“Very often parties do not seem to offer a meaningful choice to the voters.”
Analyse the statement.
Answers
Explanation:
(i) Lack of internal democracy: The first challenge is lack of internal democracy within parties. Concentration of power in one or few leaders at the top.
(ii) Dynastic succession: Favour people close to them or even their family members. In many parties, the top positions are always controlled by members of one family.
(iii) Money and muscle power: The third challenge is about growing role of money and muscle power in parties, especially during elections.
(iv) Meaningful choice: The fourth challenge is that very often parties do not seem to offer a meaningful choice to the voters.
Answer:
In order to offer meaningful choice, parties must be significantly different. In recent years, there has been a decline in the ideological differences among parties in most parts of the world.
For example: The differences between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain is very little. They agree on more fundamental aspects but differ only in details on how policies are to be framed and implemented.
In our country too, the difference among all the major parties on the economic policies have reduced.
Those who want really different policies have no option available to them. Sometimes citizens who want to elect different leaders are left with no choice because the same set of leaders keep shifting from one party to another.