Forget primary elections – let’s try something more practical

[webfact]

OPINION

Forget primary elections – let’s try something more practical
By Tulsathit Taptim
The Nation

 

BANGKOK: -- I like the idea of having voters select election candidates, but now that the “reformers” are pushing it, why not take things to the extreme? The proposal for primary elections is apparently intended to improve the quality of members of Parliament, which is great. There are two main problems here, though.

 

First, there would be too many MPs. Second, good MPs don’t guarantee a good government.

 

Let’s deal with “bad” MPs later and focus now on what the public can really do to improve politics. Shouldn’t we elect Cabinet members? I have written about the idea three times before, but some observers dismissed it as impractical. The “primaries” proposal has given me fresh impetus, since elections for ministers would address both problems above. First, there are far fewer ministers than MPs, and second, good ministers do guarantee a good government.

 

They say primary elections would improve democracy by allowing voters to screen election candidates, making it harder for unscrupulous party or faction leaders, or party sponsors, to place their proxies in Parliament. Proponents of the idea say registered party members in each constituency would vote to decide who among A, B, C, etc represents their party in the general election.

 

Critics cite budgetary and logistical obstacles, in addition to concern that the constitution itself may have to be rewritten to permit such a process. But at a time when the government is eager to spend billions on a landmark tower for Bangkok’s skyline, and when the constitution is redrawn every two or three years anyway, I’m not worried about those fears. Instead, the biggest potential problem is the likelihood that A, B and C will still be proxies or can become proxies later.

 

The technical difficulties associated with primary elections for MP candidates make ministerial elections look like a walk in the park. We can also sweeten the ministerial election idea by proposing that not all ministers have to be elected. Only key portfolios – such as finance, education, agriculture, interior, justice and science and technology – could be put to the vote.

 

The idea is simple: once the general election is over and Parliament has elected a prime minister, the country votes again to fill key Cabinet positions. This makes it possible for someone outside the prime minister’s party to take over, say, the Finance Ministry.

 

Of course, it’s an extreme form of democracy. One man with many votes is surely fairer than one man with merely one vote. What’s important here is that the “winner takes all” nature of politics will ease considerably. We may have a Democrat education minister, a Chart Thai agriculture minister and Newin Chidchob or Suwat Liptapanlop as sports minister. Pheu Thai, with its much-praised healthcare scheme, can supervise the Public Health Ministry.

 

Critics foresee a repeat of the kind of conflict we saw when Pheu Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra clashed with Democrat governor of Bangkok Sukhumbhand Paribatra during the flood disaster of 2011. Of course, it may resemble a playground tussle at the beginning, but we can fine-tune constitutional and legal measures to iron out the negatives, while the positives remain abundant.

 

There will be fewer “nominees” in the Cabinet. The general election will stop being something parties try to win at all cost. The people will have the key ministers they deserve. Checks and balances will be even more rigorous. The public will be able to learn about real national issues during ministerial election campaigns. An elected education minister will better serve the public interest than would those placed in the post because the prime minister has nowhere else to put them. The spotlight on remaining Cabinet nominees will be more glaring.

 

If this is not a genuine “national” or “reconciliation” government, I don’t know what is. And it can’t be dubbed “undemocratic”, either. There will always be critics, of course, but if absolute democracy is the goal, what better than having the public choose who is in charge of their security, public health, education or tax spending? What better than making the people the real boss of those in charge of energy, or telecom or education policies?

 

Will it be redundant? This question stems from the belief that the prime minister has an electoral mandate to fill the Cabinet anyway he or she deems fit. To my thinking, that places too much on his or her shoulders, if indeed it’s not totally misguided empowerment. 

 

Sure, we would face a constitutional nightmare to begin with, when it would be necessary to redefine many things, including the scope of the prime minister’s power. The current political system would have to be upended. But what have we got to lose, really?

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/tulsathit/30319918

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-07-05

 

[JAG]

The most practical route?

Hold an election, under the terms of the 1997 constitution.

That will produce a freely elected government, broadly representative of the people's wishes

Allow the courts and other independent agencies, designed and intended to act as checks and balances as they were designed to.

Oh, and if you don't win, campaign, work and persuade the electorate to choose you next time.

[Samui Bodoh]

Something more practical? I would hate to see what the author believes in impractical!

 

Let me give an example. Say the PTP candidate got elected Finance minister and the Dem candidate got elected Agriculture minister. The Finance minister would allocate monies to agriculture development in the north, while the Dem minister would like to have monies for rubber farmers in the south. Who has responsibility?

 

Let's say that the PM wants money for flood prevention and the Defense minister wants money for submarines. Who has responsibility?

 

I could go on and on.

 

Government is (or at least should be) an exercise in teamwork and collective responsibility. If Ministers are elected separately, that whole concept goes out the window and no one is really responsible for anything.

 

And, at the end of the governments term, how do you judge success?

 

A bad idea.

 

[halloween]

I can agree that ministers should be elected MPs, decided by the governing party. The rest of the idea is rubbish.

But why not scrap the party list? If you are good enough to take a seat, you should be good enough to face the INDIVIDUAL scrutiny of an electorate. That leaves Chalerm out for a start. If there are too many MPs, scrapping the party list solves that problem without redrawing electoral boundaries.

And yes, I am aware the Democrats increased the number of party list MPs - so what.

[Smarter Than You]

54 minutes ago, halloween said:

I can agree that ministers should be elected MPs, decided by the governing party. The rest of the idea is rubbish.

But why not scrap the party list? If you are good enough to take a seat, you should be good enough to face the INDIVIDUAL scrutiny of an electorate. That leaves Chalerm out for a start. If there are too many MPs, scrapping the party list solves that problem without redrawing electoral boundaries.

And yes, I am aware the Democrats increased the number of party list MPs - so what.

So what?

So the scrapping of the party list system would result in more PTP MP's.

That's why there is party list and that is why Abhisit increased the number of party list MP's.

 

Central = 34.7% population and 39% party list seats

South = 15.8% population and 16.1% party seats

Total = 50.5% population in Democrat areas for 55.1% of party list seats

(Leaving the North with 49.5% of the population and have just 44.9% of party list seats)

 

Do you think the 16% of the population in the North getting a paltry 8.8% of the party list seats is just a coincidence or a subversion of democracy by the elites?

 

 

 

Figure 1 gives another view of the malapportionment in the party list. Two regions are slated to receive many more seats than their population would warrant—the Upper Central Region and the Lower Northeast. The North, by contrast, receives barely half of the seats one would expect given its population, and the Upper Northeast and Lower Central Regions are under-represented to a lesser degree. In the Upper Central region there is one party list seat for every 228,093 voters, while by contrast, there is one seat for every 580,206 Northern voters. This system means that voters in the Upper Central Region will, in effect, count as 2.5 times more valuable than their fellow citizens in the North.

 

If you want the party list system abolished you should be supporting PTP because they are the ones most likely to do it as an absence of the party list would leave a system that more evenly matches seats to population as shown below.

 

 

Why does the North get 41 constituency seats and only 18 party list seats?

 

You gotta start loving facts more than you hate Reds otherwise you'll continue to be wrong in every post.

 

BTW - if you think Charlem, or any other heavyweight from either party needs the party list system to get elected, you don't know much about politics.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Smarter Than You

[williamgeorgeallen]

just delay the elections for as long as possible then vote in yingluck or a clone if she is not allowed to run. then have a coup and do it again. why change a winning formula?

[Srikcir]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

it’s an extreme form of democracy. One man with many votes is surely fairer than one man with merely one vote.

Sorry, but that's not a description of any kind of democracy.

What Thailand has now is one man with 60 million votes who alone will decide the next electoral system for the Thai people. And whatever that system should be, it will ultimately be meaningless to Thais in controlling their own national sovereignty. But it will be crucial in preserving an unaccountable Thai military political strength.

[greenchair]

What we have after 4 years is a jumbled mess with no clear end in sight of how the elections will be run? 

When elections will be run? 

Which parliamentary system will be used? 

I just don't know why they are discussing pros and cons of the new system that they don't have sorted.