Participatory democracy

It is a fundamental right of a citizen that he can express ideas on how to improve the way his country is managed, even if that may be a novel idea not supported by the constitution. Thus, I venture to share my thoughts on an alternative kind of democracy, which I feel could solve many of the problems that are plaguing our total political system.
The idea which I propose is that of a "participative government," by which I am trying to describe a possibility where -- believe it or not -- a government can be formed by incorporating the opposition into itself. Basically, a government of this kind could be formed by distributing the ministries between the parties in proportion to the votes or seats obtained by each party, and allowing the prime minister's position to be assumed by the leader of the party with the highest number of seats.
The leader of the party with the 2nd highest number of seats could be a deputy prime minister in recognition of the fact that he/she had enough skills to have governed the nation previously, or may do so in future. The ministers from the non-majority party/parties could be chosen simply from an impartial judgment of their talent and past performances.
In describing how the system would work and benefit the nation, I would like to say that naturally when the losing party will no longer be described as "the opposition" but perhaps as simply the "non-majority," not even "minority," the desire to only oppose will not arise. The elections will no longer be a life and death struggle for power of a whole group and subsequent deprivation of the other, but a decision about who would lead the team and who would be the majority.
The very clear gains of giving away perhaps one-third of the ministries to the so-called opposition would be that they would have the mental satisfaction of not being excluded from decision making entirely, and they would be sharing power and all the advantages derived from there, thus reducing their feeling of deprivation and defeat. When these negative sentiments are reduced, naturally, the desire for committing destructive activities, or actions that may be detrimental to the nation, would immediately be reduced.
Having contemplated this idea for over a decade, I, as a common citizen with no political bias, nor any lofty degrees in political science or economics, feel that if we are going to label a group as "the opposition," then what else are we to expect from them except opposition? But if we were to incorporate the party into government, it would definitely reduce chaos, because they would work in the role that they get assigned to and try and contribute so much that in recognition of their efforts they could get elected to the principal government position the next time. So, the competition to outperform each other would be constructive.
Some may claim that there would be chaos in each and every decision making because the opposition, or rather the "non-majority," would try and sabotage the progress of the government from the inside. But I differ, because I feel the opposition would damage themselves too in the process, as any failure of the government would be considered their failure too. And the way for them to really succeed in winning appreciation would be to show greatest progress in the ministries that they would control.
The majority party, or the government, would not hinder the non-majority, as failure in any ministry, even if it was under a different party member, would lead to overall lapse in credibility of the majority holders too. Any side trying to harm the other would only display lack of tolerance, and inability to perform in a team.
If questions arise as to how each party shall promote itself during elections -- the solution would be that the non-majority party would try and point out which decisions of the government went wrong and how those may have happened. The majority party may try downplaying the non-majority by pointing out the lapses in the ministries due to neglect, and also trying to blame overall government mistakes on the non majority for not preventing them from making those mistakes. That, in itself, would induce whoever would be the non-majority to always try and give constructive ideas.
Indeed, this would be best for the people as well, as we ought to understand that all parties in a parliament have talented leaders, and that even if any party or coalition wins 60% majority, there remain 40% of the voters and many non-voters who did not want them. Surely, that is a huge part of the population, and their interest needs to be reflected in the government and not just in the parliament. Indeed, just because their votes were for the losing party their preference cannot be fully discarded, demoralising a huge segment of the nation too.
Some politicians may refuse to work with people who uphold a different philosophy, while some may selfishly feel that sharing cabinets with the opposition may take the charm out of dominating and ruling and the thrill of victory, but everyone needs to understand that it also creates an opportunity for each party to enjoy significantly higher power and importance even if the party does not become winner in the electoral race. There will no longer be a 5 to 10 year long wait to get to power, but simply advancing one's position within the category that is endowed with power.
A certain degree of competition and negative diplomacies can never be avoided, but, undoubtedly, this new system would significantly reduce all the clashes, turmoil, and political assassinations that happen so rampantly these days. It is certainly an idea deserving of thought, and one that may get fully realised only when young fresh blood enters politics.
Let us look at successful organisations, particularly business enterprises. There could be different sets of opinions among the senior management as well as among the board members, but they still belong to the same "senior management panel" or "board of directors," and they debate between themselves and get the work done as a team, with ideas that are mostly a weighted average of all the differing opinions. It is never the case that one group of the management team or board takes all the decisions and dominates over another group, with the former calling themselves as the ones having controlling authority and the latter as an "opposition."
The idea of having an opposition in parliament was conceived in order to ensure that those governing would take into consideration of the opinions of everyone. However, if that ultimate goal can be better served through the method proposed here, then I see no reason why this method cannot be adopted.
In addition to all this there could be revolutionary new innovations, such as having scorecards for all members of parliament every 1.5 years approximately. Only the first 2 months, and the last 4 months can remain unevaluated. So, in a 5-year term, there would be 3 such evaluations, with the last one finishing up just about 4 months before the expiry of the term.
Based on cumulative scores obtained on these scorecards, parties could decide on whether or not to allow the individual to compete for the next term. The details of such an evaluation mechanism can be expounded upon at a later time, but the essential fact is that being a parliamentarian would cease to be a game as it is for many, and it would take the shape of a seriously accountable and responsible job. There could be a lot of other add-ons to the system, all of which can be explored later on.
There could indeed be critics who may try to downplay this idea by rightly pointing out that this has not been implemented in any country so far. Well, I would like to declare if all first time ideas were to be discarded because they had not been tried and tested by others before, then I don't think that the words innovation or invention would exist!
So, let us indeed open our minds and work together to come up with new and better ideas to govern our lives, and challenge the age-old accepted practices, for it is through change that we can move from the current stagnation of blame and counter-blame to a new horizon based on competition based on cooperation, the final beneficiaries of which would be the whole nation.
Chowdhury Abd-Allah Quaseed is the Program Creator and Anchor of a popular talk show on a local TV channel.