:: P.C. Alexander

Voters must know who could be PM

By Dr P.C. Alexander

Statements by the NCP last week on the forthcoming general elections have triggered speculation in political circles about the future of the NCP’s relations with the UPA. The NCP wants all UPA members to contest the elections together as a single alliance and that Manmohan Singh be projected as the UPA’s candidate for premiership. The question that is being raised now is whether the UPA will continue to remain a united alliance for the next general elections, or whether the differences of opinion between the NCP and the Congress on the prime ministerial candidate will lead to a split within the UPA. The BJP has already named L.K. Advani its candidate for prime-ministership. The Congress, however, has taken the stand that it will follow the traditional practice in democracies of choosing the Prime Minister after the elections to Parliament, and not before. The Congress Party’s position on this issue is, no doubt, theoretically correct. However, most political parties in other democracies have, in recent years, been projecting a particular individual as prospective Prime Minister even while launching the campaign for the election of members of Parliament. Thus election of the Prime Minister in many countries has already become "presidential", while the system of government continues to remain parliamentary.

In Britain, the home of parliamentary democracy, projecting a leader as a prime ministerial candidate during the election campaign itself became an established practice after Margaret Thatcher’s successive victories in three general elections when she was announced candidate of the Conservative party for the post of PM if the party won a majority. This practice was followed with equal success when Labour projected Tony Blair as the party’s nominee for premiership. This shift from the traditional practice has been a smooth exercise in Britain because governments in that country have been single-party ones with very rare exceptions of coalition governments.

Further, the existence of a shadow cabinet system in Opposition parties has made it easy to identify the persons in advance to be appointed PM or as other council ministers without any loss of time if the Opposition party came to power. There have been a few occasions in British history when the Crown had taken the initiative to invite the leader from the party which had won majority in Parliament to form government without even waiting for his formal election as leader by the elected members of Parliament from that party. The last example of such royal initiative was when Queen Elizabeth II invited Harold Macmillan to form the government when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 after the Suez Canal fiasco, though R.A. Butler was a serious contender for the post. In recent years, however, the Crown has not interfered in the choice of the leader of the parliamentary party as the issue of premiership is decided by the party even before the election campaign starts.

In India general elections, until very recently, have always been occasions for seeking the people’s mandate for a particular leader who was to become PM if the party won. In general elections in 1951, 1956 and 1961, the Congress secured massive victories, but the mandate was also for Jawaharlal Nehru to head the government which was to be formed after the elections. Both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had also led the Congress to massive victories when their personal popularity was at the highest.

With the advent of coalition governments, the selection of a person to head the government had become almost a gamble. On all occasions when governments had to be on coalition basis, the selection of the PM proved to be exercises in uncertainty. The only exception was when Atal Behari Vajpayee was chosen PM. Some persons chosen to be PMs would never have had a chance to occupy that chair had they been projected as prospective candidates in a normal election campaign.

When elections are fought by different alliances, like the UPA, NDA or the Third Front, it is all the more necessary that there should be a clear understanding as to who would head the government if the alliance secures a majority.

Coalition governments have become inevitable in the present political conditions in India and it is only fair that voters know in advance who the PM will be when they vote for a particular party. Just as different political parties are able to come to an agreement about a common minimum programme before the elections, it should be possible for coalition partners to reach a consensus on who would lead the government.

Premiership in a parliamentary system of government is not just an office that any one who wins a post-election contest can occupy. The office has outgrown the status of being just one, or even the first among equals, as it was in the earlier years. With the advent of new practices like summit meetings where several major decisions are taken after discussions among heads of government, the PM has to function like the leader of a team of ministers enjoying sound representative credentials. If a person is projected even at the time of the announcement of parliamentary elections as the prime-ministerial candidate of an alliance, his mandate will be stronger than that of one who becomes PM through post-election manoeuvres and adjustments as has been sadly the case in the selection of some of our PMs in the past, who lacked both credibility and suitability for the position they occupied.

Dr P.C. Alexander is a former governor of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and a former Member of Parliament