• Thereafter, we should tilt the balance away from legislatures towards the executive;

• We should seek to secure accountability through institutions other than legislatures;

• In particular, we should strengthen the powers and role of the judiciary

The alternative

The two basic elements we need are: an effective — that is, a strong and competent — executive, especially at the Centre, and a continuing sense of belonging among the population at large, a feeling that the system of governance is responsive. For achieving these twin objectives, we should, on the one hand, weaken the link between the executive and the legislature, and on the other, strengthen the local government.

To ensure the first of these objectives, two features in the Constitution should be recast to provide:

• The head of the executive, the president, is directly elected

• He is free to select as his ministers persons from within or outside the legislature

The term of the president should be five years. A person should be able to be president for a maximum of two terms.

The president must be elected by more than 50 per cent of the electorate. As many candidates as are qualified for the presidency and want to contest may do so. In case one of them gets the votes of more than 50 per cent of the electorate, she or he becomes president. If no one does, the election is held again, as in France, within a fortnight, and only the two who have scored the highest number of votes are allowed to stand in the second round. (Were it not for the fact that many of our voters may find it difficult to indicate preferences, one way to ‘economise’ is to have not a second round but to make provision for it, so to say, in the first round itself. Instead of the second ballot, voters can be asked to indicate a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, preference against the name of each candidate. If in the 1st round of counting a candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the votes, she is declared elected. If not, the candidate polling the lowest number of 1st preferences is eliminated; the second preferences of the voters who voted for him are then assigned to the other candidates — till one of them gets more than 50 per cent.

... contd.