Our Correspondent
Kohima | May 4
Symbios Creations (P) Limited and NBCC CE core committee member L. Mongkum Jamir on Wednesday stated that civil societies have a vital role to play in monitoring the conduct of clean elections, adding that they should play the role of watchdog of compliance of various provisions of the electoral laws by the Election Commission, candidates and political parties.
In his speech read out at the State Level Seminar on Clean Election organized by Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) here Wednesday, Jamir stated that the first and the most basic role of civil society is to limit and control the power of the state. It also needs to find ways to check, monitor, and restrain the power of political leaders and state officials about any abuse of power during and after election.
This requires a broad coalition of organizations, unconnected to political parties or candidates, that deploys neutral monitors at all the different polling stations to ensure that the clean election campaign, voting and vote counting is entirely free, fair, peaceful and transparent.
“It is very hard to have credible and fair elections in a new democracy unless civil society groups play this role,” Jamir stated and urged civil societies to check and monitor incessantly, and immediately draw attention of concerned authorities on pitfalls and shortcoming during election campaign, voting and vote count.
Pointing to the need for civil societies to promote political participation, he stated, “Civil society can do this by educating people about their rights and obligations as democratic citizens, and encouraging them to listen to election campaigns and vote in elections. Civil society can also help develop citizens’ skills to work with one another to solve common problems, to debate public issues, and express their views.
Civil society organizations can help to develop the other values of democratic life: tolerance, moderation, compromise, and respect for opposing points of view, he added.
“Without this deeper culture of accommodation, democracy cannot be stable. These values cannot simply be taught; they must also be experienced through practice, these should be cultivated through various programs that practice participation and debate.”
Jamir further insisted that containing the influence of money and muscle power is an important issue towards holding free and fair elections and inducing honest and dedicated people to seek nominations.
Viewing that the development of information technology has allowed ordinary citizens to participate more easily in public debate, he advocated the use of various media and insisted that it will greatly enhance the effectiveness of civil society for clean election.
Also speaking at the seminar, Rev. Dr. V. Atsi Dolie, Executive Director ABCC said that clean election campaign aims at educating voters to abide by the code of conduct and guidelines of Election Commission framed for common good. “Taking away the rights of others by capturing booths or personating someone is sin,” he said.
Stating that our Naga society is filled with hatred, discrimination, corruption, injustice, tribalism, khel-ism, clan-ism, nepotism, escapism, and immorality, he said “In the context of all these sufficient problems, the church is expected to do what it can in cleaning up the recurring election mess and evils.”
“Our society is not just deteriorating requiring a stop to it, it is also evidently dark and needs light,” he said.
Rev. Dolie viewed that the Church has two dangers in its way – it can conveniently shy away from social challenges or thoughtlessly drown in the problems. Therefore, the church must rely on the prompting of the Holy Spirit in areas needing its involvement, and refrain from treading where it should not.
“At any cost, the means of achieving the desired goal – a cleaner election – should be clean and non violent!” he said. He added that the Church in Nagaland has always been a great contributor towards transformation of the society, and this must be our ongoing story.
