Not long ago, the choice offered to an electorate was simply between the center-right and the center-left. Now they are being offered choices on the right and the left, too. This represents a shift, especially for western democracies, which got used to centrist politics. As the axis of politics has shifted rightwards in the last few decades, the center is now situated where once the right had been. Hence the arrival of populism as a potent political force and an alternative to centrist politics. This is a global phenomenon now.
In the global season of far-right politics, the story has become familiar – a fringe politician peddling venom and promising order catches the mood of a nation yearning for change and rides it to the country’s presidential or prime ministerial palace. This is what happened in Brazil last month, in the US in 2016 and has been happening across Europe in the last few years. Something similar happened in India in 2014 when Narendra Modi was elected prime minister.
A year ago, no one had imagined that Jair Bolsonaro, who has spent 27 years as a fringe congressman, could be elected president of Brazil. But his angry rants caught the mood of Brazilian electorate that was sick of endless corruption scandals, street violence and economic dislocation which was unfairly blamed on the country’s left-wing Workers’ Party. Bolsonaro has been described as Brazil’s answer to Donald Trump, who was once considered too inexperienced and too divisive to be taken seriously but took the world by surprise with his electoral win.
Like Trump, Bolsonaro – a climate-denying, proudly misogynist defender of Brazil’s old military dictatorship – is a polarising politician. Both are said to pose danger to democracy in their respective countries. In the last two years, Trump has shown little regard for democratic rules and institutions. But democracy is so well-entrenched in the US that democratic institutions have withstood Trump’s assaults. The question is whether Brazil’s young democratic institutions will withstand similar far-right assaults. Historically, in Latin America, populism has been associated with the politics of the left. With Bolsonaro, Brazil has got its first far-right populist president.
With Modi, India also got its first populist prime minister in 2014. Seen as a divisive politician and relatively a junior as compared to some of his experienced seniors in the BJP, a year before his election as prime minister, Modi was not a favourite to lead his center-right party in the general elections. But he surprised many in his party, the opposition and the electorate with his emphatic victory on the back of populist rants and promises. When Bolsonaro takes office in January, five of the world’s seven largest democracies will have populists at the helm – they include India, Philippines, Mexico and the US. Populist parties are also in government in 11 European countries.
According to a research series done by The Guardian, populist parties have tripled their vote in Europe over the past two decades. More than a quarter of Europeans voted populist candidates in their last elections. Populism or populist are not new terms. But the increasing popularity of these terms in media is worrying the western world, particularly since 2016, the year of Brexit referendum and election of Trump. After Modi’s election as prime minister, the term populism has also dominated mainstream media and socio-political discourse in India.
Socio-political contexts vary by geography, and so does populism. But despite geographical and socio-political differences, globally not only the breeding ground for populism has become fertile, but populist parties are even more capable of reaping electoral rewards. In Europe and the US, moderate politicians are anxious about the vitality of their democracies, the sturdiness of their institutions and the civility and harmony of their societies. In India, mainstream parties like the Congress and regional parties are voicing similar concerns.
The construct and compulsion of BJP/Modi versus others narrative is a result of the fear and threat to democracy mainstream parties and the civil society see in deepening political and communal polarization and increasing threats to the independence of constitutional and statutory institutions like the Election Commission, the Supreme Court, CBI, CAG, CVC and the RBI. Under Modi government’s rule, these institutions have squirmed under the overbearing pressure of interference. While some have buckled under the pressure, some have raised the banner of revolt. Trump has also tried various tactics of subversion but he has failed to backslide democracy in the US because the judiciary, the bureaucracy and civil society have not allowed him to have his way.
Over the last decade, the losses for the global political center – the establishment represented by the center-left and center-right parties – have been mounting. In the week that saw Bolsonaro winning the Brazilian presidency, regional elections in Germany witnessed the mainstream center-left and center-right parties faring badly. The result endangered the chancellorship of Angela Merkel – her governing coalition includes both the center-right and center-left parties which struggled in the 2017 general elections. In response, Merkel announced that she would not run for re-election as head of her center-right party and that she would also retire from politics in 2021.
The decline of the political centre and the shrinking of the middle bring huge risks to liberal democracy across the globe. Western political experts and academics see it as a consequence of voters punishing ossified political systems, more than caring about the particular views of politicians. In their view, the roots of populism are primarily economic; rising inequality is one of the major contributing factors. According to Yascha Mounk, a lecturer at Harvard University and an expert on populism and the crisis of liberal democracy, since the end of World War II, liberal democratic ideas have been hegemonic; you could see that in dictators who pretended to be democratic. “Now we may be approaching a tipping point at which democratic ideas are no longer sufficiently popular, and that could have big consequences,” he says.
Whether it’s a short period of democratic crisis or the beginning of a different era in which democracy will fade, currently the populists are the ones who appear to have the most momentum. Most recent elections show that populism continues to be on the rise, as far-right populists have made significant inroads everywhere, whereas centrist, liberal governments have taken a hit. “It’s a mistake to think that each election in which populists don’t win outright means that populism had ended,” says Mounk. If one looks at elections in the aggregate, everywhere from South Amercica to the US to southern Europe, populism is gaining ground. The case with India is no different, whether Modi wins in 2019 or not.
A L I Choughule is an independent senior journalist.
