What is Election?

Election is a process through which people choose their representative(s)

for running the affairs of the state (local or national) for a certain period.
Competitive elections endow office-holders with authority (contributing to
the effectiveness with which leaders can perform their duties), and facilitate
choice, accountability, dialogue, and legitimacy.
 The conventional view is that elections are a mechanism through which
politicians can be called to account and forced to introduce policies that
somehow reflect public opinion.
 Election demonstrates people’s power
 Without elections, there is no democracy.
 But, do all people vote or can they vote?
 The electorate does not generally include the entire population.
 Many countries prohibit the mentally incompetent from voting, and
 They also require a minimum age for voting.
Functions of elections
 Recruiting politicians
 In democratic states, elections are the principal source of political
recruitment.
 Making governments:
 Elections directly make governments only in states such as the USA,
France and Venezuela, in which the political executive is directly elected.
 In parliamentary systems, elections influence the formation of
governments, when the electoral system tends to give a single party a clear
parliamentary majority.
 Providing representation: When they are fair and competitive, elections
are a means through which demands are channeled from the public to the
government.
 Influencing policy: Elections certainly deter governments from pursuing
radical and deeply unpopular policies.
 Educating voters: The process of campaigning provides the electorate
with an abundance of information, about parties, candidates, policies, the
current government’s record, the political system and so on.
 Building legitimacy:
 One reason why even authoritarian regimes bother to hold elections,
even if they are non-competitive, is that elections help to foster legitimacy
by providing justification for a system of rule.
 Strengthening elites:
 Elections can also be a vehicle through which elites can manipulate and
control the masses.
Types of Electoral systems:
1. Single-member plurality (SMP) system
What it is and how it works:
 The country is divided into single-member constituencies, usually of
equal size.
 Voters select a single candidate, usually marking his or her name with a
cross on the ballot paper.
 The winning candidate needs only to achieve a plurality of votes (the ‘first
past the post’ rule).
 It awards a seat to the individual candidate who is ahead of others in
obtaining votes in the election.
 The wining candidate doesn’t have to get the majority votes. Since
he/she gets more votes than other individual candidates, he/she is declared
winner.
 Where it is practiced: The UK (House of Commons), the USA, Canada,
India and Bangladesh.
2. Majority or Second ballot system
 Features:
 There are single-candidate constituencies and single-choice voting, as in
the single-member plurality (SMP) system.
 To win on the first ballot, a candidate needs an overall majority of the
votes cast.
 If no candidate gains a first-ballot majority, a second, run-off ballot is held
between the leading two candidates.
 In the second round of voting, in some countries, only a select number of
candidates from the first round are allowed to participate.
 Used: Traditionally in France, but it is used for presidential elections in
countries such as Austria, Chile and Russia.
3. Proportional representation system Proportional representation is the
principle that parties should be represented in an assembly or parliament in
direct proportion to their overall electoral strength, their percentage of seats
equaling their percentage of votes.
 In this system, a party is awarded the same percentage of seats in
parliament as it gets votes at the polls. Thus, if a party won 40% of the vote
it would receive 40% of the seats.
 Systems of proportional representation have been adopted in many
countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Israel,
Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
POLITICAL CULTURE
What is Political Culture?
 Political culture is the orientation of the citizens of a country towards
politics.
 How people view and look at politics?
 Do they like or dislike?
 Do they participate or not?
 Civil or violent? Tolerant or intolerant?
 The political culture of a nation is shaped by its
 History,
 Tradition,
 Religion,
 Political process
 Economy and ecology.
 Political culture refers to those ideas, beliefs and values about a political
system which is acceptable to and shared by the majority of the people.
 Parochial Political Culture –
 Where citizens are only remotely aware of the presence of central
government, and live their lives near enough regardless of the decisions
taken by the state. They identify with the immediate locality.
 Subject Political Culture –
 Where citizens are aware of what government does, but they are passive
in regards to those decisions.
 Participant Political Culture –
 Where citizens are able to influence the government in various ways.
POLITICAL PARTIES:
What is a Political Party?
A political party is an organized group of people who share common views
on important political matters, contest the elections and try to implement
their views through the power of the government.
 According to Gilchrist, “a political party is an organized group of citizens
who profess to share the same political views and by acting as a political
unit try to control the government.”
 Similar views have been expressed by MacIver, Burke and others.
 Drawing people together who have similar political philosophies and
ideas.
 Grooming political leaders.
 Bridge between people and government
 Political socialization
 Aggregation of interests
 Parties contest elections and mobilize voters
 Organization of government
 Making laws
 Role of opposition
 Shaping public opinion Why do we need political parties?
 Let’s imagine a situation without parties.
 Military may intervene in politics.
 In case there is an election, every candidate will be independent. So no
one will be able to make any promises about major policy changes.
 The government may be formed, but it’s survival will remain ever
uncertain.
 Elected representative will be accountable to their constituency only.
They won’t think or care about the whole country.
 Large scale societies need representative democracy.
 As societies became large and complex, they also needed some agency
to gather different views on various issues and to present them to the
government.
 They needed some way to bring various representatives together so that
a responsible government could be formed.
Types of Part systems
 One-party system; Two-party system and Multi-party system
 A) One-party system: In some countries only one party is allowed to
control and run the government.
These are called one-party systems.
This cannot be a good option because this is not a democratic option. It’s
totalitarianism.
Any democratic system must allow at least two parties to compete in
elections and provide a fair chance for the competing parties to come to
power.
 B) Two-party system: In some countries, power usually changes between
two main parties. Such a party system is called two-party system. The
United States of America and the United Kingdom are examples of two-
party system.
 C) Multi-party system: If several parties compete for power, and more
than two parties have a reasonable chance of coming to power either on
their own strength or in alliance with others, we call it a multi-party system.
Thus in Bangladesh, we have a multi-party system.
 In this system, the government is formed by various parties coming
together in a coalition.
 Question:
“Should party competition be completely free or should certain limits be
imposed?”
 Party system is not something a country can choose. Why?
 Because it evolves over a long time, depending on the nature of society,
its social and regional divisions, its history of politics and its system of
elections. These cannot be changed very quickly.
 Each country develops a party system that is conditioned by its special
circumstances.
 For example, if Bangladesh has evolved a multi-party system, it is
because the societal and politically divergent views are not easily absorbed
by two or even three parties.

Challenges to political parties in Bangladesh

 1. Lack of Intra-Party Democracy:
 What is intra-party democracy?
 Intra-party democracy means that decisions of the party’s ideology,
policy, leadership, strategy etc. are not taken by one single person or a
small circle at the top of a party. Rather, intra-party democracy would
require some degree of involvement of and consultation with the party’s
rank-and-file members.
 Some indicators of intra-party democracy are:
 A) Frequent and open-ended internal elections as well as open selection
procedures for party officials and candidates for elected office.
 B). Basing advancement through leadership ranks and appointments on
rational rules and merit as opposed to favoritism, patronage, and nepotism.
 C). A fair number of party congresses and significant levels of
participation.
 D). an ability of the rank-and-file to set and influence the party program.
 E). A significant degree of decentralization of party organs.  But what
we observe in Bangladesh?
 There is a tendency in political parties toward the concentration of power
in one or few leaders at the top.
 Parties do not keep membership registers, do not hold organizational
meetings, and do not conduct internal elections regularly.
 Ordinary members of the party do not get sufficient information on what
happens inside the party.

 There are no systematic mechanisms to consult ordinary party members.

They do not have the means or the connections needed to influence the
decisions of the party.
 As a result the leaders assume greater power to make decisions in the
name of the party.
 Since one or few leaders exercise paramount power in the party, those
who disagree with the leadership find it difficult to continue in the party.
 More than loyalty to party principles and policies, personal loyalty to the
leader becomes more important.
 Article 70 of the Bangladesh Constitution also makes it difficult for an MP
to vote against his/her party’s line in the Parliament.
 Task: Is Democracy possible without intra-party democracy?
 2. Dynastic Succession: In many parties, the top positions are always
controlled by members of one family.
 This may appear to be unfair to other members of that party. This is also
bad for democracy, since people who do not have adequate experience
come to occupy positions of power.
 This is a debatable issue --Why.
 Examples ……..
 Task: Discuss pros and cons about dynastic succession of leadership in
a political party.
 3. Money and Muscle Power:
Since parties are focused only on winning elections, they tend to use short-
cuts to win elections. They tend to nominate those candidates who have or
can raise lots of money.
Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties tend to have
influence on the policies and decisions of the party.
In some cases, parties support or patronize criminals who can help win the
elections.
Task: Discuss the “criminalization of politics” and its impact.

SEPARATION POWERS AND CHECKS AND BALANCES

 The powers of the three branches of government are usually divided as
follows:
(a) The Legislative branch for law making,
(b) The Executive branch for law executing
(c) The Judicial branch for interpreting both laws and their applications.
 To prevent the concentration of power at any single branch, Montesquieu
suggested “Theory of separation of powers. “
 He wrote about this in his book “The Spirit of Laws” in 1748.
How does it work in America?
 The US Constitution establishes a system of separation of powers among
the three branches of government.
 The framers of the Constitution derived their ideas about the separation
of powers from the French philosopher Montesquieu, and they divided the
U.S. government into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
 Article I gives Congress the power to make the laws.
 Article II gives the president the power to enforce the laws.
 Article III gives the judiciary the power to interpret the laws.
 . Checks and Balances
 The framers did not make the boundaries between those branches
absolute. Instead, they created a system of checks and balances in which
each branch exercised some restraint on the power of the other.
 For instance; Congress has the power to pass laws, but the president
can veto those laws.
 The president can make treaties, but the Senate must approve them.
 Judges have life tenure to give them independence, but the president
and the Senate together select judges.
How does President Check the Congress and Judiciary in the United
States?
The Executive Branch is given the power to execute the laws. But it has the
following checks over the Legislative Branch:
 President can use his veto power
 President can call special sessions of Congress
 President can recommend new legislation
 Can appeal to the people concerning legislation and more The Executive
Branch has the following checks over the Judicial Branch:
 President appoints Supreme Court and other federal judges
How does the Congress Check the President and Judiciary?
The Congress is given the powers to make the laws. But it has also
following checks over the President (the Executive Branch):
 May override presidential vetoes with a two-thirds vote
 Has the power to refuse approving the budget submitted by the Executive
Branch
 May remove the president through impeachment
 Senate approves treaties
 Senate approves presidential appointments Question: How powerful is
American President? The Congress has the following checks over the
Judicial Branch:
 Creates lower courts

 May remove judges through impeachment

 Senate approves appointments of judges
How does the Judicial Branch Check the President and Congress?
The Judicial Branch is given the power to interpret the laws. But it has the
following checks over President:
 Judges, once appointed for life, are free from controls from the executive
branch
 Courts can judge executive actions to be unconstitutional through the
power of judicial review. The Judicial Branch has the following checks over
the Congress (Legislative Branch):
 Courts can judge legislative acts to be unc