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A conceptual error in formation of coalition governments
18th Feb 1999 Srinath Srinivasa @usa.net
We have seen one too many instances of allies withdrawing support midstream. And I have begun to question the philosophy behind coalition governments. Firstly, a political party is supposed to represent an ideology. Hence, if there are a number of political parties, we probably could take it as a measure of the ideological diversity. Secondly, India is inherently diverse-- we have diversity almost in every aspect of our lives-- be it religion, language, wealth, festivals, occupations... Hence, an ideological attribute that should be common among all policy makers whould be of *integration*. If we are to live together as a country (believe me, we have no other choice!), we *have* to integrate at some level of abstraction-- and this level of abstraction should be the government. However, (third point), a coalition government is inherently more vulnerable to breakdown, than a single party government because it essentially consists of more than one ideology, which are bound to clash at some stage. But, (fouth point), given the diversity of India, we *cannot* hope for a single ideology to be the unchallenged choice of the millions. And since we do not restrict the number of political parties, we actually are encouraging the formation of new parties based on every small ideological difference-- hence moving away from the concept of integration at the level of government. So, to sum up the situation-- (a) the diversity of Indian lifestyle provides a tendency for the creation of a large number of political parties, (b) which in turn reduces the chances of any one party emerging as the single majority party and hence creates a tendency for the formation of coalition governments, (c) coalition governments are inherently more vulnerable to breaking up because of ideological differences, and hence (d) we might be seeing more of these coalition politics costing us dearly, unless some basic rules are not changed. Some suggestions: (a) Parties should identify coalition members *before* an election, in case there is a need for it. And if such a need occurs, only combinations of those parties who have agreed to work together should be called upon to prove their majority. (b) A coalition government should be obliged to spend its full term in office, unless necessitated by emergency conditions which are decided by the President. (c) We probably should have a limit on the number of political parties to encourage integration rather than differential politics resulting from too many political parties. Comments? Srinath -- Send in your ideas to address challenges of Indian life: http://www.indiapolicy.org/ifi
