Lessons from the “World’s Biggest Democracy”
By Moses Khisa
On Saturday May 16, 2009, the centralist Indian National Congress (INC)-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) inflicted a devastating defeat on the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the “world’s biggest democracy”. So, the amiable and likable economics guru, incumbent Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, 77, will lead another coalition government in New Delhi for the next five years, projected to be one of the most, if not the most stable, coalition government in India. With 263 seats, and needing the support of a dozen MPs preferably independents, the UPA’s claim to forming the next government is an easy take for the Indian president to okay. The BJP took an early move to concede defeat as the results from the last phase of voting trickled in, heralding NDA Prime Ministerial candidate L.K Advani, 82, was out of favour to form the next coalition government. The octogenarian Mr. Advani is set to step down and give way to a mooted leadership of a man known to the Ugandan public – Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the West Indian State of Gujurati (he visited Uganda recently), a man widely accused of complicity in the 2002 pogrom against the Muslim community in his state.
I have always challenged my Indian friends as to what the aphorism “the world’s biggest democracy” actually means. Apparently, no other country world-over can muster anything near India’s more than Seven Hundred Million voters. So, it’s about numbers. But there is more. The Indian electioneering process is the most complex yet exceedingly exciting and a real test of democratic maturity and praxis. The constitution is one of the most thorough, striking a delicate balance between federal-state interests and national economic-political goals, and imposing stringent checks and balances on branches of government. The 2009 national polls to the Lok Sabha (House of the People), the Lower Legislature, got off to a violent start with the naxalite and Maoist insurgents mounting sustained deadly attacks, claiming dozens of lives and threatening to derail business on polling-day in a number of states. Nonetheless, the real downside to the “world’s biggest democracy” are stupendous social challenges not least the caste system and a staggering gap between the economically well-off minority and a poor majority living below the proverbial one dollar per day poverty line.
Two related post-election talking points on either side of the political divide are instructive for Ugandan politics. First, L.K Advani is unwilling to lead the opposition in parliament or even head his own party. His courtiers and loyalists are literally begging him to soldier on. Given his obstinacy, he is unlikely to heed. The old man seems to have introspected and surmised that his time is up and it’s in the best interest of his party and the country to vacate the stage, now. He must have conceded his failure to appeal to a largely youthful Indian electorate that preferred the Congress Party, which although fronting an equally aged Dr. Singh nevertheless has inspiring young Turks in its ranks calling the shorts, and a middle-aged Party Chief, also UPA Chairperson, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Mr. Advani came short on articulating a coherent and convincing agenda for his coalition. And he got egg on his face by attempting to take a personal swipe at the incumbent PM, denigrating the latter as a weak PM and an acolyte to Mrs. Gandhi. Yet Dr. Singh is highly regarded as emblematic of utmost integrity and honesty; his sobriety and equanimity were at work in averting a possible media instigated war between India and Pakistan (both nuclear powers) in the aftermath of the November 26, 2008 terrorist attacks on the financial capital, Mumbai.
Second, much like Advani, one of Congress’s young Turks, party Secretary General and Youth League Chief, Rahul Gandhi, 39, is also being implored to accept a Cabinet berth in Singh’s government. Even after the Congress (read, party Chief, Sonia) had announced Singh as Prime Ministerial candidate, calls for Rahul Gandhi as UPA’s flag bearer abounded, calls that Dr. Singh himself countenanced. But the youthful politician has read his odds superbly and aptly determined his priorities. He is focused on entrenching internal party democracy well aware of his precarious status as a projected anointed successor to his mother. He wants to build the party, which until this years elections had been on the decline in the countryside and relying heavily on regional parties to form coalition governments, a political hot-potato to negotiate if the government is to last the five-year distance. He has traversed the country conducting grassroots party elections and brought a big return of new party members.
But Rahul Gandhi’s most resounding move was to convince the party that a non-allied contest in the swing state of Utter Pradesh would yield. Many thought he had taken a naively huge and costly gamble. The results vindicated him as Congress won in that state. He has also made a very shrewd calculation. He knows that the dynastic political leadership of the Jawaharlal Nehru family (which is often mistook for Mahatma Gandhi’s family) that saw Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi (all RIP) lead both the party and country, is not just used against the Congress by the opposition but it’s also a big indictment on India’s democracy. So, rather than be fast-tracked to the helm of the party and nation, he realizes the significance of working his way through the ranks, build his own political clout instead of riding on the back of the Gandhi name.
Shall the opposition in Uganda introspect like Mr. L.K Advani’s BJP, concede that the buck stops with them, and take responsibility for some of the abysmal performances they posit against President Yoweri Museveni’s NRM? Would the Democratic Party in Uganda be in better political health had Dr. Paul Ssemogerere conceded in time that his time was up? What about Dr. Kizza Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Dr. Milton Obote’s (RIP) Uganda People’s Congress (UPC)? Would the DP and UPC have faired better in 2006 elections had the two parties been handed to inspiring and youthful faces? Shall the Ugandan opposition realize that they will continue playing second fiddle to the NRM until and unless they chart a message that resonates across the country? Shall the Ugandan first family realize that even in South Asia where dynastic leadership is an established norm, principled democratic conviction has persuaded Rahul Gandhi to eschew taking advantage of his family vantage position? Wouldn’t the Ugandan First Lady have reaped an invaluable moral high ground had she declined the Ministerial appointment on principle rather than a disingenuous claim to sacrifice? Doesn’t the Ugandan president acknowledge that a leader must step down on principle even when courtiers urge him/her to stay on?
By Moses Khisa
On Saturday May 16, 2009, the centralist Indian National Congress (INC)-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) inflicted a devastating defeat on the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the “world’s biggest democracy”. So, the amiable and likable economics guru, incumbent Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, 77, will lead another coalition government in New Delhi for the next five years, projected to be one of the most, if not the most stable, coalition government in India. With 263 seats, and needing the support of a dozen MPs preferably independents, the UPA’s claim to forming the next government is an easy take for the Indian president to okay. The BJP took an early move to concede defeat as the results from the last phase of voting trickled in, heralding NDA Prime Ministerial candidate L.K Advani, 82, was out of favour to form the next coalition government. The octogenarian Mr. Advani is set to step down and give way to a mooted leadership of a man known to the Ugandan public – Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the West Indian State of Gujurati (he visited Uganda recently), a man widely accused of complicity in the 2002 pogrom against the Muslim community in his state.
I have always challenged my Indian friends as to what the aphorism “the world’s biggest democracy” actually means. Apparently, no other country world-over can muster anything near India’s more than Seven Hundred Million voters. So, it’s about numbers. But there is more. The Indian electioneering process is the most complex yet exceedingly exciting and a real test of democratic maturity and praxis. The constitution is one of the most thorough, striking a delicate balance between federal-state interests and national economic-political goals, and imposing stringent checks and balances on branches of government. The 2009 national polls to the Lok Sabha (House of the People), the Lower Legislature, got off to a violent start with the naxalite and Maoist insurgents mounting sustained deadly attacks, claiming dozens of lives and threatening to derail business on polling-day in a number of states. Nonetheless, the real downside to the “world’s biggest democracy” are stupendous social challenges not least the caste system and a staggering gap between the economically well-off minority and a poor majority living below the proverbial one dollar per day poverty line.
Two related post-election talking points on either side of the political divide are instructive for Ugandan politics. First, L.K Advani is unwilling to lead the opposition in parliament or even head his own party. His courtiers and loyalists are literally begging him to soldier on. Given his obstinacy, he is unlikely to heed. The old man seems to have introspected and surmised that his time is up and it’s in the best interest of his party and the country to vacate the stage, now. He must have conceded his failure to appeal to a largely youthful Indian electorate that preferred the Congress Party, which although fronting an equally aged Dr. Singh nevertheless has inspiring young Turks in its ranks calling the shorts, and a middle-aged Party Chief, also UPA Chairperson, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. Mr. Advani came short on articulating a coherent and convincing agenda for his coalition. And he got egg on his face by attempting to take a personal swipe at the incumbent PM, denigrating the latter as a weak PM and an acolyte to Mrs. Gandhi. Yet Dr. Singh is highly regarded as emblematic of utmost integrity and honesty; his sobriety and equanimity were at work in averting a possible media instigated war between India and Pakistan (both nuclear powers) in the aftermath of the November 26, 2008 terrorist attacks on the financial capital, Mumbai.
Second, much like Advani, one of Congress’s young Turks, party Secretary General and Youth League Chief, Rahul Gandhi, 39, is also being implored to accept a Cabinet berth in Singh’s government. Even after the Congress (read, party Chief, Sonia) had announced Singh as Prime Ministerial candidate, calls for Rahul Gandhi as UPA’s flag bearer abounded, calls that Dr. Singh himself countenanced. But the youthful politician has read his odds superbly and aptly determined his priorities. He is focused on entrenching internal party democracy well aware of his precarious status as a projected anointed successor to his mother. He wants to build the party, which until this years elections had been on the decline in the countryside and relying heavily on regional parties to form coalition governments, a political hot-potato to negotiate if the government is to last the five-year distance. He has traversed the country conducting grassroots party elections and brought a big return of new party members.
But Rahul Gandhi’s most resounding move was to convince the party that a non-allied contest in the swing state of Utter Pradesh would yield. Many thought he had taken a naively huge and costly gamble. The results vindicated him as Congress won in that state. He has also made a very shrewd calculation. He knows that the dynastic political leadership of the Jawaharlal Nehru family (which is often mistook for Mahatma Gandhi’s family) that saw Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi (all RIP) lead both the party and country, is not just used against the Congress by the opposition but it’s also a big indictment on India’s democracy. So, rather than be fast-tracked to the helm of the party and nation, he realizes the significance of working his way through the ranks, build his own political clout instead of riding on the back of the Gandhi name.
Shall the opposition in Uganda introspect like Mr. L.K Advani’s BJP, concede that the buck stops with them, and take responsibility for some of the abysmal performances they posit against President Yoweri Museveni’s NRM? Would the Democratic Party in Uganda be in better political health had Dr. Paul Ssemogerere conceded in time that his time was up? What about Dr. Kizza Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and Dr. Milton Obote’s (RIP) Uganda People’s Congress (UPC)? Would the DP and UPC have faired better in 2006 elections had the two parties been handed to inspiring and youthful faces? Shall the Ugandan opposition realize that they will continue playing second fiddle to the NRM until and unless they chart a message that resonates across the country? Shall the Ugandan first family realize that even in South Asia where dynastic leadership is an established norm, principled democratic conviction has persuaded Rahul Gandhi to eschew taking advantage of his family vantage position? Wouldn’t the Ugandan First Lady have reaped an invaluable moral high ground had she declined the Ministerial appointment on principle rather than a disingenuous claim to sacrifice? Doesn’t the Ugandan president acknowledge that a leader must step down on principle even when courtiers urge him/her to stay on?
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