The Weightage of Economic Development in India’s 2019 General Elections

With the unraveling of India’s general elections, questions arise, what makes a candidate worthy of appointment? What is the criterion for an effective government? How can a government increase its efficacy?

The economic environment, specifically the degree to which economic development is or can be attained, plays a dominant role in determining electoral outcomes.

Economic development, apart from the Gross Domestic Product, factors in the growth of employment, incomes/wages, the standard of living, economic disparity, and sectoral growth.

Many candidates come to power because of the economic development they facilitate in their previous term(s), or because of the economic promises they make.

Focusing on India, during the 2004 general elections, the then incumbent government, National Democratic Alliance [Atal Bihari Vajpayee], lost as their economic initiatives failed to benefit a large section of the poor. As a result, United Progressive Alliance triumphed in the elections, with Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister.

The global economic boom of 2004–08, right before the Lehman Brothers’ Bankruptcy, benefitted the UPA government’s term, enabling it to be elected for a second term in the 2009 elections.

However, with the tremors of the 2008 financial crisis along with the government’s poor governance, inflation rose as the real GDP growth rate fell to as low as 4.5%. The value of the Indian Rupee fell from ₹39.5 in 2007 to ₹68.8 in 2013. To exacerbate the situation, multiple corruption cases, such as the 2G Scam, Coal Scam, and Common Wealth Games Scam, came to the spotlight.

These shabby economic numbers, along with the allegations of corruption, resulted in rising prices, low private investments, a weak growth rate of job creation, and joblessness.

Hence, given the economic record and the inability to convey ways to rectify economic problems, the UPA government failed to secure a third consecutive term.

With this, came the NDA government. Candidate Narendra Modi’s slogan of “Acche Din” [Good Days] resonated with a significant section of the electorate. His priority of creating jobs and eradicating corruption further boosted his campaign.

Shifting focus to the 2018 Indian state elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the major cause to NDA government’s defeat was agricultural distress.

Agricultural distress is a result of dwindling prices of farm commodities, rising farmer debt, and weak infrastructure investment ensuing large gaps in storage and limited connectivity.

The defeat was enough of a worry to compel the NDA government to announce the PM-Kisan scheme, which guarantees a support income of ₹6000/year to 120 million small and marginal farmers with a landholding of fewer than 2 hectares.

Looking beyond India, we notice that there is a trend of economic development being the major influencer in elections.

In the 2016 US Presidential Election, the leading cause of Trump’s election is attributed to his slogan of “Make America Great Again”, which, primarily promised to bring back jobs to the US.

Zimbabwe’s former President, Robert Mugabe, who was once viewed as a hero, was overthrown because of his inability to bring about economic development. Inflation was soaring, the value of Zimbabwe Dollar was deteriorating, and the unemployment rate was high.

The current struggle of Venezuelans to dethrone their current President, Nicholas Maduro, is stimulated due to the terrible economic environment he has constructed with his mismanagement. The motive, of the people, here is a terrible economic environment. Venezuela has experienced an economic meltdown, with inflation reaching at least 800,000% in 2018. Such an economic environment has induced more than 3 million people to leave Venezuela, the remaining, organizing a coup d’état.

Abdullah II of Jordan, who has been ruling since 1999, is well accepted in Jordon because of the economic development that he has enabled. Since he came into power till 2008, liberal economic policies were brought forth, thus facilitating a robust GDP growth rate along with job creation and curbed inflation. The people have, consequently, accepted and supported his rule, prior to the Arab Spring Movement.

With the focus on economic development, a country simultaneously brings about social development. Through the rise in a country’s employment, income/wages, the standard of living, and its narrowing economic disparity, people, at the same time, experience an improvement in their living conditions.

In fact, an economic crisis comes with a humanitarian crisis. For instance, Venezuela’s economic crisis, since 2013, has escalated to a humanitarian crisis, marked with rising hunger, disease, crime, deaths, and an exodus from the country.

The Greek Depression, caused by the government’s mismanagement of its debt, resulted in people being homeless, unable to meet daily food expenses, and being vulnerable to depression, addiction, and suicide.

A country as economically developed, such as the US, is socially developed with its low poverty rates, high life expectancy, and literacy rates.

Now, as the Modi government’s term reaches its end, it is essential to review the government’s performance on the economic front.

Apart from contained inflation and a GDP growth rate that hit 8.2% in 2016–17, joblessness and agricultural distress remain the two key issues that the government was unable to solve.