Recent major elections in India and South Africa had some surprising outcomes, with both ruling parties suffering significant setbacks. In India, for the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014, it did not secure a majority of the vote on its own. This means Modi will need the support of other parties to form a coalition. In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority and will also need coalition partners to form a government.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan explains recent election results in India and South Africa. Zeihan argues that in both cases, unlike in America, voters show high levels of trust in government.
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Excerpted from Peter’s June 10 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
We’ve got a few more elections to talk about today, and who knows, maybe the U.S. might even learn something from South Africa and India.
Over in India, Prime Minister Modi’s BJP party didn’t quite get the majority vote they expected, so that necessitates a coalition government. Many are even citing this as a good thing for India, as to limit Modi’s increasingly authoritarian rule. The crazy thing is that this election was clean, well-run, and everyone has accepted the results.
In South Africa, the party who has been ruling since the anti-apartheid era — the ANC — also fell short at the polls. So, they’ll also need to form a coalition, although the other parties rounding out the coalition aren’t exactly first round draft picks. Despite the ANC’s corruption, the election was still accepted as free and fair.
Here are my takeaways from today.
#1: India and South Africa will be forming coalition governments.
#2: The people of India and South Africa have more faith in their electoral processes than Americans do in theirs… yikes.