Different nations, different challenges and different political ethos. The outcome of the elections in the UK, France and Iran irrevocably point in one direction: change. It is as if these countries are facing a moment of reckoning. As new entrants make inroads into constituencies that have lost faith in the established order, the older political elites are struggling to retain their hold – and mostly failing. It is as if they were never so out of touch with the reality, unable to respond to the challenge from their streets.
In the last one fortnight, voters in the UK have sent out a strong message of disapproval to the Conservative Party government led by Rishi Sunak, even though his decency was never in doubt. At a time when the rest of Europe is moving to the right, they have voted for the left-centre Labour Party. Sunak was not only bogged down by the legacy of his predecessors, who had made a mockery of public mandates, but was also unable to soothe the British public struggling with rising costs of living and a crumbling public services infrastructure. The Conservative Party imploded and Sunak’s leadership never managed to rise to match the needs of today’s Britain.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron had to call a snap election, fearing the resurgence of the nation’s far-right party, the National Rally (RN). Only a last-minute, left-wing tactical adjustment prevented an outright landslide for the RN, which has greatly increased its representation in the Parliament. The emerging coalition between his party and the Left is destined to be a headache for Macron. Separately, last month, the European Union elections saw a resurgence of the right in ways few had anticipated.
It is the whiff of change in the land of Ayatollahs that offers much promise. A reformist, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been elected the new President, beating his hardline conservative rival Saeed Jalili by securing about 53.3 per cent of votes, nine percentage points more than his rival. This is not the first time a reformist has come to power in Iran in a system that has been dominated by the ‘supreme leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since 1989. The conservatives have controlled all the levers of power and have managed to scuttle earlier reformists like Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani. However, there has been a growing disillusionment with Iran’s morality police. Pezeshkian has promised ‘unity and cohesion’ as well as an end to Iran’s ‘isolation’ from the world. He has talked in a language that appealed to those, particularly the young, who want normalcy in a nation that has been on the edge of a precipice for years now.
The developments around the world are equally startling. US President Joe Biden’s credibility has seen a free fall with a section of Democrats and its supporters asking him to withdraw from the presidential race. Indeed, the world’s eyes are now on the leadership contest in the US. Donald Trump, under whose previous presidency the foundations of the American democratic institutional fabric came under severe strain, heads the presidential race, as the base of the Republican Party continues to move to the right. Despite facing a number of charges in the courts, Trump’s greatest advantage is a doddering Biden.
Israel is facing a civil war-like situation, with people demanding Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resignation even as the nation remains in a state of war on multiple fronts. Qatar, Israel’s long-time Arab partner and neighbour is enraged over Netanyahu’s recent list of demands for potential ceasefire deal. The Israeli PM has also annoyed American officials. There are reports of cold war between Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence agencies, including Mossad.
Back home in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third consecutive victory and our democracy’s continuing resilience underscored the Indian electorate’s ability to make nuanced choices. The voters denied him an outright victory and Modi now runs a coalition government. Indeed, the global churn has a lesson for Indian political leaders and the larger system too. The BJP will now need to be more accommodative, mindful of other’s concerns. The Congress, with the same old ideas, has emerged as the largest Opposition by default, but will need to rethink its ideological trajectory, if it wants to be accepted as a ruling party once again.
But do these two parties have in them to change their stripes, be they fascist or feudalist, and emerge as parties that can lead India to its glory? If not, they too run the risk of being subsumed by the global trend. In that case, India’s bipolar polity may have a third pole. u