India, South Africa: The Global South Dislikes Elections

While Emmanuel Macron was hosting Joe Biden, the King of England, and Volodymyr Zelensky in grand style to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, Vladimir Putin, who had not been invited to the Normandy commemorations, was welcoming his friends from the “Global South” in Saint Petersburg.

Initially conceived as the “Russian Davos” intended to attract Western investors, the SPIEF or Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum has, with the war in Ukraine, transformed into a sort of general assembly of the union of Southern countries behind Russia and China against the “Western liberal order.” Here, a de-dollarized exchange system is being built, denominated in yuan or rubles, beyond the reach of American sanctions, with its own investment bank (led by Brazilian Dilma Rousseff) and other technology suppliers from Asia.

However, among the 17,000 participants from 136 countries, two major headliners were absent: Indian Modi and South African Ramaphosa, held back at home due to general elections taking place at the same time. Elections that, in both cases, turned out poorly for the incumbents.

Crowned with the prestige of being both the victim and victor of apartheid, the ANC (African National Congress) has been in power since the establishment of democracy by Mandela in 1994. It aspires to be, alongside China, India, and Russia, one of the great voices of the next world order. Hence, its appeal last December to the International Court of Justice against Israel, denouncing it as a racist and "genocidal" state. Unfortunately, the fight for Gaza does not fill plates in a country with 30% unemployment and 60% among the youth, a country more unequal than during apartheid (where 1% of the population holds 40% of the wealth), where infrastructures and public enterprises have been literally plundered under Jacob Zuma, Ramaphosa's predecessor, to the point that the country has to live without water or electricity (with power cuts reaching 280 days a year!).

As a result, Ramaphosa, a unionist turned billionaire, dropped nearly 20 points in the May 29 elections, leaving the ANC without a majority.

The same causes and the same effects are seen in India, where Narendra Modi, in power for 10 years at the head of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), also lost 63 deputies and the majority in the Delhi Parliament on June 2. At 73, Modi, a lifelong apparatchik of the Hindu nationalist party, who has climbed all its ranks over the past 60 years, has established a veritable cult of personality serving an ultranationalist and anti-Muslim policy (India has 200 million Muslims). Yet, neither the construction of a gigantic temple dedicated to the god Ram in Ayodhya, in his stronghold of Uttar Pradesh, replacing a very ancient mosque, nor his reminders of his modest origins, nor his slogan proclaimed in the third person: “You have the Modi guarantee,” have resolved the major issues of unemployment and inequality in the world's most populous country with 1.5 billion inhabitants.

Neither Modi's Hindu supremacism in place of Gandhi's multi-confessional tolerance nor the supposed anti-racist mantra in Pretoria adorned with Hamas colors provide convincing answers to the dilemmas of Southern countries in the face of globalization. Undoubtedly, in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran, as well as in many capitals of the Global South, the conclusion is drawn that the Western democratic model, with its constant elections, must be definitively banned.

By Pierre Lellouche

Tribune VA

June 9, 2024