EDITORIAL: India's national election
2009/5/20
In the first Indian parliamentary election in five years, the
ruling coalition led by the Indian National Congress (INC) captured
enough seats in the House of the People, the country's lower house,
to form a majority, contrary to pre-election predictions of a tough
showing by the opposition.
It has become certain that Manmohan Singh, 76, prime minister since
2004, will remain in office.
The INC, which was the leader of India's independence movement, has
been in cutthroat competition for decades with the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), or Indian People's Party, which advocates supremacy of
Hindu beliefs. In recent years, however, the emergence of smaller
regional parties and leftist parties has destabilized the political
order, forcing major parties to join forces with these
newcomers.
Pre-election predictions pointed to the continuation or
intensification of this trend. However, the INC single-handedly
secured more than 200 of the lower house's 545 seats. The party
will still remain in coalition with its junior partners, which are
medium-sized and small parties. But its base has been substantially
strengthened to enable it to maintain a stable administration.
While the election outcome was due to many interrelated factors, we
believe the public ultimately approved the Singh administration's
stance to focus on dealing with poverty and policy
achievements.
The previous BJP-led administration had been blamed for widening
the gap between the rich and the poor by seeking to develop the
nation through a market economy. In the face of the current global
economic crisis, the public must have been reassured by the Singh
administration's economic policy that preached caution against both
deregulation and privatization of state corporations.
Singh dramatically improved India's relations with the United
States by signing a civil nuclear agreement. He also worked hard to
get on good terms with China. The Indian people must have welcomed
his diplomatic flair.
During the election campaign, the INC promoted 38-year-old Rahul
Gandhi as its future leader. Gandhi is the fourth-generation scion
of the "Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty" that began with Jawaharlal Nehru, the
first prime minister of India whose daughter Indira Gandhi also
became prime minister.
Rahul Gandhi apparently helped the INC shed its image as an
old-time political party.
India's immediate neighbor countries are all extremely unstable.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are threatened by Islamic extremists; Sri
Lanka is still reeling in the immediate aftermath of its decades of
civil war; and Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a military
dictatorship.
There is great significance in the existence of India, a nation of
1.1 billion people, as a stable democracy in this very troubled
region. We hope the Singh administration will continue to play a
constructive role in stabilizing South Asia.
The Indian economy has grown phenomenally around its information
technology industry, but the waves of the global economic crisis
are now washing on its shores. Its gross domestic product growth
rate, which exceeded 9 percent in 2007, is expected to drop to
around 5 percent this year.
Still, high hopes are pinned on India as well as on China to
eventually help pull the global economy out of the present
doldrums.
While India needs to continue focusing on poverty at home, it must
also keep up its economic reforms to further liberalize its
market.
In combating global warming and reinforcing free trade, too, India
bears heavy responsibility to the international community as a
leader of newly emerging economies. The country must take advantage
of its stable administration to exert bold leadership.
--The Asahi Shimbun, May 19(IHT/Asahi: May 20,2009)
