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Kerala’s coalition politics at a crossroads
For more than three decades, Kerala has been seeing the play of coalition politics by which the Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M)-led LDF have been ruling the State alternately.
However, recent developments have generated doubts about the longevity of coalition politics – at least in its present form– as a workable instrument for forming and running governments.
Observers say that what the two fronts now face are not just temporary problems but serious crises concerning the very foundations of the coalitions. Reasons are many: Hegemonic attitude of lead parties, internal fights within the fronts over petty points, anomalies in electoral seat-sharing and tendency of interpreting coalition as a means to achieve parochial goals, etc.
The crises in the eight-party LDF had started long back. They started with the front’s phenomenal success in the 2006 Assembly election which emboldened the neo-liberalist CPI(M) leadership to impose its hegemony over the minor partners, including the CPI. That hegemonic attitude led to the departure of three partners in the past five years and split in two of them.
Recently, there were phases when Kerala thought that the LDF might undergo a breakup as the CPI, which earlier used to accept the diktats of the CPI(M) without complaining, started to hit back at the Marxists even while talking about the need of a broader Left unity in India. The standoff was so stiff that it emboldened the Congress to ask the CPI to come out of the LDF.
However, the LDF is still managing to create a sense of unity despite the lava of discontent stirring within though analysts are saying that it cannot go on in its present form for long. But the condition of the nine-party UDF seems to be far worse with constituents turning against one another on a daily basis.
“More than half of the problems in the LDF are policy-related or ideological. But in the UDF, the crises emanate from issues related to the narrow interests of the partners and often the personal interests of their leaders. Leaders of almost all UDF partners seem to have a feeling that coalition’s purpose is to serve personal interests,” says a Kozhikode-based newspaper editor.
According to him, the biggest problem the UDF is facing is its very strength: Its ability to subject itself to the interests of communities, especially the minorities. The present crisis in the UDF had its origin in the demand by the Muslim League, second largest coalition partner, for a fifth berth in the Cabinet which was strongly opposed by almost the entire Congress party.
“But infighting within the Congress made things easy for the Muslim League and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy himself took a decision favoruing it by making Manjalamkuzhy Ali, a former Left fellow-traveler, a Minister, thus earning the enmity of his own party colleagues and the outfits of the majority community,” said the editor.
The consequence of this was a series of new problems within Congress. Despite the top bosses’ warning, senior leaders went out to the streets and talked against the League and the Chief Minister at every available gathering. The condition deteriorated so much that a former State party chief had to walk out of the Congress executive after he was asked to keep his mouth shut.
The problems created by the Kerala Congress (M), a Church-backed party, for the coalition and the Government have been equally serious. Its top leader, Finance and Law Minister KM Mani is accused – often by his own colleagues – of taking decisions for the Government and declaring them without discussing them in the Cabinet or the UDF.
Even top Congress leaders are now saying that coalition cannot be seen as an instrument for attaining partners’ parochial goals but parties like the Muslim League will in all likelihood continue to use it that way. “That is why they are in the coalition,” said a senior Congress leader furiously. “I think this blackmailing game has to end somewhere,” he said.
For more than three decades, Kerala has been seeing the play of coalition politics by which the Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M)-led LDF have been ruling the State alternately.
However, recent developments have generated doubts about the longevity of coalition politics – at least in its present form– as a workable instrument for forming and running governments.
Observers say that what the two fronts now face are not just temporary problems but serious crises concerning the very foundations of the coalitions. Reasons are many: Hegemonic attitude of lead parties, internal fights within the fronts over petty points, anomalies in electoral seat-sharing and tendency of interpreting coalition as a means to achieve parochial goals, etc.
The crises in the eight-party LDF had started long back. They started with the front’s phenomenal success in the 2006 Assembly election which emboldened the neo-liberalist CPI(M) leadership to impose its hegemony over the minor partners, including the CPI. That hegemonic attitude led to the departure of three partners in the past five years and split in two of them.
Recently, there were phases when Kerala thought that the LDF might undergo a breakup as the CPI, which earlier used to accept the diktats of the CPI(M) without complaining, started to hit back at the Marxists even while talking about the need of a broader Left unity in India. The standoff was so stiff that it emboldened the Congress to ask the CPI to come out of the LDF.
However, the LDF is still managing to create a sense of unity despite the lava of discontent stirring within though analysts are saying that it cannot go on in its present form for long. But the condition of the nine-party UDF seems to be far worse with constituents turning against one another on a daily basis.
“More than half of the problems in the LDF are policy-related or ideological. But in the UDF, the crises emanate from issues related to the narrow interests of the partners and often the personal interests of their leaders. Leaders of almost all UDF partners seem to have a feeling that coalition’s purpose is to serve personal interests,” says a Kozhikode-based newspaper editor.
According to him, the biggest problem the UDF is facing is its very strength: Its ability to subject itself to the interests of communities, especially the minorities. The present crisis in the UDF had its origin in the demand by the Muslim League, second largest coalition partner, for a fifth berth in the Cabinet which was strongly opposed by almost the entire Congress party.
“But infighting within the Congress made things easy for the Muslim League and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy himself took a decision favoruing it by making Manjalamkuzhy Ali, a former Left fellow-traveler, a Minister, thus earning the enmity of his own party colleagues and the outfits of the majority community,” said the editor.
The consequence of this was a series of new problems within Congress. Despite the top bosses’ warning, senior leaders went out to the streets and talked against the League and the Chief Minister at every available gathering. The condition deteriorated so much that a former State party chief had to walk out of the Congress executive after he was asked to keep his mouth shut.
The problems created by the Kerala Congress (M), a Church-backed party, for the coalition and the Government have been equally serious. Its top leader, Finance and Law Minister KM Mani is accused – often by his own colleagues – of taking decisions for the Government and declaring them without discussing them in the Cabinet or the UDF.
Even top Congress leaders are now saying that coalition cannot be seen as an instrument for attaining partners’ parochial goals but parties like the Muslim League will in all likelihood continue to use it that way. “That is why they are in the coalition,” said a senior Congress leader furiously. “I think this blackmailing game has to end somewhere,” he said.
