The Sunday Post editorial has an interesting commentary on the costs of bye-elections following a recent defection by a certain PF MP to the ruling party.
Money that could be used to improve our health and education services, our road and rail network and other infrastructure is unnecessarily and unjustifiably being spent on by-elections. We are told that the cost for a parliamentary by-election cost the taxpayer between two and three billion kwacha.
It is certainly not being responsible for our politicians to jump from one party to another, causing unnecessary and unjustifiable by-elections that cost the taxpayer billions of kwacha.
There is need for us to try to understand why our multiparty political system has become a circus, a zoo where politicians are jumping from one party to the other with so much ease like monkeys jumping from one branch or tree to another. It is evident that our politics is not premised on any principles; our political parties have no clear outlooks or characteristics other than tribal, regional that truly define them.
I certainly agree that bye-elections are costly to society since they misallocate resources that could be usefully employed elsewhere. I question though where the K3bn figure comes from. But assuming that it is correct and actually represent a real cost to society, then we must ask the obvious question : how do we minimise the costs of potential bye-elections?
The answer certainly is not through the ‘dedicated fellow hypothesis’ as the Post Editorial intimates. The idea that somehow we can ‘hope’ for principled leaders to emerge in a realm full of poverty and inadequate institutions is perhaps outside the boundaries of natural logic. Parliamentarians like everyone else respond to incentives. The ‘monkey business’ suggested by the Post editorial happens because of weak incentives in our electoral system that does not penalise people who cross the floor for financial gain. We must therefore fix these weak incentives.
In fact I would go further by saying that any new solution must generate the following outcomes: - Dissuade MPs from switching sides just for personal financial gain.
- Minimise the possibility of punishing those who switch for genuine reasons and maximise the possibility of punishing those who switch for personal gain.
- Ensure that the people who elected the chap are not penalised – the emphasis is to ‘punish’ the wrong doers i.e. the chap who switches the party incorrectly not people who elected him!
So with these three outcomes in mind. What options do we have on the table? I can at least think of four options we could start to explore. I am not sure they all fulfill the three outcomes, but they represent a start - and may be out of these we can develop a better solution. So here you go:
Option 1: eliminate bye-elections completely in the event of defections – if someone defects the seat becomes vacant. That way the people directly ‘hunt’ the defector down. The fear of the mob should be enough incentive to dissuade individuals from switching sides without strong moral persuasion. So hopefully no one ever defects.
Option 2: eliminate bye-elections but this time round the seat remains with the Party. In this case, PF gets to keep the seat and choose whoever they like without going through the voting process.
Option 3: allow bye-elections but never let the chap who switches side ever contest the seat again. Unlike Option 1, where if the chap successfully avoided the mob anger he /she can contest again, with this option, the chap never gets to see the light of day in Parliament.
Option 4: allow bye-elections but never let the chap contest the seat again for the duration of that parliament.