Daily Archives: August 27, 2012

India

Could Coalgate finally bring down Manmohan Singh’s government in India?

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In the span of 10 days, India has seen a government report on government abuse in awarding coal contracts morph into perhaps the most ferocious scandal of Manmohan Singh’s government.

The scandal — known as ‘Coalgate’ — stems from an August 17 report from the Comptroller and Auditor General of India that accuses the  governing Indian National Congress (Congress, or भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) of handing out coal mining contracts to companies without going through the proper competitive bidding process, leading to inflated prices for the ultimate recipients.  The accusation comes.

Singh spoke about the scandal for the first time on Monday in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament, challenging the house to debate the issue in full and disputing the corruption accusations.  In turn, Singh was met with jeers and shouts of, “Quit prime minister!”

His remarks appear to have emboldened the opposition — the conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, or भारतीय जनता पार्टी).  BJP leader Sushma Swaraj responded to Singh by accusing Congress of swapping coal mining contracts for bribes:

“Mota maal mila hai Congress ko” (Congress got big bucks),” Swaraj said….

“Congress has got a fat sum from coal block allocation, that is why this delay (in amending the laws) was caused. My charge is that huge revenue was generated but it did not go to the government and went to the Congress party,” Swaraj said.

Her “mota maal” charge was confirmation that the party, unfazed by government’s criticism for holding up Parliament or lack of support from non-Congress players, is in no mood to step down from its “maximalist” demand for the PM’s resignation.

In the past week and a half, Coalgate has monopolized Indian politics and all but ensured that the Indian parliament’s monsoon session* will be held up as a result of the scandal.  Congress and its allies control the Indian parliament with 262 out of 543 seats so, short of a formal vote of no confidence, Singh and Congress will likely govern until the next scheduled general election in 2014.  The government currently has no plans to call a trust vote itself — Singh, by daring the opposition BJP on Monday to call a trust vote, knows that leftists parties that comprise the ‘Third Front’ in the Lok Sabha would loathe supporting a BJP-led initiative to bring down the Singh government.

Joshua Keating at Foreign Policy argues that Singh will likely survive this scandal, because some BJP members are also implicated in the coal scandal.  Keating lists the growing number of scandals that Singh’s government has already survived:

  • accusations that Congress bribed allies in return for their support in last vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha — in 2008 over the U.S.-India nuclear pact,
  • corruption with respect to awarding contracts for the Commonwealth Games,
  • the ‘2G scam,’ whereby the government sold mobile phone bandwidth at a loss of $30 billion to the Indian government, and
  • most ironically, the 2011 firing of the government’s anti-corruption chief PJ Thomas on corruption charges.

But it’s not been a good year for Singh — or for India — and while most people still believe that Singh is personally one of India’s most honest politicians, he could have a hard time weathering the latest corruption charge plaguing his party.  That’s especially true now, with the entire world worried about India’s weakening economy.  Just last month, Time Magazine Asia declared Singh an ‘underachiever’ in a scathing cover story.

Continue reading Could Coalgate finally bring down Manmohan Singh’s government in India? →

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: August 27

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An explosion at the Amuay refinery in Venezuela brings the presidential campaign to a temporary halt.

The German Bundesbank and the European Central Bank at contretemps.

Pakistan’s prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf gets a reprieve on the constitutional crisis until September 18 (also, the next Pakistan general election will be held on April 4).

Worries about Internet freedom in India.

Comedian and upstart politician Beppe Grillo calls the leader of Italy’s Democratic Party a zombie.

Galicia will now hold early elections on the same day as the Basque Country (October 21).

Dutch party leaders held their first debate Sunday in advance of the Sept. 12 election.  Polls showed Labour party leader Diederick Samsom as the (surprising) winner.  Here’s a Dutch language summary.

Stephen Kinnock is not gay, says his wife, Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Feminist icon Germain Greer criticizes Australian prime minister Julia Gillard and her, ahem, arse.

Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras now turns to domestic politics and talks with his coalition partners.

 

Canada, Quebec

Sovereigntist party runs away from sovereignty issue in Québec election

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The last time Québec held a referendum on independence in 1995, Jacques Parizeau (pictured above in 1995) was the leader of the sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ).

With just over a week to go until Québec votes on Sept. 4 for a new Assemblée nationale, Parizeau, in a sharp rebuke to PQ leader Pauline Marois, endorsed the smaller, more stridently sovereigntist Option nationale, a party formed in 2011 by former PQ legislator  Jean-Martin Aussant.  His move comes with polls showing the PLQ and the PQ see-sawing in the 30% to 35% range for the lead in the election

Marois took the news gracefully, but the Globe and Mail reports that the Parizeau’s snub could jeopardize Marois’s effort to win power.  Normally, it doesn’t speak well of a party leader when a former party leader endorses a rival.

In this instance, I’m not sure that it harms Marois.  To the contrary, it emphasizes the not-so-subtle secret of Marois’s PQ leadership: she’s more interested in forming a government than pushing sovereignty.  That’s the very compliant Aussant aired when he formed Option nationale.

If she wins the election, which is as much a referendum on Charest and his government than anything else, it will be because she has emphasized any number of issues — corruption, strengthening education and health care, promoting Québec industry — to the relative exclusion of sovereignty. Continue reading Sovereigntist party runs away from sovereignty issue in Québec election →

Germany, Greece

Samaras ‘negotiations’ with Berlin not going so swell

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It didn’t go so well for Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras on his visits with European Union leaders in Berlin.  His plea for more time to come up with cuts to the Greek budget is being met with stony nonchalance from both German chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured above right, with Samaras) and French president François Hollande, to say nothing of German civil society.

Samaras has requested an additional two years to come up with an additional €11.5 billion in cuts to the Greek budget.  While Merkel — and especially Hollande — were sympathetic to Samaras’s plea and reiterated their support for Greece to remain in the eurozone, Samaras will return to Athens having won no concessions from Berlin or Paris.

Business daily Handelsblatt writes:

“Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras does not tire of making new demands. Now he wants more time, for the health of his economy. Not more money, only more time — at least according to his requests to Berlin and Brussels. And, in Berlin and Brussels, there will be much discussion about whether Greece should be granted more time.”

“Our instinctive reaction regarding Samaras’ request is, well, that could be something. Given the near 40 degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures that Germany experienced last weekend, we can empathize with Greek lethargy.”

“But is the Greek prime minister right? Is time instead of money really better? I say no.”

“We have known for a long time that time is money. Perhaps Angela Merkel will also say that to the Greeks. Despite the hot and sweaty 40-degree temperatures, there will be no more days off.”

Athens News reports that Merkel’s comments at a joint press conference with Samaras Friday were particularly tense:

“We expect Greece to deliver all that has been promised,” Merkel declared. In remarks that were unusually sharp for a joint news conference, she stressed that Berlin has heard words in the past but now expects deeds.

The tough talk contrasted sharply with the head of state honours and diplomatic smiles with which Samaras was received on his first official visit, complete with red carpet and band.

Merkel said that Samaras’ visit is a sign of the “very close ties” between the two countries, only to add later that each side had lost credibility in the eyes of the other and that trust must be regained.

And these are demands from someone who ‘Europe’ was desperate to win June’s Greek parliamentary elections.

Can you imagine how horrific the reaction would have been if the request had come from Alexis Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left — Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς)?

Merkel spent Sunday trying to calm the waters against anti-Greek feeling in Germany, after German Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann attacked the European Central Bank’s buying of state debt, and Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the governing Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Social Union), the Bavarian conservative party and sister party of Merkel’s own Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union), speculated that Greece would leave the single currency by next year.