And the political parties have taken the cue, as political parties composed of politicians sensitive to public opinion must, and have started to come out with various ideas on how and what reforms are needed within the parties. We would hope that the parties are motivated to reform as a result of inner conviction as much as public opinion. We take this as a positive development and a good sign that the demands for reforms have produced some very good ideas in the minds of the party leadership, in keeping with the need to live up to the changed circumstances, although there are differences within the parties as to the means and mechanism of effecting the changes.

That notwithstanding, we are pleased to note that there is an acknowledgement, in the two major political parties, of the need to bring in more democratisation within. The travails that the two parties are facing currently have been due to the decision making process dependent entirely on the judgment of, primarily, one single individual. The leadership of these parties, we hope, are convinced that there is merit in collective decision making which makes the chances of going wrong less. This is a universal truth that those still unconvinced about must quickly internalise. The cult of personality, which the servile mentality of some of the senior politicians has helped partly in stimulating, must be eschewed; leadership must never be thrust upon but acquired through merit and hard work.

One also sees a very positive disposition in senior party leaders when one gets to hear about doing away with the practice of holding both government and party positions simultaneously. There is plenty of sense in de-linking government responsibility from that of the party, without which both suffer. There is also the need, we feel, for the parties to make their accounts subject to scrutiny and all major donations maintained according to the proper procedure of accounting.

The time is to reform or perish.