Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09CHENNAI109
2009-04-15 03:54:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Consulate Chennai
Cable title:  

BHARAT BALLOT 09: ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN KERALA

Tags:  PGOV KIRF PHUM IN 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO1140
RR RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDBU RUEHLH RUEHNEH RUEHPW
DE RUEHCG #0109/01 1050354
ZNR UUUUU ZZH RETRANSMITTED MESSAGE
R 150354Z APR 09
FM AMCONSUL CHENNAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2210
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 3612
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0223
RUEHRL/AMEMBASSY BERLIN 0047
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0205
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 0142
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0137
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0139
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0239
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHMFIUU/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEIDN/DNI WASHINGTON DC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENNAI 000109 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KIRF PHUM IN
SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT 09: ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN KERALA

REF: A) CHENNAI 104 B) CHENNAI 094 C) CHENNAI 066

CHENNAI 00000109 001.2 OF 003


UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENNAI 000109

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KIRF PHUM IN
SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT 09: ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN KERALA

REF: A) CHENNAI 104 B) CHENNAI 094 C) CHENNAI 066

CHENNAI 00000109 001.2 OF 003



1. (SBU) Summary: The 21.6 million voters in the state of Kerala
will go to polls on April 16 in the first of five phases of India's
national elections. During a road tour of Kerala, we found the
Congress party in an upbeat mood expecting to win a majority of the
20 seats that are up for grabs, thus reversing the terrible defeat
it suffered in 2004 when it failed to win a single seat. The ruling
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) and its allies are scrambling
to counter the Congress alliance's momentum. Voter disenchantment
with the CPM-led state government weighs heavily on the CPM-led Left
Democratic Front (LDF). The CPM's attempts to bring in Muslim
voters by aligning with a controversial Islamic party have taken
center stage. The consensus is that Congress is likely to gain at
least ten seats despite concerns that the party's New Delhi-centered
candidate selection is out of sync with local sentiments and could
result in setbacks in a few constituencies. End summary.

Congress in an upbeat mood
--------------


2. (SBU) The Congress party is hoping to make dramatic gains in
Kerala when the state's 21.6 million voters go to the polls on April
16 to elect 20 members of Parliament. During a recent trip from
Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Palakkad in the north, we met
with a wide range of people, including journalists, candidates,
party officials, and agricultural workers. Many believed the
Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition is on the
upswing. They often cited Kerala's traditionally strong
anti-incumbency as benefiting the out-of-power UDF. "We think we
will get 17 seats, at least 15," said Pandalam Sudhakaran, a former
Congress minister who is campaigning for former UN Under-Secretary
General and Congress candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi
Tharoor. Many journalists expressed similar expectations for the
Congress. Their predictions ranged from 12-15 for the UDF, with the
Congress getting 9-12 seats of that total. The Congress is
contesting in 17 constituencies leaving two to its ally the Indian
Union Muslim League (IUML) and one to the Kerala Congress (M),a
party that split off from the Congress in 1979. On the LDF side,
the CPM is contesting in 14 constituencies, the Communist Party of

India (CPI) in 4, Kerala Congress (J) in one, with one seat
contested by an independent candidate aligned with the left front.


CPM on the defensive
--------------


3. (SBU) Education Minister M.A. Baby's overview of the state's
political scene made clear the CPM's defensive posture. According
to Baby, the state's anti-CPM press is using the bribery scandal
involving the CPM's state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan (ref C) to
pillory the party. "We are trying to correct the perception, but
the newspaper campaign is bound to have some impact," he said. Baby
also admitted that the pastoral letter sent by the Catholic bishops
(ref B) urging their parishioners to vote against the CPM could
affect his party's prospects. Baby believes that the CPM's
opponents are willing to use anything to discredit the party. He
seemed resigned, saying "all's fair in love and war. Politics is
mostly war with very little love." In Palakkad, a local journalist
observed that the morale of the CPM is very low compared to past
elections.

CPM turns to Muslim voters to revive its fortunes
--------------


4. (SBU) According to many observers, Kerala's CPM suffers from a
lack of allies who can deliver votes. The CPM's major ally, the
CPI, has little support outside of the trade unions. The Kerala
Congress (J) is weakened after several Catholic bishops stopped
backing the party. The Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Janata
Dal (S) are depleted by infighting. In contrast, Congress and the

CHENNAI 00000109 002.2 OF 003


UDF can rely on the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML),which is
still a dominant force, to deliver Muslim votes and the Kerala
Congress (M) remains popular in Central Kerala.


5. (SBU) The CPM's tactical decision to use the controversial, but
popular, Islamic leader, Abdul Nasser Madhani (ref C),is widely
seen as an effort to break the IUML's "monopoly" on Muslim votes and
attract them to the LDF. Some journalists believed that the CPM has
promised Madhani's People's Democratic Party (PDP) full-fledged
membership in the LDF at some later point. The media storm
following Madhani's appearance on stage with CPM officials forced
the CPM to back-pedal on its relationship with the PDP. Baby
treaded carefully when discussing the PDP: he said the CPM had
unilaterally accepted the support of the PDP and was in no way
offering its endorsement to the PDP. In addition to playing the PDP
card, the CPM has effectively mobilized its own popular leaders from
the Muslim community in an effort to target this important voting
bloc. Muslims comprise 24% of the state's electorate, and are
considered crucial to success in more than half of the state's
parliamentary constituencies.


6. (SBU) Congress's ally IUML appears to be losing its vise-like
grip on Kerala's Muslim voters. Several journalists remarked that
this election could be the first where Kerala's Muslim vote splits.
In addition to the CPM's strong play via the PDP, there are several
other smaller Muslim parties looking to pick off votes from the
IUML's vote bloc. At the same time, the CPM's enlistment of the
controversial PDP may lead to a backlash from those Christian and
Hindu voters who would normally be aligned with the CPM. As a
result, the CPM may actually experience a net loss, gaining the
support of the PDP's supporters at the expense of losing from the
larger pool of moderate voters from the Christian and Hindu
communities.

India's relations with Israel and the U.S.
--------------


7. (SBU) Although Indian elections normally center on local issues,
the CPM's election rhetoric is infused with foreign affairs. The
CPM derides India's defense relations with Israel and its strategic
partnership with the United States. Loudspeakers decked with the
CPM's hammer and sickle flags blast epithets at the Congress party,
calling its leaders "slaves of imperialism" and "stooges of the
U.S." On the streets of one town we heard an announcement blaring
that "a dollar spent on buying Israeli weapons is a dollar spent on
its war against the Palestinians." Journalists in
Thiruvananthapuram told us that Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor
has been facing intense media scrutiny of his past writings, some of
which commend Israel. Local CPM leaders have portrayed Tharoor as
an "American agent."
K.V. Thomas, Congress's candidate in Cochin, is under fire for
having presented a memento to a former Israeli Prime Minister years
ago during his visit to India. In attacking Congress for its close
ties to the United States, the CPM is portraying the United States
as anti-Muslim in hopes of pulling in Muslim voters. The CPM also
refers to the U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement.
Interestingly, CPM references to the deal indicate that the party
would only amend the deal; the CPM does not say it would entirely
scrap it.

Kerala Congress leaders resent New Delhi's dictates
--------------


8. (SBU) The Congress party's traditionally New Delhi-centered
decision-making has been out of sync with local sentiments in
Kerala. For example, Shashi Tharoor's candidacy has raised the
hackles of many prominent Congress leaders in Thiruvananthapuram.
Journalists pointed out that many Youth Congress leaders were
disappointed with Tharoor's selection and have yet to become fully
active in his campaign. Disappointment over the refusal of the
Cochin ticket to a widely popular young Congress leader, Hibi Eden,

CHENNAI 00000109 003.2 OF 003


fueled a negative reaction so strong that the leader of the state's
Congress party distanced himself from it.

All politics is local
--------------


9. (SBU) Our visit to Kerala made clear that although the elections
are national, they amount to a vast conglomeration of intensely
local contests. We found that at the village level people had
vastly different opinions on what was important in the election.
Local development, the presence of independents and rebels in the
fray, and caste/community issues were all at play. For example, we
watched local villagers complaining to a candidate about water
hyacinth which clogged canals making them impassable and forcing the
villagers into the back breaking work of carting their rice harvest
over land. Caste was the issue in Thiruvananthapuram, where many
talked about the BSP candidate who will not win but might affect the
race by drawing votes from the predominant Nadar caste to which he
belongs. Locals at a road side tea shop in Chalakkudy expressed
their support for a philanthropist who has built free toilets for
the community's poor and is running as an independent candidate.
Many at the tea shop expressed disgust with the state's CPM
government, while questions about the UPA in New Delhi drew more
neutral reactions.

Communists and Congress back together again?
--------------


10. (SBU) CPM leader Baby and CPI National Secretary D. Raja told us
that the non-Congress, non-BJP parties' chances are brightening.
According to Baby, the parties will sit together after the polls and
forge a common minimum program "which should not be too difficult."
According to Baby, the CPM has amended its party program to enable
the party to be part of a coalition government should the situation
warrant it. He clarified that the CPM has not offered its support to
the Congress in the post-poll scenario, but it would accept support
from the Congress, if necessary. Congress leaders, on the other
hand, believe that the left parties will have no alternative to
supporting the Congress after the elections.

BJP stands alone
--------------


11. (SBU) The BJP is fighting it out alone in Kerala. Its best
hopes are in Thiruvananthapuram in the contest against Congress's
Shashi Tharoor. The four-cornered contest between the UDF, LDF, the
BJP and the BSP gives the BJP candidate a faint hope of winning the
seat. For the most part, however, the BJP candidates are not
campaigning very seriously in Kerala.

Congress looks to solid gains
--------------



12. (SBU) Comment: Local issues and concerns are driving Kerala's
elections, and they are driving them in favor of the Congress party
and its allies. Attitudes toward the state's ruling CPM, its scams
and squabbles, its alliances and patronage, all seem to be key
issues rather than national politics. In a state where
anti-incumbency is the rule, voter ire is directed at the state
rather than the central government. The CPM is clearly gambling on
splitting the Muslim vote in Kerala. Pulling off some surprise
victories in Muslim-dominated key constituencies could help it stop
the bleeding in this electoral cycle. But it may also lead to a
possible backlash against the CPM's Muslim focus by Hindus and
Christians, which will benefit the UDF, or possibly even the BJP, in
the long run. On the eve of voters going to the polls the consensus
is that Congress will pick up at least ten seats in Kerala, likely
more. End comment.

SIMKIN