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Mainstream, Vol XLVIII, No 24, June 5, 2010

Coalition Culture

Thursday 10 June 2010, by P R Dubhashi

#socialtags

An economic textbook talks of the pheno-menon of the ‘importance of the unimportant’. The phenomenon is visible in coalition politics as well when small parties claim and receive importance disproportionate to their numbers in the elected bodies.

Britain traditionally has been a two-party democracy in which in the election outcome one party gains absolute majority and forms the government. There is no ambiguity or uncertainty. But the May 6 election results brought about a different outcome. For sometime now, the Liberal Democratic Party has been emerging as a third national party which could provide an alternative to the existing two national parties, namely, Labour in power and Conservatives in the Opposition. In the presidential style of discussion on TV, Nick Clegg got the better of Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the ruling party and David Cameron, the leader of the main Opposition who was widely believed to be a serious candidate for the top post. The results were, however, disappointing for the Liberal Democratic Party which emerged as a poor third with a meagre 57 seats, way behind Labour (258) and Conservatives (306). And yet in a situation in which no party gained a clear majority, the Liberal Democrats had the opportunity to be the kingmaker. Both the major parties had to solicit the support of the Liberal Democrats in order to gain majority and form the government—which the leaders of the two major parties set out to do.

Stating that the Conservatives with the largest number of seats should have the first chance to form the government, Clegg set up a team for discussion with the team of the Conservative Party led by William Hague, the right hand man of David Cameron. When the discussions were going on, Clegg had no compunction in having a long telephonic talk with Gordon Brown who felt that the Labour Party was ideologically much nearer to his Liberal Democratic approach and a coalition between the two would be more natural and tenable. There were days of anxiety and uncertainty for the Conservatives. Eventually the Conservative-Liberal alliance was forged and Brown gave up his claim. He met the sovereign to tender his resignation. The Queen lost no time in inviting Cameron to form the government. Brown vacated 10 Downing Street and Cameron made his appearance there.

The alliance could not have been easy. The Liberal Democratic Party has been keen on many points which would not be acceptable to the Conser-vatives. Above all, the Liberal Democrats want electoral reforms—introduction of proportional representation as in European countries, since the ‘first-past-the-post system’ does not reflect the electoral support. Thus in recent elections 23 per cent of voters voted for the Liberals, but their number of seats was less than 10 per cent. For Conservatives to accept the reforms was to commit themselves perpetually to a coalition system abandoning the ambition to form governments on their own in the succeeding elections. Cameron did not immediately accept the proposal for introducing the system of proportional representation but agreed to set up a committee to examine the issue in depth. A second important difference is the relationship with the European Union. The Liberal Democrats want a much closer integration with possible acceptance of Euro as the currency, whereas the Conservatives, as always, want to keep distance and retain the British identity. The proposals of the two parties to tackle the economic crisis are also somewhat different. Both agree that the recession is not yet over and recovery is weak. But the Liberal Democrats are more keen on maintaining employment while the Conservatives are eager on ending the huge budgetary deficit. Cameron wants fiscal toughness to be the hallmark of his government.

Despite these major differences in approach to political and economic issues, the lure of power was too much to resist. For the first time after many years, the Liberal Democrats had a chance of being in government. And that is what happened. Clegg became the Deputy Prime Minister and five of his colleagues became Ministers. Cameron, however, retained all the major portfolios for his colleagues—William Hague became the Foreign Secretary, thirtyeight years young George Osbourne became the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lian Fox became the Defence Secretary, Taresa May became the Home Secretary and Ken Clarke the Justice Minister.

Despite major differences on policy issues both Cameron and Clegg assured the British people that the government will last for five years. They expressed their intention to introduce a law for setting the next date of election after May 2015, replacing the current system in which the Prime Minister could call election any time. Both assured a government with a “strong and secure majority in the House of Commons”. What helped the Conservative-Liberal alliance was the fact that Cameron was no Thatcher with her hide-bound conservatism. He stands for ‘compassionate conservatism’. He also denounces unbridled greed and selfishness as the basis of capitalism and the free market economy. He wants a “more responsible society” in which “we just don’t ask what are my entitlements but what are my responsibilities—we don’t ask just what I own but what I can give”. Cameron is a defender of the national health service influenced by his experience of his eldest child who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy and died at the age of six.

Despite Brown’s desire to hang on to power, he ultimately had to bow down to openly expressed views that “we have got to respect the results of the general elections. We cannot get away from the fact that Labour did not win. Bargaining to stay in power at all cost is unacceptable. A Labour-Liberal pact would lack legitimacy and anger the public.”

The formation of a coalition government in Britain after the May 6 election has been neatly accomplished without ugly bargaining or messy compromises. The appointment of Nick Clegg as the Deputy Prime Minister and the bonohmie exhibited by both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister (taking in good humour the jibe of Cameron in course of the election propaganda that the biggest joke was Nick Clegg) at the time of their first press conference was a good augury for a smooth two-party government. Only the performance of the coalition government over the next five years would show how far the first coalition after the wartime coalition—between the Conservatives led by Winston Churchill and Labour led by Clement Attlee—has been successful. It might well be the beginning of a new coalition era in Britain.

II

The Indian Experience

WE in India, of course, have been a witness to coalition governments for many years in the States and even at the Centre after the end of the single-party domination of the Congress for over two decades following our attainment of independence. The scenario of multi-party coalition governments in India is far more complex than the two-party coalition in Britain. Many of the parties are of regional nature which, after forming governments in the State, have made their presence felt at the Centre. The Congress which was reluctant to form coalition governments was forced to swallow its pride and accept the inevitability of coalition after being out of power from 1996 till 2004. The prelude to the Congress coalition experience was the minority government of Narasimha Rao which stayed in power for a full term of five years, but at the cost of its image of moral rectitude being badly tarnished. It survived with the support of the MPs of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha led by Shibu Sorein who were bribed as a price for their support. This created a national scandal. A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court but it held that the phenomenon of acceptance of bribe took place on the floor of Parliament and hence was outside the purview of the judiciary. The judgment outraged all those advocating moral standards in politics but the judgment stands till today.

The Congress-led UPA coalition government completed its full term from 2004 to 2009 but not without making serious compromises with its policy preferences and decent standard of political morality. India’s original contribution to coalition politics is the existence of a coalition government based on ‘outside support’ of a party which refuses to join the government. The Leftists won more than sixty seats in 2004 and their support was crucial for the government to have the confidence of the House. They agreed to give outside support on the basis of a ‘common minimum programme’. The Leftists kept a close watch on the policy initiative of the UPA Government and did not allow the government to undertake ‘disinvestments’ of public enterprises nor the entry of foreign investments in banking and insurance nor also the investment of provident fund in the stock market. They further opposed the civilian nuclear energy agreement and the strategic pact with the US Government which was agreed upon between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George Bush. The Prime Minister put up with the Leftists’ resistance for a long time trying various ways to win them over and get their support but when the time ran out he took the plunge and the Leftists withdrew support putting the government in a minority. But when the crunch came, the government was able to win the confidence vote by winning over the Samajwadi Party (which hitherto had kept company with the Leftists) and wining over some Opposition MPs including those belonging to the BJP allegedly with bribes and blandishments. The ugly phenomenon of bundles of notes given by way of bribe on the Speaker’s table in an open House created outrage and a parliamentary enquiry committee was appointed with hardly any consequence. What was material was the government survived with a handsome majority. The government took it as a stamp of approval to the nuclear agreement.

The UPA Government not only completed its full term but came back with better results, specially for the Congress which crossed the 200 mark (206 to be precise) to the utter discomfiture of the BJP which had hoped to gain a majority but got just 116, 90 less than Congress. The Leftists fared even worst, being reduced to half. The Congress again formed a coalition with the participation of the DMK, NCP and Trinamul Congress under the leadership of the fiery Mamata Banerjee who, after a long struggle, was able to humble the long entrenched Marxists and their associates in West Bengal. The two main Opposition parties were in utter disarray. The regional parties, BSP and SP, for their own reasons, gave outside support to the government further weakening the Opposition.

Apparently UPA-II was in a far more comfortable position than UPA-I. However, it soon found itself in knots. The relentless rise in the prices of essential commodities caused hardships to the common people. The govern-ment took a number of measures like resort to imports, restrictions on exports, subsidised supplies through the public distribution system and tightening money supply but all these proved ineffective. On the contrary, additional tax levied on petrol and diesel raised their prices and had all the inevitable cascading effects on prices. The government was at its wit’s end in dealing with the price spiral. The Minister in charge of several relevant departments like agriculture, food, public distribution and consumer welfare refused to take responsibility and passed it on the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The government, in turn, attributed it to the drought situation, global rise in prices and higher price given to farmers for their products. The Opposition refused to accept these as valid reasons and drew attention to the bungling in international trade such as import of rotten wheat at high prices, export of sugar at subsidised rates and import of sugar at high prices, and futures trading in agricultural commodities. They tried to whip up agitations, including a huge rally in scorching heat in the nation’s Capital. They moved cut motions on the Budget in which both the BJP and the Leftists joined. They were confident of success which would have put the government in jeopardy. But the floor managers of the UPA were able to turn the tables by manipulating the regional parties. The BSP, with which the Congress party is at loggerheads for gaining power in UP, surprisingly declared support to the government. Their 23 votes came in very handy. At about the same time the CBI had withdrawn cases against Mayawati which action was seen as quid pro quo for gaining the BSP support on the cut motions. What was more surprising was that the SP and RJD, which were with the Leftists in attacking the government for inflation of food prices, chose to walk out instead of supporting the cut motions.

Even the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, who was still an MP and who was the Chief Minister of Jharkhand with the BJP as the coalition partner and in opposition to the Congress, chose to cast his vote in favour of the UPA to the utter dis-comfiture of the BJP. The motion consequently was lost decisively with a substantial margin in favour of the UPA. The government interpreted the vote as a mandate in its favour, though it was quite clear that but for the support of the BSP and the walkout of the SP and RJD, the government would have been in a minority. The UPA was clearly buying support through political bargaining. The Leftists accused Mulayam Singh of perfidy. As for the SP and RJD, who had joined the Leftist parties in demonstrations against price rise, their last-minute decision not to vote in favour of the cut motion shocked the Leftist parties particularly because only a few days ago, in the teeth of opposition of the SP and RJD, the Congress had passed the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. It appeared later that in return for the favour of ‘not voting’, the Congress quietly dropped the proposal to place the Bill before the Lok Sabha. Such is the power of the small parties to make the much bigger parties act according to their wishes. The decision not to include ‘caste’ in the census, which had already commenced, was also a concession to the SP and RJD.

Nor do the regional parties trust the Congress —just when it seemed that the SP was moving towards evolving a working relationship with the Congress, the government’s decision to refer the civic liability nuclear damage bill to the Standing Committee of Parliament on science and technology and not the one on energy headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, led to fresh heartburn between the two parties.

The Congress knows the unreliability of the regional parties who cannot always be depended upon.

The BJP, betrayed by Shibu Soren, withdrew support to his government in Jharkhand but had second thoughts when Shibu’s son Hemant came forward with a compromise solution of a BJP Chief Minister supported by the Jhakhand Mukti Morcha. The wily Guruju (Shibu Soren) once again showed his political skill by throwing in the idea of a rotational CM. After some pre-varification the BJP succumbed to this idea. Such is the lure of power! (However, later things changed and the BJP went back to its position of withdrawing suppoort to the JMM, and Jharkhand has been finally put under President’s Rule.)

Another serious case showed how a regional party could hold the Congress to ransom by insisting on its pound of flesh. The DMK joined the UPA Government as its constituent by asking for and getting crucial and lucrative portfolios and nominating its own candidates to those ministerial positions. One of them was the Tele-communication Department held by A. Raja who was involved in a huge scandal relating to the sale of G2 spectrum in 2008; that was sold at 2002 prices landing the government in huge losses calculated anywhere between Rs 60,000 crores and Rs 100,000 crores. There was widespread exposure in the press and electronic media causing national outrage and the demand for Raja’s ouster from the Cabinet. But the Prime Minister, known for his own personal integrity, was unable to take any action against Raja especially after the 85-year old Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and DMK patron made a personal visit to Delhi and met the Prime Minister urging him to support Raja and ensure his continued position as the Cabinet Minister in charge of Communications. He dismissed all charges against Raja as false and made just because he was a Dalit forgetting that the CAG and many other independent bodies had clearly corroborated and established the huge scandal. Even the CBI had ‘raided’ his office. And yet he continues to be a Union Cabinet Minister, seriously compromising the high stand of political integrity and morality.

Opportunistic political bargaining and messy compromises and condonation of serious scandals have been undermining the very foun-dations of confidence in our democracy. We have to establish the tradition and culture of coalition working on the basis of principles rather than mere expediencies which lead one to move from one political crisis to another.

Dr P.R. Dubhashi, IAS (retd.), is a former Secretary to the Government of India and Vice-Chancellor, Goa University. He is currently the Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Pune Kendra. He is also a Padmabhushan awardee. He can be contacted at
e-mail: dubhashi@giaspn01.vsnl.net.in

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