The only constant in life is change, they say, and the same seems to be true in the world of politics at the moment.
Internationally, the incumbent governing coalition in Germany lost that country’s general election. Here in Meghalaya, the Voice of the People Party swept to power in the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council.
It looks likely that Canada’s ruling party will be in trouble in their autumn election, while we only have to go back to last year when the Democratic Party lost in the USA and the Conservatives in the UK.
In one way, this is a beautiful thing – democracy in action! But some aspects of these changes are worrying for the progressively minded.
The UK result appeared to buck a trend towards the right-wing, with the election of Labour to power. But the return of the left-of-centre only told part of the story. Had Reform UK not taken away so many votes the vote could have, conceivably, resulted in another Conservative win last year.
The right, it seems, appears to have the might at the moment.
Take Germany. One in every five electors there has just voted for a far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (known by its German initials AfD), which is now the second biggest party in parliament after the conservative CDU/CSU coalition. This is the largest share a far-right outfit has won since the time of the Nazis. The country has become obsessed over immigration – the legal kind, the illegal kind and asylum seekers. This has become such a big subject that even parties on the left are being pushed to take harder positions.
Here in India the BJP appeared to have received a bloody nose in the Parliamentary polls last year even if it held on to power. But success at recent state elections have shown that the party and its divisive, minority-bashing and majoritarian policies still bring in plenty of votes.
Nothing seems more ominous than the USA’s turn towards the Trumpian Republican Party, simply because that nation’s power and influence are impossible to ignore. Not only is Donald Trump taking the country to the right but he is ripping up the established playbook and crafting a new world order where the certainties of the past and the hopes for a better future are in doubt. The latest shock to the system is that the US Ambassador voted, along with North Korea, Israel and Belarus (three countries with less than stellar records at the moment) to support Russia in the United Nations over votes on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which touched its three-year anniversary on Monday.
The Donald, however, has his fans. Here in Meghalaya, the VPP leader, Ardent Basaiawmoit, appears to have – directly or indirectly – taken Trump as an inspiration. And it has worked. Religion, populism, bashing the press and being anti-establishment won it for Ardent. The KHADC is not on the scale of the White House or Capitol but it is a start for the VPP.
