Within a week, we have witnessed two different versions of democracy. In Pakistan, the leadership of a “democratic” party is decided based on a will (wills, apparently, are not just for properties; or is a political party just family property?) and a 19-year-old youth alters his surname in order to nominally take charge. In a mid-western state in the US, two individuals without any inheritance (financial or otherwise), without any aristocratic connections, emerged as front-runners for the leadership of two of the oldest political parties in the oldest continuous constitutional republic in the world. I refer of course to the “surprising” emergence of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee.

If leaders of countries can be chosen by its members (that is, its citizens) why is it that the leaders of political parties are ‘nominated’ or literally inherit the mantle? Incidentally, the present system of primaries was not always there in the US. It is a twentieth-century innovation done expressly with the idea of reducing the power of party bosses and moneyed fixers. Political parties are not voluntary supporters of transparency and popular sovereignty in their own inner workings. They prefer secret deals behind closed doors. Open caucuses and well-monitored primary elections ensure that an unrepresentative elite does not gain control of parties which then has the insidious impact of the voters’ choices being severely curtailed — a choice between one cabal or another. While the system of primaries is not perfect (it is seen as too long, too gruelling, too expensive), it is definitely an improvement on the older system and it does give an opportunity for fresh leadership to emerge.

... contd.