The Association for Democratic Reforms on Tuesday released its analytical report on the assets the contesting candidates own and criminal cases that they are facing in various courts and it doesn’t make for pretty reading. The number of candidates with serious criminal cases has more than doubled and the number of candidates who own assets of Rs 10 crore or more has grown manifold.
While some amount of growth in the value of an asset is expected given that the market rates of immovable property keeps on rising as time goes by, the rate of increase of most of the winnable candidates has grown much faster than the common man in the state. As pointed out by the ADR 30% of the candidates contesting are worth more than Rs 5 crore with the richest -- Michael Lobo having assets valued at Rs 93 crore.
Such trends bring into question the role of political parties which are supposed to play the role of gatekeepers and as guardrails of our democracy. For democracy to survive political parties would need to take certain moral and ethical decisions, even if it means upsetting certain powerful interests. They wouldn’t mind the death of ethics and morals in public life provided they get their way.
Instead we are seeing a situation where political parties are being made to dance to the tune of the individual winnable candidate irrespective of his criminal record and record wealth she/he has amassed. Political parties have allowed themselves to be used as tools in the hands of unscrupulous individuals whose sole aim is to use power to amass even more wealth at the cost of the quality of life for the rest of Goa while appropriating commonly held wealth for personal gain. This is a trend that is across major political parties contesting elections in Goa.
There’s an even more worrying trend that has emerged from an analysis of the documents. It is apparent to anyone who bothers to read carefully the kind of discrepancies that emerge between the total value of the assets of the contesting candidates vis a vis the amount of income they are declaring in their income tax returns. Worse still, certain candidates have been found to have been blatantly falsifying affidavits claiming that they have less assets that they already own, misrepresenting the worth of their assets claiming that they are worth less than they actually are and other falsification.
They do it because more often than not, no authority has been holding the candidates to account for falsifying their affidavits giving them a free run to falsify the affidavit without any repercussions whatsoever.
If we are to save our democracy it has to begin by strengthening the institutions that make up our democracy including the statutory bodies who are expected to be keeping tabs on the unexplained wealth of individuals as well as taking matters to their logical conclusion if any discrepancy is noticed.
More than that, however, we need to strengthen the institution that is the political party in order that parties themselves which are a crucial part of the democratic process do not allow themselves to be misused by individuals who in turn go on to destroy institutions and democracy as we know it. Political parties play a crucial role as gatekeepers for democracy and if they do not play their part in all seriousness the day is not far when dictatorship enters the country via a candidate endorsed by a political party.
