prime minister. But whoever heads the
government needs to be elected (or nominated in some cases) by a voting
procedure. Generally, the requirement to win the office is more than two third
or more than half in some cases like USA.
But today I’m not discussing how this election process
works. Instead I want to speak about the constitutional limit on how many times
a person can run for the head of the government. India doesn’t currently have
any restrictions as to that matter. But US does. Yes there is a limit. Any one
particular person can’t be elected as the president for more than two times,
known as tenures, in USA. This restriction is mentioned in the Constitution
itself. So what do you think is the purpose of this restriction? This tenure
limit in USA started, I think from the time of Franklin Roosevelt since 1951.
And the purpose was to eradicate the possibilities of monopoly.
You see, a head of the government tends to have a great
power. And with that power he can increase his chances of winning the office
again and again. The rise of Hitler has to be considered as an equivalent
example. Just because, the Indian PMs and other similar heads of other countries
could not continue to become head of the country despite the lack of any such
restrictions doesn’t mean that such restrictions are unnecessary. It just means
that nobody yet has come with the strategic capacity to use this loop to his
advantage. But somebody might. And that day, the country might follow the path
of Germany via dictatorship.
The not so powerful Asian country Nepal is in its verge on
promulgating a new constitution. Many Nepalese people are even insisting on
following the ways of US instead of their neighboring country India, and putting
the term limit for their prime minister in their constitution. But the issue is
not so simple. Being of Nepalese origin myself, I know the tendency of most
Nepalese people to take significant decisions, despite the lack of proper
understanding and analysis. The term limit on such above mentioned offices
doesn’t only have advantages.
Nepal has just escaped from the grasp of monarchy. And in
doing so, it has also escaped from the authority and care of a king. I’m not
saying it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying that, before now people didn’t need to
choose the supreme power of the country by themselves. But now, they do have to
choose who is going to rule over them and how and they have to choose wisely.
Nepal is yet to face many stages of development via government by public
choice. And one of them is corruption too. So, how can we ensure that a prime
minister is going to perform his job responsibly? And how can we ensure that
somebody does his job responsibly? Simple, by acknowledging their effort and
rewarding their hard work and integrity. This is not just a method to be used
in politics. Every business and management student knows that reward for good
work and punishment for bad work is the surest thing to ensure that somebody
does his work responsibly.
So, how can Nepal reward any government head for his good
work? At least by not limiting his tenure limit via constitution. This is of
course not enough. But at least this way there will be something that the prime
minister will be looking forward to in order to do his work more nicely, don’t
you think? I’m not a political expert, but this is the matter of very common
sense, isn’t it? If you promise somebody a possibility of reward, then at least
they might perform better.
But that’s still not the solution that I suggest to be put
in the constitution. I have a far better solution to this debate.
But let’s summarize our debate first. If we don’t restrict
the tenure limit to any significant office of government, then there is a
possibility that the office with a great power can use its power to ensure its
continued term in the office and that will be equivalent to dictatorship. And
if we restrict the tenure limit to those significant office, then while on the
last tenure of their service, the particular officials will have nothing to
look forward as reward for their better performance, so they might go careless,
or worse they might use whatever time period they have left in the office to
secure wealth for personal interests and this way invite corruption.
My suggestion would be that the constitution should include
in it a clause, which requires a higher portion of supporting votes to win the
office, for any particular candidate, for each successive tenure.
If the requirement of a candidate to win as prime minister
of the country is say two third, i.e. 67%, for the first time, and suppose he
won. Then in his second tenure he should be required to secure a higher
percentage let’s say 70% to become the prime minister. And if he won even that
tenure, then in his third tenure he should be required to secure higher portion
of votes still, may be 75%! And this increment should go on like this until he
could no longer secure the votes required to be secured by him at the time. But
other candidates who are running for the first time should enjoy the privilege
to get elected just by two third votes, as this is their first time, and they
don’t have the power like the already elected prime minister.
This will achieve two things. First, for every successive
tenure the prime minister will perceive a chance, no matter how small, to win
again in the next election. So, he will try to retain his good image by doing
better work still. Secondly, as the requirement of votes in his favor gets on
increasing with each successive tenure, he doesn’t have complete power to
manipulate the next elections. May be he wins two or three tenures, but then
there will always be somebody who votes against him. And if he gets on winning
and even happens to secure unanimous vote in the extreme? This is simply
impractical, but even if we consider such a scenario, then I think that’s the
best thing we can hope for. What in the world can be better for a country then
the whole people of the country being united under one leader. That will surely
be the exemplary state in the whole world.
This clause in the constitution can actually be the problem
solver. But will it reach the ears of the politicians in charge of writing
constitution? Answer to that question depends solely upon the efforts of the
readers of this post to make this idea public, and also upon the open
mindedness and readiness of the politicians to break down the traditional ways
and accept new things in new ways.
You see, no society lack great ideas, but only those get to
be known as founders of great ideas who express those ideas first and actually work
upon them.
-DHAKAL
-DHAKAL
