Consultation, Election, and Who Actually Does the Work

Baha elections are conducted in a way designed to make a career impossible. There is no nomination, no candidacy, no campaigning and no discussion of individuals. Each elector writes nine names on a ballot in prayerful silence, and the nine receiving most votes constitute the Assembly for the year. Canvassing for oneself or another is regarded as disqualifying in spirit, and electioneering has no place in the system at all.

Decisions are taken by consultation, which is a defined process rather than a general disposition. An opinion offered in consultation is understood to become the property of the group rather than of the person who offered it, so it may be examined and abandoned without loss of face, and once a decision is taken the body supports it as one, including those who argued against it. The authority rests with the body and never with an individual member, who has no standing outside a meeting.

The practical consequence is that ordinary believers do everything a clergy would otherwise do. There is no officiant at a Baha marriage beyond the couple stating the prescribed verse before witnesses; funerals are conducted with a prayer that any believer may read; and the Nineteen Day Feast, the regular community gathering, has devotional, administrative and social portions in which readings are shared out rather than delivered as a sermon. A community without clergy is not a community without offices; it is one in which the offices belong to everybody in turn.