Which is why it is time to stop taking Indian elections seriously. When people are voting for the Congress, they are still voting for the BJP, because the elected Congress MLA will soon switch over to the BJP for a few suitcases and a ministerial birth. In this way, the BJP wins even when it loses. Yet, if an opposition party does win a state election, no problem, the MLAs can be wooed and bought over, and a BJP government established. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) domination of all independent and constitutional institutions ensures the party wins even when people are disenchanted with it. The messy business of democracy has to be fully tamed before India can begin to prosper.Īs part of this taming of democracy, making elections irrelevant is key.
Perhaps, he sees the India of 2020 as the Singapore of 1959. But it turns out that our own wannabe ‘Lee Kuan Yew’ has done away with whatever economic growth we had. Many Indians, especially middle-class Indians, have long aspired for a ‘strong leader’ like Lee Kuan Yew to turn India into Singapore. Modi hasn’t been able to deliver Singapore-like economic growth, productivity, efficiency, opportunities or even cleanliness. But PM Modi has so far been successful only in copying the bad parts of the Singapore model - making elections irrelevant. The Singapore model was established by the late Lee Kuan Yew, who was the city-state’s first prime minister, and Narendra Modi has been known to be his fan. Learning the wrong lesson from Lee Kuan Yew Singapore is not China, but it is not the United States either.Īlso read: Sachin Pilot still on the hunt as numbers stack up against Gehlot govt in Rajasthan The ‘Singapore model’ has been called benevolent dictatorship, “authoritarianism with democracy,” a “hybrid system”. Media, courts, election commission, tax agencies, bureaucracy - all these institutions favour the Indian government in a way that has not happened since Indira Gandhi’s time. The Economist’s democracy index lists both India and Singapore in a group of countries it describes as “flawed democracies”. In democracy and freedom indices, India has been falling, coming closer to Singapore. Like Singapore, India has free elections, but we are not sure if they can be called fair anymore. This setup sounds a lot like the India of 2020. The electoral system, neutral in theory, is designed to help the PAP, with its influence over courts and media, frequent litigation against opponents, vastly greater financial muscle than opponents, and so on. When constituencies are redrawn, the process favours the PAP. Singapore is a multiparty democracy but historically, whenever opposition leaders have been electoral threats to the PAP, they have faced cases and arrests. The latest onslaught on free speech in Singapore is a stringent fake news law - the government decides what is fake news and what is not. They don’t rock the boat in the way that, for instance, the Indian media did for UPA-2 between 20.
It is a little critical, but ultimately pro-government, and self-censorship is common. The media in Singapore is free, but controlled by the government. Parties are given very few days to campaign. The election commission is not independent, it is controlled by the government. But for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party (PAP), it is one of its worst performances ever.įounded by Lee Kuan Yew, the PAP perfected a unique model in power where elections are free but not fair. The major opposition party won just 10 of 93 seats. Yet the country’s ruling People’s Action Party has been in power continuously since 1959.Įarlier this month, the party won 61 per cent of the popular vote in the general election. The elections are not rigged as in, say, Russia. Singapore has a parliament and regular elections every five years. It is not often that we think of Singapore as a democracy. A news headline about election results in Singapore surprises you.
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