In the inquiry into who would be the strongest Democratic Presidential nominee in 2020, Donald Trump is what might be called a hostile witness. “Joe Biden is a dummy,” the President said last week, on his way to Iowa, where Biden, who spent more than three decades in the Senate and eight years as Barack Obama’s Vice-President and one of his closest advisers, was campaigning.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi being sworn in for his second five-year term after a stupendous election victory. Photo/PIB
The recent Indian election will be a case study in how to upend the conventional assumption of electoral politics that an incumbent is judged on his record of performance against his own promises. Prime Minister Narendra Modi fulfilled none of his, so why did voters reward him with a landslide victory?
Though the biggest headlines of election night may have been of the Le Pen and Salvini victories, the story across Europe is that voters have mobilised in favour of change. A high turn-out in the European Parliament elections has resulted in a surge for smaller parties, notably greens and liberals, which has effectively countered the rise of far-right parties – preventing them from the kind of sweeping successes in the European elections that were predicted earlier this year.
It seems that the BJP’s formula of focusing on national security and identity politics, along with channeling Modi’s clear charisma and oratory powers, overshadowed any competing vision. And in that sense, perhaps the change isn’t just at the top; Indians themselves may have changed. A new generation of younger Indians yearn for a more positive self-definition and image. In the flashy, pro-Hindu, globetrotting Modi, they see a bit of themselves too.
In some ways Mr. Modi has proved more statist than the Gandhis. Before he took power he criticised Congress welfare programs as insulting to the poor, who “do not want things for free” and really want “to work and earn a living.” As prime minister, Mr. Modi doubled down on the same programs, expanding the landmark 2006 act that guaranteed 100 days of pay to all rural workers, whether they worked or not.
Indian liberals fear that a second term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi might prompt a decisive turn against the country’s secular traditions, much as the American left fears that Donald Trump’s return would irreparably harm U.S. democratic institutions. This Modi-as-strongman thesis places India squarely within a global autocratic resurgence, featuring a familiar tableau of leaders from Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.
Whichever side emerges victorious in May, the consensus in India is that the Nehruvian construct of secularism is dead—killed by its one-time supporters as much as by its dogged opponents. What will replace it is unclear. In the battle for India’s soul, only one side has shown up ready to fight.
The waiting, wondering, and vacillating are over: Joe Biden is getting into the presidential race, and he has every intention of fighting like hell to kick Donald Trump off the White House grounds. In a three-minute video announcing his candidacy, the former vice president was emphatic and determined—so much so that you could be forgiven for thinking the American republic would be utterly destroyed in the event of four more years of Trump.
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Also Read: When Obama Talked Biden Out Of Running For President
Ukraine’s new president-elect, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is in many ways the ideal poster boy for the antiestablishment trend currently sweeping world politics. A media-savvy TV celebrity who has never previously held political office, he has made a virtue of his inexperience by posing as an everyman candidate untainted by the rot within the system.
Indonesia’s presidential election is a fight over which candidate has the vision to turn the country into an elite global economic power. And this time millennials and the middle class will hold a decisive vote. The winner of the April 17 poll—which also includes legislative elections—will play a pivotal role in ensuring whether Indonesia reaches its potential to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030.
