This year, the world will see more than 60 elections in various countries. Among the three largest elections are upcoming ones in India and the US, along with the concluded election in Indonesia, while Taiwan itself also held its election in January.
Every election has an important bearing on how the country would conduct itself in the elected term of its leaders. Expectations of continuity and change are always there, leading analysts to look at the policy options which countries face and perhaps seek.
Elections in India, the world’s largest democracy, will be held in April-May with the results expected on June 4. These elections will be held in the midst of a debate on whether all elections in India should be held together as they were originally in the initial years of the republic.
Since then, due to midterm elections, in some states and sometimes at the center, the elections for parliament and the state assemblies are now not congruent.
If a new act is passed by the next parliament to bring these elections in tandem, then this might perhaps be the last election under the current system where parliament and the state assemblies have different start and end terms.
This election is also significant in that it will have more than 195 million young voters in an electorate of 968 million voters. In 2019, the voter turnout was 67 percent. This is likely to be maintained despite the elections held at the onset of summer, which is particularly harsh in north India.
As per current polls and analysis of experts, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies coming together as the National Democratic Alliance, led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is expected to win.
It is opposed by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, which has the Congress Party at its core and several important regional parties like the DMK of Tamil Nadu, the TMC of West Bengal and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and Punjab, besides its allies in states like Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The country’s biggest security and geopolitical challenges come from China.
Since 2020, a year after the previous election, China broke agreements that it had with India, which led to conflict and tension on the borders and in no man’s land.
This led to violent hand-to-hand fighting and the first casualties in many years.
The relationship with China has declined beyond anybody’s imagination in the past four years.
The stability of ties with China during the 2019 election is now deeply diminished. China is seen as the country trying to rein in India’s rise in Asia and the world.
By opposing India’s entry into the higher portals of international relations, by challenging India’s friendly relations with its neighbors and trying to introduce its own views of the world, China seems to be engaging in a contentious and competitive approach with India.
This will be the first election in India after the disruption caused by China in 2020. How do Indian people react to this? Economically, engagement with China continues because derisking and decoupling are not easy to achieve.
At the same time, geopolitically, to challenge Chinese efforts is now much better understood.
The Indian people believe that the Indian government needs to be more resolute and determined in facing up to China and responding to its aggressive intentions.
Efforts to decouple from China by opening up avenues of collaboration with Japan, Australia, the EU, the Gulf countries and Taiwan are likely to gather momentum.
To this end, India wants to be a part of regional and global supply chains particularly for high-tech items like semiconductors, electric vehicles and the like.
This is where Chinese hegemony needs resistance. India is likely to reach out to other partners as it has been doing and getting good responses from them.
Taiwan is among these partners, having made investments in India’s semiconductor production base. Therefore, a new government in India, backed by a strong parliamentary majority, is likely to pursue an agenda to fulfill its economic destiny with greater fervor and policy and incentive adaptation.
It is expected to energize domestic defense production joint ventures with strategic partners in defense and a higher defense posture on the border with China, with neighbors and in the Indian Ocean region, where the Indian Navy has been playing a stellar role in curbing piracy in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the past few months.
Gurjit Singh is a former Indian ambassador to Germany, Indonesia, ASEAN, Ethiopia and the African Union.
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