By invitation: Dividing the spoils and spoiling the city

Normally, when a coalition government is formed, the public expects that the parties that are coming together will cooperate with each other to jointly decide the future of their jurisdiction. But what we find instead is that the parties that supposedly join hands in a coalition government are often at loggerheads with each other, sometimes even more so than they are with the opposition. Why is that? Why is a coalition so often about who gets to fight, rather than who gets to partner?

The answer is quite simple. Quite often, parties don't come together with a shared agenda in a coalition. Instead, they come together in a partnership to divide up the spoils of power. In such a situation, it is natural to fight over who should get a larger share of the pie. It is little more than a tug of war over money. That's what's been happening each year, in elections to the various positions in the city council. Thanks to an illogical voting system in which many others besides corporators are allowed to vote in elections to council posts, the ruling party has been able to gain power despite not having a majority in the BBMP. Those providing this support understand this fully, and are simply extracting their pound of flesh.

Each year, it is the same. Who will be Mayor? Who will be Deputy Mayor? Who will be Chairperson of each of the Standing Committees of the Council? And are there any other variables that can be thrown into the mix - perhaps positions in the Boards of various state government-owned corporations. This is the marketplace from which goods are divided up between different claimants. The only thing missing is governance.

There is a reason for all this. The public wants the councillors to do something other than what the law expects them to do. And in the process, a door has opened for maladministration.

Let us remember that councillors, in theory, are supposed to perform only an advisory function. That's why they are not paid a salary. Once or twice a month, they are supposed to come to Council meetings, discuss proposals put forward by the administration, and then indicate their preferences. After this, they are supposed to go back to their respective professions until the next Council meeting. That's how it is supposed to work.

In practice, however, things are very different. Corporators are much more inclined to present themselves in administration than in policy or advice. And in the face of weak governance, the public also expects councillors to assist them with getting things done, rather than leaving that to public officials. We are all, together, complicit in weakening the system.

In fact, this skew has now become so pronounced that even MLAs and MPs are expected to do things quite like what we expect from corporators. Legislation in the Assembly or Parliament has been left entirely to governments, while those elected as lawmakers busy themselves with responding to civic expectations from desperate voters.

What will bring this to an end? There are only two things I can think of. The first is that city leaders - Mayor and Deputy Mayor - must be directly elected by the voters, and not indirectly elected by corporators. And they should be free to choose their own heads of standing committees, much like a City Cabinet. That will fix authority and accountability in the same people.

The second is that citizens need to become more involved in the governance of the city. The participation of the public in its role will force other participants in governance too to adhere to their. Officials will focus on administration, while corporators focus on policy and legislators focus on law.

Of the two reforms, the first is harder to achieve, since it would need to be carried out by the very people who not benefit from the status quo. But we can create the second impact ourselves. If, despite our individual political preferences, can we, the public join hands to make things better in our respective communities? Can we propose solutions to problems around us, and can we work on new positive ideas? If this were to begin to happen, local governance would be much more like what it is supposed to be. Until then the bidding wars will continue.

The writer is an urban expert.