Aam Aadmi Party has the chance to clean up campaign finance and organise primaries

The launch of a new political party, the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP), led by Arvind Kejriwal, is welcome. It has a chance to avoid many mistakes made by most Indian political parties and make a fresh start in politics. A viable party programme is less complicated than many might imagine: achieving the ideals of the Constitution is programme enough. The two most important defects in our party politics are opaque campaign finance and lack of inner party democracy. The former leads to widespread graft and corrodes the moral values of society.

The latter leads to power getting concentrated with a few individuals in each party, which means that party politics gets isolated from popular aspirations and needs. Both trends are deeply anti-democratic. The AAP has the historic chance of starting with a clean slate on both counts. It should accept donations and finance in a transparent manner, organise fund-raising events and activities, develop online payment mechanisms and keep a public record of how much money it has and what it is doing with the funds. The ideal would be for the party to declare its expenditure every month, in activity-wise detail in every locality, throw it open to public challenge, invite a body like the Association for Democratic Reforms to moderate the contestation, and show sources for the authenticated amount of expenditure.

It has been reported that Kejriwal was elected to the post of convenor of the AAP and a few other office bearers were also elected. However, the electors, 23 members of a committee, are themselves nominated to these posts. Ideally, the AAP should start a process of organising intraparty elections to choose office bearers, and hold primary elections to choose candidates. This will truly democratise the party structure and revolutionise India’s political system. In most parties, there is much handwringing, bitterness and dissension over candidate nomination, selection and ticket distribution. By holding primaries, the AAP can neatly sidestep these problems and set an example for other parties. Opportunities to start with a clean slate are rare. The AAP must seize its chance with both hands.