Elected MP’s: Nowhere to Run

New Members of Parliament will be sworn in recently. Each one of them came to us with their own promises and those belonging to political parties, they also promised us a number of things their political party was committing to do once in office. As voters, members of our constituency and/or citizens, are we doing enough to hold our representatives accountable and keeping them honest? How many times have you contacted and/or made an effort to contact your elected representatives, be it the Member of Parliament or councillor on any general or particular issue?

The sole idea behind representative democracy is that the citizens should be able to hold their elected representatives accountable for their activities. Citizens should be made aware of the performance of their elected representatives in parliament and constituencies. Armed with this information citizens can be able to make informed choices when election time comes.

In order to assess an MPs performance, it is first imperative to understand the roles and responsibilities of MPs. MPs primarily have four roles: 

1. Make laws 

2. Represent the interests of the people of their constituency 

3. Oversee the functioning of the executive 

4. Keep the government in check and pass the budget. 

As a result of this lack of knowledge, people think that the only role of MPs is to take measures for the development of their constituency. Due to this lack of knowledge, people start expecting their MPs to single-handedly provide drinking water, lay the roads, build up primary health care centres etc. Also, citizens sometimes have extremely unreasonable expectations from their MPs- they expect them to pay the school fees of their children, attend weddings, funerals etc.

MPs in our country often operate without overview and little is known about their performance to serve their constituencies and people of the country. It is very important to analyse how well the MPs are discharging the responsibilities they are legally mandated to perform. There is lack of transparency in the system. Even the basic quantifiable information about an MPs performance is not available in the public domain. We need to have quantifiable entities like their attendance in sessions, questions asked, participation in debates, service on committees etc.

We should have MP report cards to enable the citizens to gauge the performance of their MPs. There is need for quantifiable methods and other parameters which are difficult to quantify but are very essential to gauge the performance of an MP like how well did the MP represent the interests of the people of his constituency, what difference has he made to its development, his delivery of promises during the election campaign etc.

Elected representatives are accountable to their constituents and ideally work to represent the needs, interests and aspirations of their constituents. However, experience has shown that in most cases elected representatives tend to move away from their core mandate to serve their own interests and/or their membership interests to a particular group such as political parties or influential individuals such as the president. This has in turn had significant implications on individuals, families, the constituency and society as a whole.

Sometimes, especially if there is no information available to us, it can be difficult to conduct a meaningful performance review of our MPs. This is where access to public information and honest communication is significant. However, there are a number of questions we could ask ourselves about our MPs:

1. Since your MP was voted into office, what bills has he/she sponsored/moved in Parliament?
2. How many bills has s/he voted yes or no to? And how have these bills affected you, your constituency and entire country?
3. Is your MP speaking in Parliament and representing your interests and needs and that of your constituency? Or s/he is representing his/her own needs/interests and that of their party or party leadership?
4. How many times has your MP visited the constituency?
5. How many times has your MP held consultative meetings before and after parliament?
6. Do you have access to your MP? Can you call or email him/her? And, if you call and/or email, does he/she respond or contact you back?
7. What development projects has your MP initiated in your constituency?
8. What existing projects is your MP helping move forward?
9. Do you trust your MP?
10. What do you want to see change?
11. What do you want to see improve? Do you think resources in your constituency are being used and managed well.
12. Is your MP paying attention to the use and management of resources in your constituency?
13. If you were to honestly rate (give points) your MP, between 1 to 5, 1=extremely poor. 2=poor, 3=good, 4=very good, and 5=excellent, what number would you give your MP?
14. If you were to vote again today, would you vote for the same MP? And why?

From their confirmation, we need to reflect and ask ourselves some hard questions: how has our MP performed since they were elected in office? Are they adhering to their campaign promises or they have abandoned us in pursuit of their own interests and agendas? What have they done and/or not done so far and why? Conducting performance reviews of our elected representatives is our responsibility as individuals and as members of our constituency to ensure transparency and accountability.