There’s a vacuum in Goan politics waiting to be filled

As alliances are getting hurriedly and loosely stitched to meet the deadline to file nominations for the February 4 Assembly elections, rejects from some parties have turned into the flavour of some others. That’s nothing new for this has somehow been the story of Goan politics, repeated periodically, almost as regularly as elections are. Election after election, there is a last minute switch over by candidates and parties, as candidates gauge which party has the best possibility of winning a majority and forming a government, and parties look at ‘winnability’ of the person. It is always the quest for power that makes the candidate jump ship and the party to accept the person.

In the last few weeks eight of the 2012 winning MLAs have quit their membership of the Legislative Assembly and joined another party. They quit as MLAs to avoid disqualification for which they would be liable, if they joined another party while still members of the Assembly. One more MLA could be resigning from the Assembly before the deadline for filing nominations for the elections ends. Since eight MLAs, which is 20 percent of the strength of the Assembly elected in 2012, have already decided to switch allegiance at the end of the term, the question that arises is where exactly did their ideology lie during the past five years? Isn’t the electorate, the people who voted for them as they sought votes on a particular plank or ideological grounds, have the right to ask this question and also deserve an answer? It cannot be that eight of the MLAs had a sudden epiphany at the end of the term which led them to realise that they were in the wrong party or were sharing the political space with the wrong set of politicians. It points out, even underlines, what has repeatedly been said – that ideology in politics does not exist.

The results of the 2012 elections showed that while the Congress and the BJP remain the main players in the Goan political arena, there was space for an alternative to the two parties. The people voted for five Independents and five regional party MLAs in that election, which is 25 percent of the strength of the Assembly. The percentage vote share that the Independents and all regional parties pulled was approximately 30 percent, which is almost equal to what Congress received for the nine seats it won, without counting the vote share of its then alliance partner NCP. Given the size of Goa’s electorate and the compactness of the land within its boundaries, this amounts to a large share of the voter pie, out there for grabs, a vote share that is looking for an alternative, just as long as the alternative remains a viable proposition.

In 1963, when Goa first voted it did so for regional parties, rejecting the national parties, that time mainly the Congress. When Congress finally came to power in Goa in 1980, it did so by taking over a large chunk of the United Goan’s votes and finally wiping out the party from the State. Similarly, BJP’s entry into State politics in 1994 was first in alliance with the MGP, where it was the junior partner, only to later grab most of the traditional MGP vote for itself. It formed its first government in 2000, supported by a breakaway Congress group. If one looks at this pattern of dates, there has been a change in Goan political equations every 17 to 20 years, and it is just possible that one more change is due this election. Right now there is at least a portion of that 30 percent vote share that rejected the two main parties in 2012, that could be looking for an alternative and it is these voters who are going to make a change.

While the massive shifting of allegiances in the run-up to the 2017 elections could result in a fractured mandate, there remains the possibility of the intelligent voter seeking to change the way politics in Goa is being played, for a game it is turning out to be, with a gap in the playing field the neither of the two main parties have been able to fill. Face it, there has been a generational change since the main players in the two parties first entered the political scene and neither of the two parties has made any attempt to remain relevant or keep pace with the changes in society.

Demographic changes lead to alterations in voting patterns. There may not be any study of how changing demographics have shifted the political focus in Goa, but the fact that in the past few elections regional parties have not been able to garner much of the vote in the State is an indication that the migration into the State has tilted the balance in favour of national parties. In the West elections are predicted depending on how parties engage with particular demographic groups. That sort of prediction hasn’t happened yet in Goa, where opinion polls are still considered the best manner to gauge voter leanings. But there is every indication that the February 4 polls will throw up a few surprises.

There is nothing permanent, much less so in politics and in Goan politics allegiances shift by the blowing of the breeze. Voting patterns change and so does political thinking of a society and perceptions. The temporariness of politics and political thinking is fleeting. There’s a vacuum waiting to be filled. If 2012 was the year in which this vacuum was exposed, then 2017 could be when it takes a step forward towards change. In 2017 the political advantage could well lie with the party that can best appeal to the youth, for it is this demographic that is most likely to decide who will form the next government in Goa.

(Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is Executive Editor, Herald)