Goans deserve a corrupt administration, so please stop complaining
Practically every single day Herald e-Paper carries one or more articles and/or
an editorial and/or letters from readers complaining about corruption in Goa.
Goanet readers also regularly post comments on this topic. Since more than a
decade, an American colleague keeps telling me that the US is heading towards
ruin because Americans vote with their wallet. Goans do exactly the same. When
I ask people who complain to me about rampant corruption in Goa why they vote
over and over again for the persons they accuse of being corrupt, the most
frequent answer is “To mujem kam korta” (He gets my work done). This implies,
of course, that some illegal transaction of the voter gets legalised through
the intervention of the MLA concerned, possibly against a “fee” – a win-win
mutually beneficial situation. This could be e.g. the tarring of an approach
road on private property at the taypayer’s expense, obtaining a construction
permit for agricultural land, legalising a claim as sole proprietor of family
property that would otherwise legally need to be shared with other members of
the family who happen to be NRI’s and are unaware of what is going on (a
favourite Goan pastime), getting a government position for a totally
unqualified family member, etc. etc. This accounts for fifty percent of the
electorate. The other fifty percent of the electorate that abstains from voting
does so because the persons concerned have no personal gain or benefit that
they expect to derive. The so-called winnability of a candidate thus depends on
his or her “kam korunk” ability, a criterion that is intrinsically linked to
corruption.
Goans vote with their wallets for the person from whom they expect to obtain
maximum personal gain by whatever means, mostly illegal. Therefore, they
deserve the corrupt administration that they themselves have put in place in
democratic and fair elections. So Goans need to either change their paradigm or
put up with it but please stop complaining about it. As Joseph de Maistre aptly
stated in 1811, more than a century ago: "Every country has the government it
deserves” (“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite").
For those of you who really and sincerely envisage a change in paradigm, here
is an easy guide in tabular form. This guide is a draft (with emphasis on
draft) that needs to be completed/corrected/aligned, as an individual voter or
as a group, to each individual constituency. You can then cast your vote for
the candidate to whom you give the highest score. This is not a guarantee for a
clean administration but you will increase the probability in favour of one.
Good luck.
CONSTITUENCY: e.g. ALDONA
Performance / Position (P/P) (for sitting MLA’s); Expected Performance /
Position (for candidates w/o MLA experience) on the following:
Criteria
Weighting of criterion
(1: least important;
10: most important)
Candidate #1
Score
1: very poor performance;
10: excellent performance
(see examples below)
Total score per criterion for Candidate 1
Weighting multiplied by performance
Candidate #2
Score
1: very poor performance;
10: excellent performance
Total score per criterion for Candidate 2
Weighting multiplied by performance
Party Affiliation
Age
School or Academic
record
High qualifications: 10
School dropout: 1
Experience
Professional/
Public office
Criminal record (including charge sheets pending)
No charge sheets to date: 10
One or more charge sheets: 1
Development work done in constituency to date
Enormous amount:10
No dev. work: 1
P/P
Party hopping
P/P
Disproportionate
wealth
Normal middle class: 10
Suddenly extremely wealthy: 1
P/P
Power scam
P/P
Sports scam (e.g. fake tickets etc)
P/P
Environment
(e.g. hill-cutting)
P/P
Closeness to building lobby
P/P
Drug mafia affiliation
P/P
Sexual assault / promiscuity
P/P
Protection of criminals
P/P
Land grabbing
P/R
Civic behaviour (e.g. mob attacks)
P/P
Nepotism (promotes son/daughter/in-laws/cousins etc for public office)
P/P
Illegal Export of foreign currency
P/P
Mining scam
P/P
Buying votes e.g. with cash, gifts, jobs etc
P/P
Encouragement of Immigration for vote bank purposes
Other P/P
Other P/P
Other scams
Other criteria
Grand Total
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