Power of the people

Now that gives us hope. Those who know enough, knew it already that the incumbent mayor of Chittagong was going to win. The man did a good job during his past two terms, keeping a clean city, running a good administration and simply being adorable. The voters rewarded by sending him back to the office for the third time, despite the fact that they had snubbed his party in the national election.

That is the beauty of democracy. Keep the candidate separate from the party. But it is an ideal situation that doesn't always exist. The voters are constrained to give the majority to one particular party so that it can form the government. Look at George Bush's second term and Tony Blair's third term. People have sent even them back to office.

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Those are the countries where political and economic realities are different. A cow gets subsidy of USD2 per day in the United States and USD4 in Japan. I would assume that the cows in the UK must be hovering somewhere in between. In our part of the world, humans live on more or less USD1 per day. The Americans spend USD9 billion on cinema tickets every year, which is more than the annual budget of many poor countries.

Let us face it. If people live in affluence, it has an influence on how they think. Likewise, if they live in poverty, it also equally affects their judgments. Paul Collier and Anke Hoffler, two economists at Oxford University, have recently tied in all these through statistical analysis. They have showed that ordinary, resource-poor countries grow faster if they have elections. Quite a departure from the researchers until 1990s, who propounded that voting was bad for economic growth, contributing to the idea that dictators were better at imposing necessary austerity.

It is a paradigm shift. The same study shows that the opposite holds true in the oil-rich states. In countries where natural-resource profits come to a fifth of GDP, the switch from autocracy to electoral competition lowers the annual growth rate by a hefty 2.1 percentage points. In ordinary countries, where the state has limited cash at its disposal, the most efficient way to attract votes is to provide public goods: low inflation, rule of law, infrastructure that is carefully chosen to benefit the whole society.

Heartening to hear for the first time that poverty is bliss, that low income produces high outcome in the election years. It makes sense since the mayor of Chittagong has won the election. He delivered what the voters expected, good facilities of city life, clean roads, power supply, water supply, development projects and rule of law (excluding hostage-taking, which is a divisional rather than a municipal problem). It is obvious that the voters judged the man by his deed, not by his creed.

This is how elections ought to look, if money, muscle and manipulations were withdrawn. Here is the dichotomy between the politicians and the voters, one interested in how power is achieved, another interested in how power is exercised. Often voters have to choose between two evils. That is when elections bring compromise. Voters go with the flow, even though they don't know their candidates from a hole in the wall.

We all know how politicians descended upon Chittagong like locusts and how it was a fierce battle between the two political parties as each tried to prove that it held sway over the voters, and the city was nothing but its stronghold. We have seen how it was a battle within a battle, and the larger conflicts of national politics were force-fitted within the frame of a municipal showdown.

That is all the more reason why the glory goes to the people. They went above partisan interests and voted for clear judgment. The candidate has won in his own right, not for his political affiliation. He got it in the old-fashioned way: he earned it. How can you tell? He has been winning under three governments between two political parties, his own and its rival. He is popular in his job and he does it well. You would know it the moment you step on the soil of Chittagong.

If anything, that is surely the cornerstone of democracy. Let people choose their own government, be it at the city level or national. Many will always be ruled by a few and there is no exception to that rule, but democracy gives many a fair chance to choose which few will do that job. Democracy is the golden mean of political science, where the right to rule is balanced with the duty of power, making governments accountable to its people.

It has worked in Chittagong, and bet your jollies, it can also work in rest of the country. You don't have to topple your opponent or shoot him down. Just take your case to the people, and let the voters do it for you.

Politics is a high-wire act of human psychology, a crucible of vices and virtues where people often manipulate public opinion by dint of perfidy and pretension. But you don't have to be confrontational all the time, threatening to topple the government if your candidate doesn't win or calling for ouster of government when you are celebrating his victory. That is catch-22, and you are damned if you lose and you are damned if you win.

For many decades now, people have been losing in this country, while candidates have been winning elections. And if you think of it, thousand wins have produced no victory. Because people have been playing suckers to the candidates and the candidates have been playing suckers to their parties. It is a common sight these days when elderly party stalwarts walk behind young leaders like humble courtiers following their princes.

It is a sad, sad case. It is as also a shame that we have turned politics into an ingratiation business, all in the name of the leaders and their families, while people are like fronts for shady dealings. It works just like a Ponzi Scheme, which is basically a swindle in which a quick return on an initial investment paid out of funds from new investors lures the victim into bigger risks.

Think about it! Every time a party promises people to bring prosperity and wellbeing, it leaves them in more miseries than before, and then makes more promises to lure the voters to elect it again so that it can leave them in even more miseries. The election in Chittagong has been a breakaway from that vicious circle, for once in many years showing that politics can be a healthy business between contestants and their constituency.

Going back to Paul Collier and Anke Hoffler, a resource-poor country like ours will need elections to grow faster. And that faster growth will come even faster if people take those elections in their hands. First we need to ensure that politicians don't return to power unless they deliver on promises. Next step would be to hold them responsible for their mischief. The people in power will not behave unless they are showed what the power of people can do to them!

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.