Democracy's fine, if it advertises less

The first idea calls for political parties to tell voters beforehand who will be in the Cabinet and in what position. This is an upgrade of the “party list” concept, in which voters are merely given hints about who will be prime minister and who may be in the government. The party list doesn’t specifically tell you who will be the education minister, for instance, leaving you helpless if an alleged child abuser shows up for the job.

Let’s stick with the relationship analogy. The new idea will require the boyfriend to take the girl to meet his parents, important relatives and all the friends he hangs out with. He can no longer say “my family’s great and my friends are swell”, then hide them from her and turn out to be a psychopath loner or drug peddlers’ best pal afterwards.

Another idea would oblige political parties to give details on how they will find money for, say, a noble plan to give each Thai district a soccer stadium. In other words, the boyfriend can no longer just say, “I’ll build you a big house with a bathtub that will make princesses green with envy and a wardrobe that supermodels would die for.” He will also have to tell her what kind of loan he will seek, which bank he will go to, how he will repay the debts, and why the plan will not affect their future child’s education.

Those advocating this idea insist they aren’t against “populist” policies – they just want “populist” promises to be made in a totally responsible manner. If they have their way, political parties won’t be bound merely by “what” election promises they make, but also by “how” they are going to fulfil them.

You may argue that in a romance, dreams and dreamers are all that count. And is it fair to compare democracy to a romance but take out romance’s most crucial elements? As you can see, this is not about the boy. It’s about the girl, the voters. Moreover, there’s a fine line between romantic pledges and blatant lies.

Changes are always resisted, and a lot of reasons will be used to attack radical reform ideas. The first one, for example, may be described as impractical or unfair to small parties. The second idea, again, may be deemed too dependent on fiscal and financial vagaries to be effectively implemented. What if tax revenues suddenly plunge and a budget turmoil erupts, killing a truly worthy election promise? Critics will certainly ask these kinds of questions.

Reasonable flexibility is what we need. Both ideas promote honesty right back to the days of election campaigns, which means we apply solid principles from the beginning. It’s up to the reformers to tweak the measures and add exceptions here and there to ensure fairness and prevent unscrupulous faultfinders from taking advantage of innocent shortcomings.

The bottom line is that if it takes a prime minister just two weeks to form a Cabinet after an election, it shouldn’t be too hard for a political party to nominate a “Cabinet-in-waiting” with all the time that it has beforehand. And if the party in government can tell Parliament three weeks after an election how to implement a policy, shouldn’t it have been able to tell voters beforehand how it would fund a drastically ambitious project?

The old system may have favoured dream merchants. The new one should make them do some more homework. It’s consumer protection at the highest national level, so to speak. If they can ban over-advertising for beverages or insurance services, politicians, of all people, must not be allowed to promise everything under the sun.

What if the girl still falls for the “Mr Wrong” no matter what? Sometimes, romance is all about making foolish choices, isn’t it? The answer is, it’s okay, as long as everyone puts everything on the table. More importantly, if the wrong guy puts everything on the table, he basically wears his heart on his sleeve and thus stops being wrong. In effect, he starts being honest.

Honesty and accountability are what we should be aiming for, after all.

And make no mistake, the ideas can’t slam the door shut on Mr Wrong. He could just win her heart on his looks only. He could take her to his poor parents and alcoholic friends, keep silent about his plans, but sweep her off her feet anyhow. Again, that’s totally fine. At least the girl is neither forced to marry nor helplessly manipulated. She will still do what her heart tells her, but let’s just say that more truthful information will enable her head to play a bigger role in the decision.