Banyan: Preparing for opposition

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

TO HIS critics, nothing in Arvind Kejriwal’s brief tenure as chief minister of Delhi became him like the leaving it on February 14th. A theatrical resignation, during which he flung wild allegations of conspiracy and corruption, seemed to vindicate charges that Mr Kejriwal and his 15-month-old Aam Aadmi (“Common Man”) Party (AAP) were feckless agitators rather than political leaders. In this analysis, AAP’s hopes of emerging as a national force in the general election due by May have been dented. Yet this underestimates both the extent of Indian disgust with mainstream politicians, seen as part of a self-serving, hereditary elite, and the shrewdness with which AAP is exploiting this sentiment. The upstart party is changing the rules of Indian politics.

Born out of a street movement against corruption, AAP made a stunning electoral debut in Delhi last December. It won 28 of the 70 seats in the state assembly. The Congress party, which leads the federal government and had ruled Delhi for 15 years, came third, with just eight seats. The main national opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won 31 seats. After consulting its members, AAP somewhat reluctantly agreed to form a government with the support of Congress.

At the time, its appeal transcended class and caste. The poor loved its simple populist message and its giveaways of water and electricity. Many middle-class liberals, fed up with Congress, were chary of the BJP’s leader, Narendra Modi, with his strongman, right-wing image and controversial record. A politician tells of a straw poll just before the state election at the India International Centre, a hangout for the city’s intelligentsia. The chatterers at the bar were all going to vote AAP; so were their drivers in the car park; so were the rickshaw-drivers and chai-wallahs outside on the street. But after 49 days of a government led by Mr Kejriwal the voters at the bar are probably having second thoughts.

Civil servants have been alarmed by its anti-corruption zeal, which involved a hotline offering tips on how to mount stings. Liberals deplored a raid led by AAP’s law minister on Ugandan women accused of prostitution. Commuters were irked when a sit-in by Mr Kejriwal and colleagues disrupted traffic. And some of AAP’s supporters felt betrayed by his resignation, dodging the tough, messy work of real politics, and leaving the capital temporarily under unelected “president’s rule”.

Mr Kejriwal quit when the assembly failed to support an anti-corruption law on which he had staked his government. No matter that the way the law was introduced may have been unconstitutional; Mr Kejriwal alleged a conspiracy. His government had just made a police complaint accusing Reliance Industries, a big energy company, and its boss, Mukesh Ambani, of colluding with the government to fix gas prices, which are to double in April. Reliance denied the charge and threatened legal action. But Mr Kejriwal, who portrays Mr Ambani as “running” both Congress and BJP policy, accused him of being behind the blocking of the law.

For less well-off gas consumers, this is an attractive theory. Yogendra Yadav, who was one of India’s leading psephologists before helping to found AAP, concedes the party may have lost support “among the educated, discerning, TV-watching class”, but plausibly suggests its standing has actually gone up among other, more numerous, poor voters who admire it for keeping its word, and for self-sacrifice. Many have seen real benefits from its short rule—not just the handouts, but a noticeable reduction in the petty bribery that seemed an unavoidable part of daily life.

AAP may also be trying quietly to mend fences with the bar-room intellectuals and with business. Mr Yadav rejects the charge of illiberalism. AAP has spoken out, for example, against the recent recriminalisation of homosexuality. Its economic policy has been “populist” but he rejects both “pre-1989 leftism” and “market fundamentalism”. Talking this week to the Economic Times, Mr Kejriwal was hardly the “Stalinist” some of his critics describe. Government, he said, should stay out of business.

Preparing for the general election will be tough, however. AAP must expand beyond the capital—and manage the expectations of its grassroots enthusiasts (it enrolled nearly 10m members in just two weeks in January). Its leaders would prefer to concentrate on a few dozen (out of 543) parliamentary seats the party has some chance of winning. Some members, however, have other ideas. Already there are complaints about the leadership’s plans to parachute star candidates into high-profile contests.

Most observers expect the election to result in the worst Congress performance ever, and the BJP to emerge as the largest single party. If the past few elections are any guide, around a half of the vote will go to smaller regional, caste-based and communist parties, which often play an important role as coalitions are forged. Polls taken before the Delhi government’s resignation suggested that AAP commanded just 4-6% of the vote nationwide. Even if it did win enough seats to give it negotiating clout as a coalition partner, its leaders argue against its joining government. Their ambition is to be the opposition.

Whales afraid of minnows

Even so, they fear the party is not ready to capitalise on the enormous opportunity offered by India’s disillusionment with politics-as-usual; an election in a year’s time might have been better. In reality this one is the party’s best chance of changing India. It has momentum behind it, and the political agenda is now dominated by the issue that defines it: corruption. AAP threatens not just Congress, whose administration is seen as mired in sleaze, but the BJP as well. Compared with Mr Kejriwal and his colleagues, Mr Modi, who makes much of his poor origins and clean reputation, also looks like an old-style political insider. AAP is small, young, idealistic, hotheaded and underfunded, with its platform still evolving. Yet, harping on the rottenness of Indian politics, it has the two big parties running scared.

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