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Local Governance through Community Involvement (LGCI) Electing Good Councillors A workbook for Voters and Candidates v1.0 Coordinated by Sanjay Bhargava (sanjaybhargava@yahoo.com) Introduction & Contents
A lot of people in India believe that
A Councillor is not very important Less than 10% of councillors are honest Less than 10% of councillors provide good governance Why should we vote when all are bad?
Years from now, what sort of a country would you like your children and grandchildren to live in? Would you like them to live in a country like Somalia and Congo or would you like them to live in a rich, vibrant and fair society like Switzerland or Japan? Thats one question we need to ask ourselves. The second question --- Is our current system of governance taking us in the Congo or the Switzerland direction. For more on this and to focus on the true villain in this 60+ year movie that is India read http://www.scribd.com/doc/75364458/Reforming-the-Power-Behind-theThrone. Electing Good Councillors is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good governance. I had the good fortune of observing a political party Lok Satta fight elections in Mumbai and PNS (a group of 20 NGOs) fight elections in Pune. Both were trying to use people power to defeat the politics of money and muscle. Having observed these I felt that preparing this workbook may help in getting good councillors elected in Delhi in MCD elections to be held on Wednesday, April 4th 2012. I do not have a liberal arts background and my interest in politics is very recent so this by no means a definitive workbook. I hope that the collaborative efforts by
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4. Are monthly performance reports important and how can you measure performance? 5. Should a community consider performance incentives? 6. What are the characteristics of a good councillor?
7. How can voters get information on candidates and their capabilities?
8. How can you help a good person get elected and why should you? 9. Which are the most common voter mistakes?
10. How can a councillor transform a ward through community involvement with
some use cases? 11. What are some tips which will help me vote easily? For Candidates 1. Why do you want to stand? 2. What are the characteristics of a good candidate? 3. How do you get a ticket or the independent option? 4. What do you need to learn about MCD? 5. What do you need to learn about election rules? 6. What data do you need to collect about your ward? 7. What data do you need to collect about your voters?
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11. Why should you resist inducements to step down? 12. What are Dos and Donts for non traditional campaigning?
13. What to do in the Last 10 days before campaigning ends?
14. What to do on Election Day? 15. What to do if you lose? 16. What to do if you win?
I would love to hand this workbook over to anyone who wants to take it over. I need no attribution, no credit. If India improves and I can play a small part that is reward enough.
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4. Are monthly performance reports important and how can you measure performance?
Monthly performance reports are important if they do not contain ridiculous stuff like I attended so many mundans, weddings, cut so many ribbons, had 100% attendance in council meetings and asked six questions. By the way I also cut six ribbons. Monthly reports on progress on MeTROs like on July 31 the defecators went up to 2645 because of migration into the area would focus attention on curbing migration and so on. It is possible to get a score for councillor performance across his ward by using reporting blocks and elements. For people who are not interested in the mechanics do not click this link http://www.scribd.com/doc/70141935/SelfReporting-Manual. Just assume it can be done. Once you have base score you can set a target and as long as the measurement is independent and cannot be fudged you can track performance.
Lets do it! Delhi 272 which is a citizens movement (not an NGO so cannot take or pay money) is giving all candidates an option to sign a tough accountability pledge and will maintain a dashboard and an IVR. This movement is recommending that voters choose from candidates who have signed the pledge. There will also be sponsored events where candidates who have signed the pledges will be able to speak at a moderated debate so that interested voters can choose the best among the candidates who have signed the pledge. The state election commission has a guide for voters. See
http://ceodelhi.gov.in/WriteReadData/Voters/A%20guide%20for%20voters.pdf.
Section 8.2 says that anyone can see the affidavits of all contesting candidates. Lets do it! Delhi 272 will try and make it easy for voters to get information on candidates. This guide also has detail on what you can do if someone else has cast a vote in your name and how you can vote for no one 49-O. 49-O sounds nice but it is like one of those eyewash things where you feel good but nothing much happens.
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9. Which are the most common voter mistakes? a. The Biryani and Sharab Mistake
One days happiness and five years hangover makes this a bad deal. The best thing is to take illegal inducements offered and then to vote as you choose. If fear is the problem see next section
These goons are like the Monkey Master and the minute the voters know that they need not fear intimidation whoever gets elected because organized youth in large numbers will come to their defence then this intimidation will go away. The very polling data that is available to goons is available to organized youth and if there is a number to call and many youth show up then the fear factor will disappear.
can a councillor transform a ward through community involvement with some use cases?
Lets do it! Delhi has been working on Ward 103 as an advisor to the councillor. A plan has now been drawn to get volunteer advisors and monitors from the community who will follow a code of conduct (no personal matters) and put in atleast ten hours per week. Those who serve well will be rewarded with their names being put up on a roll of honour. Youth would get certificates and could be promoted in the youth army that helps the councillor. This is still to take firm root in Ward 103 but people are beginning to understand the power of community involvement. Lets see some actual use cases
a. Biodegradeable garbage
See www.mericity.in to see how real outcomes were achieved in Punjabi Bagh and are being replicated across Delhi
b. Area inspections
The councillor and advisors created area teams to inspect problems in areas that needed rectification in a sustainable manner. One of the outcomes is that after an area is cleaned circulars are sent on how to dispose green waste and Malba. Violators are going to be fined. While the fines are low the inconvenience of fines are high. The idea of being strict on fines has widespread community support. This is still being rolled out so we have to see how well it works
d. Community Toilets
The logical thought was that if self reporting could fix biodegradeable garbage then it should be able to fix toilets as well. However, on reading the contract we
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e. Revenue
A councillor who raises revenue collected from the ward may or may not be popular but a good councillor and a good community must think of this. Should advertising tax which has not be raised since 1952 be raised. Should people have to pay for use of public land for parking or storing construction material? Communities have a choice. If they pay for a bullock cart they cannot get a Nano. The other problem is that if revenue collected increases it goes into a central pool and most of it vanishes due to corruption. This has to be fixed so that communities have an incentive to raise ward revenue
f. Parking Utopia
This ward has a stadium that was never built. Some of that land could be used to build a huge puzzle parking system with shuttles. If this is done parking rates on colony roads could be very high and the colony roads could be mostly free of parked cars. Financing this could be not that hard with the city, corporates (advt, naming rights) and a bond issue subscribed by residents (secured by parking fees and the puzzle parking structure). A retired investment banker living in Punjabi Bagh could put this together or it could be professionally done.
11. What are some tips which will help me vote easily?
If you have a voter ID card you still must find out your polling booth, which EP (electoral part) you are listed in and your serial number in that EP. You can do that by going to http://ceodelhi.gov.in/OnlineErms/ElectorSearch.aspx Assembly constituency (AC) 43 Part no. 84 Serial number 381 Section no. 2 Address B-x/xx, BLOCK- B NAVKETAN G/H SOCIETY KALU SARAI xxxxx KAPUR Husband xxxx LAL 74 Female Voter ID : BVXxxxx.
You will need to know where your polling booth is. Normally candidates will provide you this information but you can also do this online. In the above case by going to http://ceodelhi.gov.in/ConstituentyDetail.aspx?ac_no=43&Ac_Name=MALVIYA %20NAGAR and then finding Navketan and clicking on http://ceodelhi.gov.in/WriteReadData/AssemblyConstituency/AC43/A0430084.pdf
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Lets do it! Delhi as part of its get out the vote campaign will try and make it easy for you to vote including maybe having volunteers who will give you a lift should you need one ( as long it is allowed by EC)
SO NOW IF YOU ARE ON THE ELECTORAL ROLL YOU HAVE NO REASON NOT TO VOTE!!!!
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If you want to make a difference in your ward and/or build a political career then these are excellent reasons to stand. An honest political career gives you many networking opportunities that can lead to legitimate monetary benefits.
The higher you go in politics the more difficult it becomes to stay clean and one person I know decided not to contest a mayor race because it would be difficult for her to remain clean and if she did become corrupt the sins would be to her account and her children would benefit. She did not think this made any sense. Fortunately this is also changing.
Winning your campaign is like doing the Mount Everest Base Camp trek. It is hard and it needs preparation. It is quite unlikely that you will win with all the odds against you unless you ,your volunteers and fundraisers put in a lot of effort and work on the right things. For you personally it would be very wise in the last 40 days of your campaign to put in 16 hours a day seven days a week and have no distractions social or otherwise. If your brother gets married during this period you make a token appearance of two hours and get back to work. If you were a jawan in the army fighting on the border could you come back to attend a family function ? Even with this level of effort of 640 hrs if you have 40000 voters you have 1 minute per voter so you need to build a team. You cannot do it yourself and your team members need to be well briefed but then be able to work on their own
If you are honest and you get elected by spending none of you own money and you can put in say 20- 30 hours per week, get good advisors etc then you can fulfil your pledge to the ward. You will get paltry allowances as a councillor which unless you do not need an income will make it tough to make ends meet. If you are able to convince your community to give you performance incentives then you can become
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Confident
A successful candidate has the confidence of knowing that they are the best person for the job and are not afraid to explain why. A candidate may occasionally feel nervous but swallows that nervous energy and makes that work to their advantage. A successful candidate is not over confident and does not underestimate their opponents
Authentic
Voters connect with people who speak from the heart on things that really matter to them. If you talk of esoteric things or make tall promises they will see through this. Talk on issues that really matter and show you will solve them
Truthful
There is no harm in admitting that you do not know something and will find out and revert. Some problems are very difficult to solve and you can only try your best to solve them..
Punctual
It is better to be few minutes early rather than late. If you keep your audience waiting you are already breaking promises. It is the job of your campaign team to keep you on schedule.
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Well Groomed
Your public appearance must constitute professionalism at all times. These days wearing Khadi may not be such a good thing. At the same time being over dressed is not a good thing either.
Informed
Knowledge about MCD, your ward, problems of all sections and how you plan to fix them will be important in convincing people to vote for you. Be open to listening and learning. Use local examples. Know the most common reasons people of different classes will not vote for you and try to convince them to switch. A few common things independents and small party candidates should keep in mind a. My vote will be wasted. You will not win Your vote is wasted if the candidate who wins does a poor job. If you think I will do a good job then you should vote for me and convince others to vote for me so I will win. b. Hindu must vote BJP, Muslim must vote Cong Some people feel that if they vote for a good independent and not as above then Cong or BJP may win which would be bad. Some Muslims feel that let anyone win but not BJP so fearing a BJP win they vote for the one who is most likely to defeat BJP. The counter to this is to show you have strength at some point in your campaign and to also point out in areas where BJP has won have Muslims had a terrible time or in areas where Cong has won has it been great for Muslims. In short do not vote based on religion, caste etc. Vote for the best person who will deliver results c. Countering Muscle In the slums people may not vote out of fear. To counter this the text from Section 10 of the workbook for voters is repeated here It is very instructive to read the Monkey Master Fable (Page 17) in this handbook which served as a guide for Arab Spring
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf. 13 | P a g e
Fundraiser
If a candidate cannot raise money then they should consider doing something else. Some spend their own money but the key skill of convincing others is important. Barack Obamas grassroots campaign is famous but we have a homegrown example. Bhairu from Pune Siad he was honest and doing shramdan and the community should support him as they support monks by doing Dhan dan . They could give as little as Rs 7/- ( Saat deke Sath do). Most people gave him more than Rs 7 and also it helped him get his message across. ( Need to update this with more facts from Bhairu if he is willing to share and it would be interesting to see if he won). The legal limit for spending was raised to 5 lacs in Mumbai. We have to determine what this is for Delhi. Raising money from voters is very difficult in India but hopefully some people will succeed. In my view you do need to spend some money to win an election.
The act itself is quite tough to read. It is 177 pages long but the candidates must know the basics. To make this section effective we will try and work with people who have served as councillors to make a primer that every candidate should know. The website of MCD is http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/. These are the 33 departments of MCD
http://www.mcdonline.gov.in/deptdetail.php?id=5
find details of the various committees, offices etc. A lot of this will change with the trifurcation of MCD. The engineers, sanitary superintendents, sanitation workers have a dotted line relationship to the councillor though they report to the DC of the zone. There are 12 zones. The councillor as the elected representative of the people has vast derived powers which can be used to favour people or in a positive way. We would like to get definitive details of funds available to councillors, allowance etc and how the budget of MCD works . On the web this is what I found
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We will try and make this section more useful in future versions.
This is likely to be enforced around March 4th and then the chronology will be clear. It is good to know the rules and not violate them but for a small party or independent person worrying about violations by the big guys may be not very useful. Leave that to the other big parties, election observers etc. We are trying to find out spending limit, deposit amount and how you have to submit paperwork to SEC. Once we have this we will update.
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What data do you need to collect about your ward and your competition?
Screening yourself or parties screening prospective candidates is very important. Here is how you can find out if you have what it takes to win. The first step is to use a simpler version of the self reporting manual http://www.scribd.com/doc/70141935/Self-Reporting-Manual . Figure out the reporting blocks in your ward and the elements you want to track. Set up the reporting scales and then get a score for your ward. If you prepare a good document on the as is state of your ward then you can use it in your campaign. To show how you will fix things choose one issue that will resonate with each major segment of your voters and on that see how you will fix it. Document that as a case study. Again this could be used in your campaign. A lot of your voters are poor. Study schemes for them. Two major central govt schemes are RSBY (Rashtriya Bima Yojana) and Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojna (SJSRY). See http://www.missionconvergence.org/implementationsupport.html and there are various State govt. Schemes which can be found on
http://www.missionconvergence.org/convergence-support.html.
As the prospective PM of your ward you have to see that these schemes reach people in your ward. None of the major parties will raise a hue and cry if there are problem with these schemes. The ruling party will tell the councillor to keep quiet if they are from the party and unfortunately the opposition will do the same as they are all profiting from the leakages. If you win you can also enable NGOs that work on health, education, literacy etc to work on your ward. Once you have identified problems you can connect with good
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The pledge could be one way of putting competition in two buckets pledged and non pledged and then among pledged you have to find a way of showing you are best among pledged. Lets do it! Delhi 272 will try its best to organize pledge awareness in a major way in print, radio, TV
You have to first find your assembly constituency in which your ward is located. Once you do that you then have to find all the PDFs of all the electoral parts in your ward which will be a subset of the electoral parts of the assembly constituency. You can also make a summary excel sheet of all the electoral parts and polling booths. The summary for Ward 165, Vasant Vihar is here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82098041/Ward-165
Once you know your electoral parts choose a diverse 40% to start understanding your voters and see if you can get atleast 50 people from these diverse parts that will vote for you and donate time and/or money to help you win. In one electoral part refine your process of convincing, voters, raising money etc and then extend it to others. You may have to customise a bit depending on income levels of your voters. The work you have done in knowing your ward should help you in convincing voters
3-5 MeTROs
Within 100 days of being elected I will build a team of voluntary advisors from all sections of my ward who will serve as my cabinet and together with them we will publish an annual plan with 3-5 MeTROs measurable timebound real outcomes. We will work on other things as well but I will publish a monthly report by the 7th of following month giving the status of the MeTROs at the end of the month.
Pledge Enforcement
I recognize that many may think that enforcing this pledge may be difficult but I think the youth of the country are powerful enough to find creative ways of enforcing this pledge.
Please Vote & Vote for a person who has signed the pledge
I hope to convince you I am the best and earn your vote. If you do not vote for me please do vote but vote for an opponent who has signed the pledge.
Signed
Date:
Witness 1 Witness 2
12. What are Dos and Donts for non traditional campaigning?
Read http://www.scribd.com/doc/82142926/Winning-Candidate. You cannot beat Goliath by traditional methods and you have very little money to spend. Lets assume limit is 5 lacs, you have to reach 40000 voters. If you have 10 fund raisers who are passionate about making you win then each needs to reach 800 voters and raise Rs 10000 or an average of Rs 12.50. The fundraiser could be
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For mobile clips you can look at http://www.vuclip.com/. You can also transfer digital messages to smart phones but to get these viral they have to be something like Kolaveri Di . See http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=iJqLRbK5YFs This is too long but bits of this with your message could be great. Focus is very important. Just do the critical things and forget about the rest, manage your time wisely. Clear your calendar. Make every hour count. Sleep less and inspire your team. If they see the candidate working hard they may also work hard but if the candidate is slow forget it. It has very important to set up phone trees so that you can communicate messages and SMSs virally. You will need phone tree volunteers in each electoral part.
13. What to do in the Last 10 days before campaigning ends?
In the last ten days you need to get your symbol out through phone trees. Make sure your committed voters stay committed, your undecided voters decide in your favour and maybe some who were not going to vote for you change their mind. You also need to have days mapped out with speaking engagements. Ideally your website will have clips that people can see. So having a videographer along may be a good idea if you can afford one or get a volunteer. 14. What to do on Election Day?
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Get out there and win. Good councillors can transform India one ward at a time !!!!
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