Public funding of elections

Dr Bharat Jhunjhunwala
Edward Bernays had inherited knowledge about human psychology from his uncle Sigmund Freud. But while Freud applied psychology to uncover hidden themes in the human unconscious, Bernays used these same ideas to create illusions that deceive and misrepresent for marketing purposes. This technology has now been perfected by our politicians.
Bernays views on democracy are enlightening. He expressed little respect for the average person’s ability to think out, understand, or act upon the world in which they live. Bernays evolved the principles by which masses of people could be generally swayed through messages repeated over and over hundreds of times. Josef Goebbels, who was Hitler’s minister of propaganda, studied the principles propounded by Edward Bernays when he designing propaganda to convince the Germans that they had to purify their race.
He says, “Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps linked with advertising slogans, editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids. Each man’s rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda…” So to a great extent money runs our elections.
‘AAP’ has tried to break this stranglehold of money in elections by appealing to people directly. This has done wonders in Delhi. But one needs an organization even to collect and coordinate these contributions on the national scale. And, an organization cannot be run without money. My understanding is that AAP has been able to raise small funds from public contributions because it had substantial funding to begin with. AAP was able to use this money to collect more funds from the voters. AAP, therefore is not denying the role of money in elections. It is only saying that we must hold elections with clean money; not unclean money. But money it is nevertheless.
The role of money in elections cannot be eliminated. But it can be reduced. The task is to encourage honest and public spirited persons to contest elections. One way tried in many countries is to provide public funds to candidates. Since 1984, Australia has used a system of public funding of federal elections. Political parties and candidates are reimbursed for their election expenses in proportion to the percentage of the vote they secure, provided they poll at least 4% of the votes cast. States in the United States have put in place various types of public funding. Arizona and Maine require candidates to raise about USD 1000 from 200 persons contributing USD 5 per person in order to qualify. The candidates qualify to receive a grant of about USD 25,000 after crossing this threshold. Hawaii and Minnesota require candidates to raise USD 1500 from 15 persons contributing USD 100 or less each in order to qualify. Wisconsin requires them to raise USD 1750 from contributions of USD 100 or less. These qualifying requirements ensure that frivolous candidates are kept out.
These public funding programs have been found to have positive impact. A study by Kenneth R. Mayer of University of Wisconsin has listed their impacts. One, Public funding programs increase the pool of candidates willing and able to run for state legislative office. Many who did not think of contesting elections have entered the contest. Two, Public funding increases the likelihood that an incumbent will not win uncontested. A strong candidate would discourage weaker candidates to enter the fray if they had to put in their own money. But weak candidates would not mind contesting and losing if they got public funding. Entry of these candidates led to reduction in the numbers of incumbents who got elected uncontested. Three, Public funding has reduced the incumbency reelection rates in Arizona and Maine, although the effects are marginal. It was found that number of incumbents winning got reduced in public funded elections. This happened because the number of contestants increased and new issues were raised. I presume the incumbents could not provide satisfactory answers to these. They conclude that public funding programs increase the competitiveness of state legislative elections.
Public funding is not a panacea for all our electoral woes, however. Money will continue to influence the outcome of elections. Those with money power will still be able to influence the voters with their large number of hoardings and distribution of cash, motor cycles, liquor and sarees. Yet, the entry of large number of candidates will help change the discourse. Even the money-drive candidates will be forced to address the issues raised by the public funded weaker candidates.
The money spent by the candidates in our general elections would be around Rupees 20k crores. Additional monies are spent by the parties from their central fund. It seems to me that a scheme can be made to give a total grant of Rs 1000 crores to the contesting candidates in proportion of votes polled by them. Only candidates that secure minimum one percent votes may be given grants. This will ensure that frivolous candidates are not lured into the contest with an eye on the funds. A progressive distribution can be done among the qualifying candidates with those polling smaller number of votes are given say Rs 100 per vote; while those polling larger numbers are given only Rs 5 per vote. One such ‘weak’ candidate confided to me that he was confident of securing 10,000 votes. A funding of Rs 100 per vote would translate into Rs 10 lacs. That, he says, would be adequate for him to fund his entire campaign. Such a system will encourage more public spirited persons to contest and help enliven our democracy.
(The author was formerly Professor of Economics at IIM Bengaluru)

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