People or political parties - whose will is supreme?

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People or Political parties- who are the real masters?

People are masters in democracy. The will of the people is considered supreme. However serious questions about the party system as fundamental to democracy are cropping up, since the views of political parties and political leaders elected for the governance of democratic nations at times are differing with that of the popular will. There is nothing wrong with the party system   but often the political parties and political leaders involved in governance at times appear to differ from the popular will and behave as though they are the masters of the people, forgetting that people are the true masters and the will of the people is supreme. Be it presidential form of government or parliamentary form of government it is important to ensure that the parties elected to govern abide by the popular will treating the people as the masters.  Political parties’ agenda is to remain in power rather than being the voice of the people must be noted.

We find that various events like the Vietnam War were unpopular with the citizens and the approval ratings for the President or the executive wing as expressed through independent agencies by people through random sampling from time to time have shown that the President or the executive wing is governing the nation against the popular will. Similarly political parties often muzzle the independent voice of the legislators expressing the will and mood of the people by arguing that their party was voted to power for a fixed period only as per the mandate of the people and that their actions have the approval of people at large.

While it is true that people show their disapproval or approval of party governing them by returning it to power or replace the governing party with another through their voting, yet party voted to power can mess up the affairs of the nation within their mandated period discarding the popular will.

Another problem cropping up in democracies is that the voting percentages are often not more than 60% of eligible voters and the winning party need to get just 35% of the eligible vote, which is a minority vote compared to the total eligible voters and hence represents in most of the times the will of the minority and not majority.

These problems with democracies arise because of the failure of the political class to represent the voice of the people who elected them and moderate the popular opinion in case it is against the general interests of the public. A leader is no leader if he cannot listen to the voice of people who elected him and act only at the behest of the party to whom they belong and whose interest is to remain in power.

Hence Political leaders need to represent the voice of the people and the political parties must treat the people as their masters and do governance in accordance with the wishes of people even during their mandated period.