Hacking mayoral campaign promises
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Photo from Asian Mirror
In Open-source policy formulation for Sri Lanka’s capital, an article published on the Lanka Business Online website recently, the Head of the Policy Planning Group, Milinda for Mayor Campaign and renowned policy analyst Prof. Rohan Samarajiva looks at how mainstream politics can be made more participatory. The promise is of a direct democracy model with the aid of web, mobile and Internet technologies. Prof. Samarajiva captures well the shortcomings of a traditional approach to manifestos and public policy,
“The traditional approach is to rely on expertise. Experts formulate policy. Other experts debug it. Not very different from what goes on at the Redmond Campus of Microsoft.”
It is a beguiling vision. Co-creating public policy transparently is infinitely better than codifying in closed groups. This is the Wikipedia model, adapted to fit a political campaign. Experts, like Prof. Samarajiva, assume a curatorial role in the campaign – sifting through citizen-generated ideas, refining and combining them to create a representative and responsive policy framework. Seeing a coherent vision and a participatory model, citizens feel empowered and join the debates. In fact, Prof. Samarajiva notes many from Colombo and elsewhere already have. Even at face value, this is not something we’ve seen in elections held previously. Bitter invective and partisan rhetoric often inform campaign propaganda. Prof. Samarajiva promises something very different, both during the campaign and also in the model of governance were his candidate to win.
This is the ideal. What is the reality? A general critique of citizen or user-generated content is that most of it is rather poor in expression and execution. Experts, as Andrew Keen in ‘The Cult of the Amateur’ argues, aren’t obsolete. In fact, they are wanted more than before to stem a tsunami of cute cat videos on YouTube, relationship woes on Facebook, celebrity chatter on Twitter and badly focussed holiday photos on Flickr. Opening up policy making doesn’t necessarily mean better policy-making. The majority of comments on the Facebook pages of candidates consists of a single adulatory line. Some ask for jobs. Others ask for help in setting up a business. Hardly ideas generation for better public policy.
The promise of ostensibly ‘opening up policy making’ can also mask entrapment of a different kind. Think Apple, the computer company. Apple offers beauty in simplicity. Its iconic software and hardware has a cult following because it’s visually compelling, encouraging prolonged use and exploration so long as Apple’s rules are followed. And there’s the rub. Examples of the company’s intolerance with developers and users who attempt to question it and go beyond its rules are legion. In sum, what Apple offers is something beautiful to own and look at in return for little or no space for transparency or critical questioning. Few of course realise this, because few see a need to move beyond what it offers, and promises to make available in the future.
Apply this to Colombo’s future. An open city is an attractive prospect – in the sense of open physical spaces as well as transparency in governance. The former is already a reality. The latter remains elusive. Walls are coming down. Trees are being planted. Yet we don’t know why walls are coming down, what will be built in their place or why trees are being cut only to grow others in their place. We are taken in by what we see and are promised, but the reality is that we are all hostage to rules hardwired into a system beyond reproach or easy public scrutiny. A far cry then from a meritocracy or democracy. For all the online public participation touted by Prof. Samarajiva, the real scope of engagement is woefully constrained. Worse, attempts to enlarge it are actively censored. Questions on ethics, principles and in particular, adherence to election laws go unanswered. Politely put and repeatedly asked via email, Twitter, Facebook and the plain old telephone service, candidates with a web presence and saying they are for transparency simply do not engage.
If the promise of ‘open-source policy making’ is to hold true, it’s not just hyped-up cosmetic engagement that matters. The model promised need to be the model employed. Current mayoral web campaigns fall far short in this respect. I’ve repeatedly asked the candidates, including Prof. Samarajiva’s preferred choice, to open up campaign financing and declare personal assets. Others on Twitter, Facebook and blogs have asked the same question. Revealingly, the campaigns have no response. Bizarrely, some even go to the extent of claiming that existing law, requiring all candidates to declare assets, is ‘hypothetical’.
Rather than a partisan response, here’s my suggestion. Hack all the Mayoral web campaigns. The suggestion isn’t to technically disrupt but systematically decry the lies by proactively and repeatedly engaging. If actively debarred from asking hard questions in official online fora of candidates, voters should redouble efforts to hold candidates accountable though their own online media. Many in Colombo have a Facebook and Twitter accounts. Use these to decode web propaganda. Use them to create new threads of conversations, spin-offs in online and mainstream media platforms that hold candidates and campaign staff accountable to the law, and what they promise. Engage in Tamil and Sinhala to ascertain the real limits of trilingual promises by a candidate’s campaign staff. Be active on official campaign websites. Post content and ask for responses. If censored or restricted, place the content in the public domain. Tweet to the candidates. Ask them hard questions. Debug the canned responses, often copied and pasted from campaign propaganda. Remind the candidates that breaking the law whilst promising accountability is plain hypocrisy. Remind the experts behind the candidates what open source really is – a process of production and development that promotes access to the end product’s source materials. Applied to an election campaign, if a candidate who promises change isn’t willing to open up his own campaign to public scrutiny, ask why he deserves a vote.
There is emphatically no need to be rude or even sarcastic. The questions are their own power. For the average citizen, these online conversations and unanswered questions are a vital public record. For the candidates, these are equally vital repositories of discontent and support, scepticism as well as hope. Hacking the campaigns now will help us elect a more accountable Mayor, and nail him to his promises. Engaging robustly now benefits us all by pointing the debates to not just what we want to see, but how we want to get there.
It asks us all to be the change we want to see.
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Authors note: A version of this article first appeared in the Sunday Leader on 25 September 2011. Also read Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality.
By the way, Rohan Samarajiva is NOT a Professor, which is a time specific appointment/title given by a University. Rohan has quit the academia almost fifteen years ago (if I remember correctly) when he returned to Sri Lanka to head the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka and therefore is not entitled to that title thereafter. Only a few are bestowed with a life-time Professorship which is called Emeritus Professor, which Rohan is NOT to the best of my knowledge.
Dear “boot lickers unlimited”,
Thanks for making this point. We’ll invite Prof. Samarajiva to respond, but frankly, we are more concerned about his role in the Moragoda campaign than his entitlement to call himself what he does. You may respond of course and say that to call oneself what one isn’t reflects the essential nature of the person and by extension, colours any process the person engages with. We can only insist that your chosen pseudonym could be perceived to be one geared towards attacking the person instead of tackling the more serious issues of the campaign writ large. We invite you to engage, but ask that you do so in a manner that respects someone who I and many others consider one of the best minds in telecoms regulation we’ve had in this country, which makes it all the more sad that he is now part of, and speaking no different to so many of the other politicians we are cursed with as our representatives.
Thanks and best regards,
Sanjana
OK, both.
Bad nickname used to call a rogue, a rogue ? May be yes. If a good name was used to tell that Mr. Rohan Samarajeewa using title of professor shows he is not very honest, then it would be good. Any way, his working for Moragoda proves all. Doesn’t it ?
Amarnath
Beautifully phrased, web based citizen participation of city planning, projected as a novel extension of democracy for the Colombo city as conceived by Samarajeeva for Moragoda’s election campaign, is by all means a farce, attempted at making a fashionable presence to the affluent Colombo few.
Lets be very clear on this. Access to “internet” alone is no guarantee that those with access make full use of the facility. It is yet to be calculated, how many of those with credit cards in their wallets and internet facilities at home, use them to settle even their mobile phone bills. They often use credit cards over the counters.
It is necessary to check with network providers to know that most often, those who carry very fancy mobile phones with many options, only use it for voice calls and short messaging. They don’t even have the habit of checking the calendar from the mobile phone, when they have to check a date. The very young use them as music listening devices and as cameras.
Having facilities and getting into a new culture of using them for day to day service needs are two different things in a society that uses most such advantages as social status and fashionable ornaments. Internet and web use is a new culture, yet to take root even in the urban society.
That being so, this new web based democracy that is being promoted for Colombo by Samarajeewa, forgets there are over 1,600 “under served settlements” within the city, to give a respectable label for slums and shanties. They don’t go beyond the TV for information and most have their spouses in migrant labour. There’s is no culture that match what Samarajeewa knows about internet and web use. How and when will they be part of this novel e-democracy ?
Sprouting of “internet cafes” in predominantly Tamil areas within Colombo does not say, these people are interested in e-governance. These internet cafes are only providing communication between relatives here and in the Diaspora.
It is thus interesting to know what facts and figures made Samarajeewa dream of this fashionable proposal that made Moragoda fly with it.
Don’t forget, even Barak Obama promised his American citizenry during his 2008 campaign, he would open his administration to public scrutiny and dialogue through “e-Governance”. How far has the Obama administration gone ahead with that after two and a half years is clear. His tax policies, his national health programme, his Iraqi stand and Afghan drone attacks are never the dialogue on American e-Governance yet.
IF Moragoda and his campaign guru Samarajeewa think they can be one mega byte smarter than Obama, then, May the Tripple Gem bless Sri Lanka, not just Colombo, with this very backward, very introvert Sinhala Buddhist dominance, over the whole country.
Kusal Perera
SORRY,
trying to make the comment short, I’ve missed articulating my point right and allowed Samarajeewa to tweet happily.
“Open sourcing” in participatory policy development may sound a grand idea, but in a backward culture that is not tech savvy, it does not work with the ordinary people. It could only work, if a fair number who actually live in that society can reach the policy maker quick and easy.
Few and far between comments on policy drafts don’t make the process open sourcing, although Samarajeewa may claim there was “thick and fast” responses. Wadduwa resident commenting on the draft and a journalist writing is not “participatory” in terms of the people who are going to vote at the CMC elections. What Samarajeewa and Moragoda keep out of this concept of open source planning is how much of the actual Colombo city voters could participate, without access to internet.
Does he mean they could all meet Moragoda or him to give their ideas, before they close the draft for finalising before elections? Or there is a well structured forum that brings in a cross section of that polity for discussion on the draft policy statement before finalising it?
In a city like Colombo with around 53 or 57 Wards, unless those people have easy means of access in responding, Samarajeewa’s claim of “out sourcing” policy is a myth. That’s where the e-governance issue and access to internet and the new web culture comes in.
The earlier response should follow here after.
Kusal
i was hoping moragoda really would be closer to the change that we so badly need in politics/SL. initially, thought he was squeaky clean. but i was told by people who know more abt. these things and have been around longer, that he’s far from it.
even thus, i thought of giving him the benefit of the doubt – and seeing a caption ‘engage with us in a dialogue’ – sent an email on a sensitive topic. over 7-10 days, did not get ANY reply, but a spam on his 10 point policy for cmb. or some such crap.
so there we go. a one-sided dialogue and another mirage in politics. even the phony prof. it seems picks only the easy questions to answer. what sort of generational curse is this that we need to put up with low-life politicians within this otherwise blessed island ?!?
cheers!