BHARAT BALLOT 09: A MATTER OF COALITIONS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 000686 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM IN SUBJECT: BHARAT BALLOT 09: A MATTER OF COALITIONS REF: BHARAT BALLOT 09 SERIES ¶1. (SBU) Summary: The fragmentation of political power away from Delhi and the national parties to the states and regional parties means that no single party is capable of forming a national government by itself in India. With little more than a week to go before the start of the polling cycle on April 16, the intense period of negotiations and deal-making to lock in pre-poll alliances has ended and the election campaign has begun in earnest. Going into the polls, Indian electoral politics today hinges around five axis: a Congress Party-led alliance; a Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance; a communist-led Third Front; the Brahmin-Dalit combine of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati; and a "Fourth Front" of regional political parties in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This cable explores the nature of coalition politics in India. We will examine the Congress Party and BJP alliances in subsequent cables. End Summary. Coalitions Here to Stay -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Indian parliamentary elections are notoriously unpredictable because of the inherent difficulty of assessing the pulse and mood of an electorate that is so widely diverse in geography, language, ethnicity, religion, economic status and a host of other attributes. A large roster of viable political parties makes it harder to assess their relative strengths during any given election cycle. Caste and ethnic configurations and local development and governance issues can shift widely from one constituency to the next, making it even more difficult to predict aggregate results. ¶3. (SBU) However, one of the few predictions that can be made with a high degree of confidence about the upcoming April-May parliamentary election is that it will result in a coalition government, as no single party has the strength to come close to a majority in parliament. Every Indian government since 1991 has been a coalition (or a minority government supported by other parties.) And, this trend has been accelerating over time. The current United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is a coalition of 13 political parties in government and at least half a dozen that support it from the outside. The previous 1999-2004 National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was a coalition of close to two dozen parties. Powers Shifts Away From the Center �00A; -------------- ¶3. (SBU) For the last 40 years, political power in India has moved steadily to regional parties or single-issue parties, which are often caste-based and dominated by a single personality. The once mighty Congress Party, which led the freedom struggle and for long held absolute power in Delhi and the states, has lost its luster and fallen on hard times. It once served as a coalition in itself, bringing together all of India's castes, religions and ethnic groups under one umbrella. The Congress Party's credibility has eroded over time because of the arrogance of power, the autocratic ways of its leaders, its failure to respond to regional aspirations and its inability to adapt to the changing India. ¶4. (SBU) The penchant of the Nehru-Gandhi family to centralize power in its own hands and bring down regional party leaders to ensure that no one can challenge its supremacy has been particularly damaging to the party. Regional political leaders, especially in the key states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, have steadily peeled away from the party and set up their own political bases. The result has been that the Congress Party is virtually nonexistent in these two states that together comprise about more than 20 percent of the lower house of parliament. These two states NEW DELHI 00000686 002 OF 003 were at one time the heart of the Congress Party's electoral calculations and the disappearance of the party's strength there mirrors its national decline. ¶5. (SBU) The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never been a truly national party. With roots in Hindu nationalism as a response to centuries of Muslims and Christian rule, its appeal was limited to the Hindi heartland in northern India. While it has managed to spread to the non-Hindi speaking states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Orissa and Karnataka, the BJP has not been able to sufficiently broaden its appeal geographically and across caste and identity lines to threaten to win a majority on its own. Both the Congress and the BJP must, therefore, rely on fractious and unwieldy coalitions with smaller parties to govern. Pre-Poll and Post-Poll Alliances -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Coalition politics in India is of two stripes. In pre-poll alliances, parties reach an understanding early, generally before the candidate nominations have been declared and the elections campaigns begun. The allied parties apportion election districts in a state or a region between them on the basis of some seat allocation formula that is roughly commensurate with the strength of each party in the sub-regions of that state or region. By pledging to consolidate their votes in each district, the allies improve their chances against candidates of other parties in these districts. In post-poll alliances, the parties come together once elections results have been declared. They have fought the elections independently and often against each other. Both types of alliances are common in India. Indeed, both are necessary in order for any configuration of parties to reach a stable majority in parliament and form a viable government. Ideology-free Coalitions -------------- ¶6. (SBU) The distinctive feature of coalition politics in India is the almost complete absence of any ideological grounding of most of the regional parties when it comes to alliances for governing coalitions. Pre-poll alliances are forged only so that parties can pool their voter bases and avoid multi-cornered contents. Once the elections are over, political parties, big and small, negotiate for the best deal they can get to secure a piece of the pie, which different parties see differently. Some parties, for example, will not want ministerial berths in the federal cabinet and will bargain for power in their home states. Others will want specific portfolios in the federal cabinet because they consider them either as a source of patronage (Railways) or fund-raising (Chemicals and Fertilizers, Steel, Coal, Mines). Still others will demand a certain policy change or government action designed to benefit a specific person or group as the price for their support - the price demanded by the Samajwadi Party in return for its support to the UPA during the July 2008 confidence vote reportedly was an UPA agreement to slow down prosecution of Samajwadi Party president Mulayum Singh Yadav in a criminal corruption case. ¶7. (SBU) There are only a handful of combinations that can be ruled out in advance. Only one or two of these are on pure ideological grounds - it is difficult to imagine, for example, the communist parties entering a BJP-led coalition at this time (although they have supported each other in the past.) A few other combinations are unlikely for political rather than ideological reasons - most regional parties that battle each other in a given state would likely not be a part of the same coalition in Delhi (Tamil parties DMK and AIDMK, for example). Similarly, regional parties whose principal opponent in the state is the Congress Party would not likely be part a coalition led by the Congress Party (Shiromani NEW DELHI 00000686 003 OF 003 Akali Dal). Beyond that the parties see the field open to them to reach the best deal possible, regardless of any ideological compatibility issues. The 2009 Fault Lines -------------- ¶6. (SBU) The frenzy of negotiations, deal-making, feints and counter-feints over pre-poll alliances ended last week, with several crucial alliances sealed and many that did not materialize. Both the Congress Party and the BJP got some rude shocks, with the Congress having greater difficulty finding partners ahead of the polls. As the campaigns have entered full swing, the main alliance fault lines are as follows: Congress Party: It entered into pre-poll alliances with the Karunanidhi's DMK in Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. It failed to reach an understanding with UPA allies: Malayum Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party in Bihar, the Nationalist Congress Party outside of Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu's PMK also left the UPA alliance to team up with another regional party in that state. BJP: It has entered into pre-poll alliances with the Janata Dal-United in Bihar, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab, the Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, the Rashtriya Lok Dal in Uttar Pradesh, and the Asom Gana Parishad in Assam. The BJP could not reach an agreement in Orissa with its long time partner, the Biju Janata Dal, which broke away to fight alone in that state. Third Front: The communist parties have been working hard to assemble a third alternative to challenge the Congress and the BJP. Parties that have signed on with varying degrees of commitment include the four communist parties of the left front, the Telegu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti in Andhra Pradesh, the AIDMK in Tamil Nadu, and the Janata Dal-Secular in Karnataka. Fourth Front: Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan in Bihar and Mulayum Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, after having dumped the Congress Party ahead of the polls, have pledged to support each other in their respective states and not field candidates against each other in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has not attempted to enter into an alliance or understanding with any other party. It goes into the election with its Brahmin-Dalit combine alone and will contest countrywide although its strength lies mainly in Uttar Pradesh. BURLEIGH