Three Elections: One Message – OpEd

In the past few months, elections took place in three key countries — one of them is world’s largest democracy (India), the other is the cradle of republic (France) and the third one is a constitutional monarchy (United Kingdom). The outcome of these elections have been dissected, analyzed and widely commented upon.

The results, however, delivered one common message: that people voted for parties that prioritized their mundane day-to-day concerns over parties that fronted corporate interests under the garb of abstract ideas like identity, national security and a golden future down the road. The three results, in a way, flagged the beginning of a push back against the global trend, visible since the late Seventies, of oligarchs, hedge fund managers and investment bankers capturing political power by installing governments that promoted and protected their interests through tailor-made legislations and policies.

In India, the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has been reduced to a minority in its third consecutive term. When the BJP returned to power in 2019, the party had a comfortable majority of 303 seats, way ahead of the 272 needed to form a government. After the current elections, it has 240 seats — a loss of 63 seats, which is 32 seats short of the majority mark. As a result, the once-mighty BJP had to put together a coalition comprising two fickle allies along with a smorgasbord of parties and leaders. Together they prop up a government which is inherently fragile. Given the circumstances, the BJP is doing what it has to: maintain status quo as best as it can.

In order to ensure that the interests of its patrons are not jeopardized, the party has retained most of its key ministers (who were lucky enough to be re-elected) and kept the administrative and governance leadership unchanged. The BJP is in search of fall guys who will take the responsibility for the electoral defeat, not out of any moral obligation, but to ensure that the system based on favours and counter-favours remains unshaken. For India’s oligarchs, it is very important to retain their faithful frontmen and cronies who work on their behalf to protect the elaborate patron-client system that has been put in place. Services of key senior bureaucrats and heads of India’s oversight and law enforcement agencies have been extended. A snap shot of this cozy club was on display at the recent wedding of the son of India’s oligarch-in-chief where the country’s political, business, administrative, media, civil society and entertainment sector leadership turned up to pay its obeisance.

In that sense, the outcome of the UK election is a shade more upsetting for Europe’s oligarchs. The Labour Partyunder Sir Kier Starmer’s leadership won a resounding victory, pushing Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party to its lowest seat tally in recent times. Sir Keir has 412 members of parliament (MP) with him against 238 MPs from all the other parties. This gives him a clear majority of 174 MPs. The Liberal Democrats performed well, even as the Scottish National Party collapsed. Smaller parties returned good results, including Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration right wing Reform Party which ate into the Tory support base. But when we look into the vote shares, Labour Party’s performance loses sheen; only 34 percent backed Labour which was the lowest percentage of votes secured by a party winning majority in Parliament. While 24 percent backed the Conservative Party, 76 percent voted against it. The biggest beneficiary was the Reform Party, which won 14 percent of votes which resulted in just five seats, despite winning 600,000 more votes than the Liberal Democrats. In several constituencies, the Reform Party played the role of a spoiler by splitting Conservative votes to hand victory over to Labour. UK’s mandate no doubt reflected a rejection of the Conservative rule, but not an unequivocal endorsement of Labour.

No party won a majority in France. A loose alliance of Left partieswon the most number of seats after two rounds of voting. While the Left-leaning New Popular Front (NFP) won 188 seats, President Macron’s centrist Ensemble coalition finished second with 161 seats. The National Rally (RN)and its allies, led by far-right leader Marine Le Pen, won 142 seats. The only surprise element was rejection of the far-right parties despite several observers expecting Le Pen to ride the anti-immigration wave to an electoral victory. But the French seemed to have other plans. With no alliance securing a majority at the 577-member French National Assembly, France now has a hung parliament similar to that in India.

The outcomes of these three elections have other similarities: voters in all three countries rejected the right wing parties. In doing so, what did they vote against?

In India, they voted against policies that generated unemployment and inflation. Unemployment, at around nine percent, has reached alarming proportions. They voted against the use of religion as the sole marker of identity and a tool of new-age apartheid. They voted against concentration of power in the hands of a single almighty leader with no accountability. They voted against creating monopolies and the unbridled privatization of public assets. They voted against humongous tax breaks and loan write-offs to private corporations. They voted against dressing up bribe as business transaction and the narrative that private enterprise is the single-bullet solution to citizens’ problems. They voted against dubious theories that preach oligarchic wealth must be encouraged to grow so that a grateful citizenry can receive the alms that trickle down.

What did they vote against in England? Is it the high taxes, or a soaring immigration, or an economy devastated in the wake of Brexit? Or is it high cost of public services like education, health and even water? In France, the emergence of the Left, including the radical Left under Jean-Luc Mélenchon as the largest coalition bloc, will stand in the way and temper a weakened President Macron’s pro-market stance. Although Marine Le Pen and her Far Right groups will not be able to implement their ideas on issues like religious identity and migrant rights, they will step up efforts at polarization. It is unlikely that Macron can retain his hard position on issues like raising the retirement age and the broad discontent over France’s economy reflected in the Yellow Jacket protests.

Any manufactured idea has a shelf life and right wing neo-liberalism is no exception. In country after country, such ideas, since the late Seventies, have concentrated wealth in the hands of a select few at the cost of citizens’ prosperity. Most importantly, it has failed to deliver political, social and economic justice on the pretext of efficiency. In rejecting the right wing, voters in India, UK and France have forced the reintroduction of people’s narratives into their country’s political discourse. They have expressed their demand for policies that address economic inequality, social and political justice and climate change. They have indicated that in a democracy, power must reside with the people, and not with oligarchs or their cronies.