Sunday, 15 June 2014
Washington has been rocked this week
by the unexpected news of the defeat of Eric Cantor who was seeking
re-election to a Congressional District in the suburbs of Richmond,
Virginia. Eric Cantor is no ordinary member of the Republican Party. He
is the Majority Leader in the House, the “heir apparent” to be next
Speaker, a position of tremendous political power in the country. Eric
Cantor, over and above all these, has represented the Congress seat from
Virginia for 7 times in the past and would have gone to the House of
Representative for an eighth time!
Eric Cantor was so confident of his victory that he spent the day of the
election taking care of his legislative business as the Leader of the
majority party in the House instead of any worries about the outcome of
the election. He is a key Congressman in two major issues before the
Republican Party and the Congress as the country heads towards elections
for the Congress later in the year that also will have a major impact
on the presidential election to take place in the end of 2016.
Paul
Kane, writing the headline story in The Washington Post on June 11,
2014, stated that Eric Cantor “was considered the necessary linchpin in
any possible breakthrough on a number of difficult issues facing
Congress, from an overhaul of immigration policy to fiscal and tax
reform. “ With Eric Cantor now out, Speaker John A Boehner who after an
initial period of difficulties found in Eric Cantor a “loyal deputy”,
will now find himself in a difficult situation in dealing with the
Democrats on the tough issues related to fiscal, tax and immigration
reforms. He will be under increasing pressure from the Tea Party members
of the party as the gather force to derail the possibilities of
compromise on these issues. Without compromise on these issues, the
Republican Party would no doubt please the Tea Party members and their
extreme conservative followers but could end up losing nationally as the
country gears towards elections to the House of Representatives later
this year. The fall of Eric Cantor did not just end the career of a
politician almost without warning when he was on course to reaching the
top. It has brought out into the open a host of other possibilities
about US politics that are not just matters of concern for the
Republican Party but for the country. One of course is that fact that it
will put at jeopardy a possible compromise between the Republicans and
the Democrats on “ an overhaul of immigration policy to fiscal and tax
reform.”
Eric Cantor lost to a Tea Party candidate, David Bratt, a
Professor who was not considered a serious challenger as he was not well
known and his campaign was underfunded. His candidature received a last
moment shot in the arm that took him ahead to take the primary with 55%
of the votes after Eric Cantor made comments about the pending
immigration bill just days before the primary election. Talking to a CBS
affiliate in the US city of Richmond, the House Majority Leader had
advocated citizenship for the children brought to the country illegally.
That was enough to swing the voters as David Brat accused the
Congressman of supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants, a highly
sensitive issue among the conservatives. Eric Cantor’s defeat has also
been attributed to the fact that he has been too busy with national
issues and issues of the Republican Party and has lost his touch with
his district.
Readers may keep in mind the fact that the election
that Eric Cantor has lost is what in US politics is known as the
primary. He is still a member of the Congress and will remain so till
the elections to the 435 seats of the Congress are held in November.
The primary is a system unique in US and some western democracies that
narrows down candidates of the parties for the main election. It also
transfers the power of nominating candidates for national elections from
the party leaders to the people.
The political parties do not
choose the candidates who contest in national elections, to the Congress
and White House, in the United States. The candidates choose
themselves by contesting in the primaries. These primaries are conducted
at the grassroots without the direct interference or influence of the
party leaders at the top level. The primaries also underline the way
democracy as reflection of people’s power works in both these parties.
Any member of the party can nominate himself/herself and contest in the
primaries. There is no limit to how many members can participate in any
one constituency in the primary. The candidate who wins the primary wins
the nomination of the party.
The party does not choose on its own
even the candidate it nominates for the presidential election.
Any
ordinary member of either party can declare himself/herself to become a
candidate for election to become the President of the United States.
He/she must do so by declaring his/her candidature at the primaries. For
the presidential election, the two parties have a fixed number of
primaries and the candidate that takes the majority of electoral votes
in these primaries is the candidate that the party must nominate as its
choice for the presidential election. This is why it was possible for
someone like Jimmy Carter in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1992 to become
presidential candidates although at the top level of the two parties,
both the former Presidents were practically unknown political figures
when they were nominated. Likewise, the candidate who just ended the
promising career of Eric Cantor is a political unknown in the top level
of the Republican Party. Yet he won the right to become the candidate of
the Republican Party from Virginia seat defeating the candidate who is
one of the top political leaders of the country.
In Bangladesh, the
system we have is in direct contrast to the system at work in the United
States. All political parties, and in particular the mainstream ones,
consider it almost their God ordained right to nominate candidates for
national elections at the top level of the party. The party supporters
at the grassroots have simply no influence or input in choosing the
candidate in their constituency for the parliamentary election.That
is not all. The mainstream parties have meanwhile transformed their God
ordained right to nominate candidates to all the constituencies as a
very lucrative business and fund raising opportunity as candidates offer
mind boggling sums for receiving party nominations. This system has
also allowed individuals with money, both legal earned through business
and illegally, to become members of parliament for they have the money
to buy their nominations. This is also one reason why the country’s
politics is so corrupt.
In the United States, the system of primaries
emerged out of the progressive movement that began in the early part of
the last century. The movement called progressiveness is still evolving.
It helps bring issues into politics that people want because the
primaries allow them to send to the elected offices those they choose.
Perhaps it is time for such a movement to begin in Bangladesh. Perhaps
such a movement that could bring primaries to Bangladesh could be the
answer to the current ills of the country’s politics that is taking the
country towards great uncertainty.
The writer is a former career Ambassador. His email id is
ambserajulislam@gmail.com
ambserajulislam@gmail.com
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