Outline tline Co Coalition alition Pol olitics - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Outline tline

Co Coalition alition Pol

• litics

itics

Objective of the coalition politics

 To understand the characteristics of coalition governments.  To understand the concept, rationale and desirability of coalition governments.  To analyze the efficacy of coalition governments in general and their performance.  To suggest certain remedies and guidelines for the better functioning of coalition governments.

Types of Coalitions

 Electoral Alliances.  Coalition Governments.  Grand Coalitions.  Governments of National Unity.  Legislative Coalitions.

Key Concept for Coalition buildings

 Opportunities and Risks.  Context Matters.  The four C’s : Communication, Consultation, Consensus and Compromise.  The Five Steps .

Opportunities of coalition politics

 By combining forces & resources with others, parties can increase their influences and accomplish goals they could not achieve on their own.  Parties can broaden their appeal and increase their vote by combining forces with others. This may create opportunities to secure legislative seats, form a govt. and achieve other specific political goals.  They can provide opportunities to manage cleavage's (e.g, ethnic, religious) and broaden participation in govt.  By sharing resources – e.g., money, people – parties can mitigate each other’s weaknesses and benefit from partner strengths.

Cont….

 The public may see coalition-building as an admirable effort to consider other points of view and seek compromise.  Coalition members can learn from each

• ther and thus strengthen their individual
• rganizations based on those experiences.

 The public may associate individual parties with coalition successes, helping to increase support.

Risks of coalition politics

 To find common ground with partners, each party must compromise on its priorities and principles, and cede some control.  Parties lose some control over messaging and decision-making, and may find it difficult to maintain a distinct profile that distinguishes them from their coalition partners.

Cont…….

 The public may feel that party leaders have abandoned their principles to enjoy the spoils

• f power.

 The public may associate individual parties with controversial/unpopular coalition policies, thus weakening party support in subsequent elections.  The need to consult and reach agreement among coalition partners can make government decision-making more complex and/or slower.

Cont…….

 Poor communication within individual parties

• n coalition goals, objectives and benefits can

fuel intraparty tensions/divisions.  Grand coalitions or coalitions with an

• verwhelming majority can weaken or

marginalize democratic opposition groups.

Push and pull effects on politics

Push – these factors represent the reasons why a group of people within a parent party repel or separate to form an independent party. Such a situation creates possibility of coalition in future. Pull- these are the factors that attracts various parties to come together to form a coalition

Some of the push factors

Loss of trust and inability to represent the diversity of India. Failure of recognition of talent within the dominant party. If dominant party encompasses various political views within itself. To protect the national interest.

Some of the pull factors

Formation of a Common Minimum Program which accommodates the views and ideologies of the various parties forming coalition. Opportunity for regional party to win office for their members Opportunities for regional parties to influence the policies to serve their region.  Important strategy to deter other strong political party from rising to power.  To get consensus in rajya sabha, tendency to form coalition at state level.

Coalition Politics in India

• National level

1977-79

• First coalition government
• The formation of the first Janata Party government at the Centre under the

prime-ministership of Morarji Desai

• Jana Sangh, the Congress (O) the Bhartiya Lok Dal and the Socialist Party-

came together to contest the election with a common symbol and manifesto.

• In this phase of Indian political system, bargaining politics reigned supreme

replacing the characteristic collective leadership of pre- 1977 era

1979-80

• Janata party suffered a split and in its place Lok Dal became the ruling

party

• A new coalition government was formed with Charan Singh as the Prime

Minister

• However, this government also failed remain in power for more than six

months

• Ended the first era of coalition experiment
• Single party dominance re emerged during the period from 1980-89.

1989- 90

National Front = the Jana Morcha +Janata party+ Lok Dal

• Inefficiency and instability

due to the presence of strong differences among its partners

• dependence on the BJP and

the left.

1991-1996

• In June 1991, a minority government of the Congress
• it was in a position to hold power up to 1996

1996-98

• BJP emerged as the single largest party
• Government could last for only 13days
• United Front formed its government
• The CPI joined this government
• CPM - outside support
• Lasted for about a year

1996-98

• The Second United Front government was again a coalition

government

• dependent upon the Congress support.
• It could work smoothly for only six months and after the withdrawal
• f support by the congress in November 1998, it became a caretaker

government.

1999

• 13 constituent parties at the time of its formation in May 1998
• By April 1999, there developed serious differences between it and

the AIADMK.

• withdraw its support.

1999-2004

• 1999, the NDA government the BJP-led NDA government under Prime Minister

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

• This coalition was a coalition of too many parties and factions of parent parties.
• They had all stronger state agendas and no national agendas.
• The BJP which led NDA government resolved many conflicts amicably
• NDA succeeded in maintaining stability.
• NDA set the trend of successful running of a coalition.

2004-2014

• UPA was formed soon after the 14th Lok Sabha elections in 2004.
• This alliance is given the external support from the left

front consisting of the four main leftist parties.

2014 onwards

• NDA Government Was Formed Under The Prime Ministership Of Sh. Narendra Modi
• Bharatiya Janata Party, The largest party, which forms the bulwark of the NDA,won a

staggering 282 seats.

State Experience

Pseudo Timeline

State Important Experiences Outstanding Feature Kerala

1950s onwards but early 1980s these two coalitions have alternated in government Communist Party of India(Marxist)- led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Indian National Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) since late 1970s are 2 coalition fronts

Bihar

1967 onwards, Karpuri Thakur CM Last 30 yrs – mostly coalitions – (RJD + INC)  (JDU + BSP)  (RJD + JDU et.al.) JP movement  emergency Fractured mandate leading to early elections 6/16 Assembly elections – coalitions

Uttar Pradesh

1967 onwards, Raj Narain Singh (Samyukta Vidhayak Dal); Charan Singh first non Cong CM; Second phase – 90s onwards: post Babri Masjid era Last 7/15 yrs coalition It paved the way for coalitions at centre & abuse of art 356 started. Defections & counter defections 9/16 Assembly elections - coalitions

Punjab

Post 1966 reorganization led to coalition politics with SAD, BJP, INC, BSP etc Last 10 yrs BJP + SAD

Odisha

1971 onwards - Rajendra Narayan Singh Deo CM Swatantra Party & Orissa Jana Congress BJD & BJP since last 10 yrs

Karnataka

1980s onwards – Ramkrishna Hegde CM 3/14 Assembly elections - coalitions

Maharastra

1995 onwards – Shiv Sena + BJP From 1999 until 2014, the NCP and INC formed one coalition while Shiv Sena and the BJP formed

UPA-1 CASE IN POINT

START OF AN ALLIANCE

PARTNERS AND NUMBERS

Congress and allies: 275 Indian National Congress: 145 Samajwadi Party: 39 Rashtriya Janata Dal: 21 Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam: 16 Nationalist Congress Party: 9 Kerala Congress: 2 Pattali Makkal Katchi: 6 Telangana Rashtra Samithi: 5 Jharkhand Mukti Morcha: 5 Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam: 4 Lok Jan Shakti Party: 3 Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party: 1Republican Party of India: 1 Muslim League: 1

OUTSIDE SUPPORT

• CPI (Marxist),
• CPI, Revolutionary Socialist Party(RSP)
• All IndiaForward Block (AIFB)

TOTAL 59 MPs

AN INFORMAL PREPOLL ALLIANCE

UPA was formed soon after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. However, aninformal alliance had existed prior to the elections as several of the current constituentparties had developed seat- sharing agreements in many states. Initially, the proposedname for the alliance was ‘Secular Progressive Alliance

CRITICS

UPA’s fragile coalition is in a way a MOCKERY because the parties do not agree on fundamental issues such as economicreforms.

SOLUTION- PLACATING TACTICS

• Common Minimum Programme (CMP)
• MANY POINTS OF CPI AND LEFT PARTIES

INCLUDED

PROBLEMS FACED

SCAMS

WALK OUT

IDEOLOGICAL BATTLES NUCLEAR DEAL

VICTORY THROUGH ASTUTE COALITION DIALOGUE

TALL LEADERSHIP-UPA 1

OPPURTUNISM AND COALITION Mayawati said she had given an open warning to the UPA in January this year that BSP would withdraw support if the Congress-led coalition 'did not mend its ways' and change its step-motherly attitude towards the state government

DIVISION OF LABOUR POLITICAL VS ECONOMIC

ANOTHER REASON OF SUCCESS

• The major difference between 2004 and

earlier elecions was that the Congress, for the first time, became coalitionable in a large number of significant states under the logic

• f “the enemy of my enemy is a friend”.

2004-2009

RESULTS- “SURVIVED”

Coalition Politics

International Experience

Are Coalition Governments as frequent globally as they are in India?

YES!

Coalition Governments across the globe

Continent Country Europe Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, UK* Americas Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Greenland Africa Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Rwanda Asia Central (Kyrgyzstan), South (Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), South East (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand), West (Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine), East (Japan) Oceania Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Island, Tonga, Vanuatu

Do they display tendencies similar to the Indian case?

• Underachievers: Italy, Germany
• Exceptional: Switzerland

Political Stability

• Star Performers: India, Germany, France,

Japan

• Underachievers: Italy, Ireland, Greece,

Cyprus Economy

• Star Performers: Norway, Australia,

Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, UK, Iceland, Israel, Japan, France, Austria, Finland

• Poor Performers: Rwanda, DRC, G-B,

Human Development

• Assertive: Israel, Germany and France

Assertiveness and timely decision making

Coalition Politics in the International Arena

UN

• Security Council (Expansion to make it

more representative) : lack of consensus

• Vetoes
• Case of quick action

EU

• Dominance of larger economies like

Germany and France

What does this imply?

• Coalition

Governments are fairly common globally

• A priori it is not the presence or absence of

coalition politics (and resulting coalition governments) that either facilitate or impede a nation’s/groups performance

• It is the actual policies followed by these coalition

governments (besides other factors) and the rules of engagement that determine success

Strength

• Increases participation of Socio-Cultural and Economic

parties in governance – NDA 1, UPA 1

• Interests of India’s states are reflected in national

political agendas

• Check arbitrary use of article 356
• Check on top to bottom approach of government

policies.

• Consensus based politics a necessity

Weakness

• Confrontational politics - WB influence Foreign policy

with Bangladesh , TN with SL

• Unstable & weak government - Janata Party raj, the

governments of V P Singh, I k Gujral, Devegowda etc

• Corruption and maladministration e.g. Coal gate scam,

Spectrum scam

• Rise of criminalization of politics , liberalization of

economy, rise of caste and communal based politics since 1990's also need deeper analysis in this context.

Opportunities

• “Deepening” and “widening” of India’s democracy
• Diffusing feeling of neglect at regional level
• Waves of federalization, decentralization, and widening

voter participation

• Cooperative federalism
• Check authoritarianism and concentration of power
• Less interference of center on state list subjects

Threat

• Fractured mandate – burden on exchequer
• Policy paralysis e.g. civil nuclear liability, GST
• Constitutional positions are politicized e.g. Governor

OVERALL ANALYSIS

COALITION OF POLITICS IN BHUTAN

BY:- Sonam Gaki(RBPS)

Indian Prime Minister MODI JI in Bhutan