CIVIL Society & Political People seeks people’s participation to be catalyst for change

Sept. 2, 2011 - PRLog -- CERI (Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India) and iCONGO  ( International confederation of NGOs) seek people’s participation in a campaign for bringing about electoral reforms and for promoting proportionate electoral system in India. This panel discussion will be held on 3rd Sep 2011 at Lok Kala Manch, New Delhi.
This panel discussion is being organized to discuss the need for Proportionate electoral system (PES) in the context of inclusive governance, minimizing corruption and violence, reducing communalism and casteism and also enhancing representation of all citizens through their vote. In the discussion, eminent people and experts including Mr Sanjay Kaul (Executive member of BJP), Shahid Siddiqui (MP in Rajya Sabha), Mr M C Raj (Co-founder of REDS and initiator of CERI), and Mr. Jeroninio Almeida (founder of iCONGO) would present their views. It also includes people from various forums like civil society activists, social scientist, MPs, Political party people and many others who have worked with the government system as well.
This panel discussion is being held as part of the series of meeting and community awareness campaigns that CERI and iCONGO have been organizing since Nov of 2008. Right from the inception of this campaign views have been shared by eminent think tanks of the country so that people get aware of this system and feel the need for electoral reform. These discussions seek participation from people of different arenas of the society so that the voice is heard, not just at the national level, but in the states as well.
We hope that PES becomes a reality in the next few years and various political parties, political pundits and citizens have accepted the idea and thought leadership as proposed by Dr. M. C . Raj.
A transparent governance system is the key to progress of any nation and for that we need people with the right leadership skills to be elected. So this is a call to everyone to come together and add momentum to the campaign under the umbrella of CERI says Mr. Jeroninio.
Mr. M C Raj says that proportionate electoral system campaign has a two-pronged agenda, on one hand it would give a chance for all citizens to elect their representatives to power without any wastage of votes, as it happens at present. And secondly it will enhance inner party democracy, as candidates of parties will be declared elected from this list in the same proportion as the percentage votes that a party or a coalition gains.  
The other Key Speakers would be  Mr Anant Trivedi (strategist), Mr Pramod Chawla (Marketing & corporate Planning expert), Gen Vinod Saighal (Rtd from army and author of many books on governance), Ms Sangeeta Tomar (headed women cell of National human rights commission),  etc.
About Proportionate Electoral Reform:
India is a country that follows a system in which a person who gets more votes than all others gets elected no matter whether it is a majority or not. Majority is understood as more votes than others and not more than half. And that is why corruption, violence, communalism and casteism keep increasing in Indian elections. A person’s chance to be elected as a MP is directly proportional to the amount of POWER the party has then be it muscle or money power.
Time has come when we the people of this country understand the meaning of Proportionate Electoral System. This is a system that is being adopted lately by most countries and the moment in history has come when we all should voice for it. In PR electoral system any party can gain seats only in proportion to the percentage of votes that it gains. There will not be any difference between the percentage of votes and the percentage of seats. Thus only parties with more percentage of voter support can come to power.  
In PR system majority means more than 50% of votes. The other votes are not wasted. They are re-allocated to other candidates in order to provide representation to all voters in the Assemblies and in the Parliament.  This system of voting also clearly will have a voice of minorities and weaker sections of the society. Political leaders are the voice of the people and can work as important catalysts for development of the people. So by having a Proportionate electoral system a good representation of citizens is anticipated and also a coalition among the political parties would enhance outcome.