Democracies do not just thrive by ensuring elections at regular intervals. It is about the institutional processes that ensure equal right to participate in an electoral contestation. It is equally important how choices are being influenced by power and money and the negotiation between voters and their representatives. If the model is to use cash for votes and then elected representatives also shamelessly betray a political party for cash — it is essentially a process that undermines the essence of democracy. Hence, voters can be mobilised by cash, and cash can also buy political leaders for mobilising support in favour of the ruling party. Cash brings together the winner and the loser on the same side! This is simply a mockery of democracy when political decisions of legislators have no commitment to their electorate. Doctors, engineers, plumbers, lawyers, workers, homemakers, businessman literate or illiterate anyone can be elected, but s/he is not elected because of the profession or the degree s/he attained or didn’t attain. It is only because the voters elected the person as their representative with a pre-defined purpose and promise. Changing sides after being elected is not only unethical but the worst form of corruption where one sells the trust of voters.

The commodification of both voters and politicians ultimately results in an unethical political market where voters are bribed, politicians are bought and that creates further justification for dependence on cronies and systematic corruption. The outcome of political choice gets distorted because there is complete asymmetry in information. Voters vote for a party and the candidate after winning joins a different party which might be a close ally to the one the electorate intended to defeat. In other words, one doesn’t know what the stance of the candidate would be after being elected. From a utilitarian perspective if we consider electoral democracy as similar to a market where voters maximise their utilities by expressing their choice as they do in a market for goods and services, then defection should be countered by the right to recall. For instance, if one buys a product from the market, there is an expectation of what that product would be and that in so many ways is mentioned in the labels and descriptions which share information about the product. If the buyer finds the product as something different from what was been stated in its description, the buyer has the right to return the product to the seller. But why are such provisions not in place for voters if a politician who is elected based on a stated goal joins a different party or a combination which was not disclosed before the election. It is evident how anti-defection laws are being manipulated, parties are being broken and legislators shamelessly cross sides to defend their power, position and ill-gotten money. But who loses in this process? It is the common people who are offered a sense of equality only on the voting line once in five years and even the outcome of that limited political choice eventually gets robbed.

Betrayal as Rational

The vitiating atmosphere of a cash driven electoral process has a snowballing impact and creates its own justification. To win, politicians must spend money to bribe the voters. This can be done by ruling parties by declaring schemes and transferring cash just before the election by violating electoral norms and guidelines, or only the rich parties can spend lots of money mobilised from the corporates who invest on these parties for political payoffs. The institutionalised structure of using corporate money to buy voters was actualised through electoral bonds. The Left opposed this and electoral bonds were declared illegal. But the system finds its ways and means to serve the same purpose. Spend money from your pocket and win elections by paying cash or in kind to voters and then realise several times of the initial amount by extortion from the same voters or loot public money through corrupt practices from government projects. Some parties operationalise the quid-pro-quo at the micro level by building a nexus with local contractors, government officers, police and so on and for others it happens at a higher order where big corporates offer large kickbacks to parties in power for potential favours.

Many regional parties belong to the former category while most of the national parties compete for the higher order of transactions depending on big corporates and MNCs. The problem is not that access to money is highly unequal, which implicitly exists in capitalist democracy in any case because the outer limit of the flexibility of the process is restricted to ensuring protection of property rights and accumulation of profit. Hence parties that serve the interests of the corporates and the rich would generally have more resources compared to those who fight for the poor and the working class. But the additional danger is power that flows in exchange of cash also weakens the voice of the voter who carries the sense that payment has already been made for their political support. Hence the voter has hardly any say over what happens next. The elected representatives tend to believe that there is no reason why s/he should have a commitment to voters and the promises and politics based on which s/he was elected. The deal was completed during the elections and the representative has no dues to the voters. They cannot claim further commitment to any proclaimed purpose. Rather the rational choice would be to find ways of realising the money spent and build resources for future. In other words, betrayal and corruption gets legitimised as a rational move. The increasing influence of money in electoral democracy weakens the ability of the poor and the working people in exercising some bit of control over the powerful and the rich.

Weakening Electoral Democracy

Bourgeois democracy is an advancement over the feudal system because it constitutionally recognises equal rights in political participation, which the latter restricted to the few rich. At least once in five years in the voting line, all Indian citizens have equal rights to influence the political outcome. But the real asymmetry in access to wealth and power exists and that is being used to distort the limited equal access to political voice. Democracy continues to remain alive not only by holding elections at regular intervals but by keeping the institutions alive that are designed to put a control over the powerful and rich in influencing political outcomes. Judiciary, bureaucracy, election commission, independent media, public protest and parliamentary debates are important institutions that make electoral democracy meaningful. Compromising the autonomy of these institutions would allow the powerful and the rich to distort political outcomes in their favour and exclude the voice of the powerless and the poor from the electoral process.

Right-wing politics believes that hierarchies based on income, wealth, religion, caste, gender are necessary in maintaining the balance within society; hence their politics is to protect and reproduce these entrenched asymmetries. Liberal democracy acknowledges equal rights for individuals but does not challenge the unequal ownership of property that creates real obstacles in realising equal political rights. But even this limited equality of right to influence political outcomes has been attained through long struggles of the working people and the oppressed class. Right-wing fascistic politics tries to undermine this limited equality in different ways. It enfeebles democratic institutions and cultivates the culture of submission to power. It tries to build a conformist mass psyche which lead to a gradual loss of the power and motivation to question. Rules and norms are essentially being replaced by a mobilisation in favour of the ruler from which the ruler draws legitimacy. It tries to legitimise all means in attaining and sustaining political power. Hence destroying opposition by breaking political parties, buying opposition legislators, silencing independent media, controlling judiciary, election commission and so on is nothing but the charted path towards fascism. Free exchange of politicians between ruling and opposition parties in different states including members of parliament reduces trust on electoral democracy. Weakening and lampooning the opposition and making the genuine voice of the poor and the working people invisible and unheard is the art of fascist politics that furthers the cause of establishing the absolute authority of finance capital. Therefore, bringing together all Left and democratic forces against the right-wing onslaught is necessary to protect the democratic voice of the working people.