In
a State where even local leaders of principal parties cannot be seen together,
the forging of new alliance was hailed as a great move – but has become the
butt of memes. The coming together of Vijaykant,
popularly known as "Captain" , becoming chief ministerial candidate of the People's
Welfare Front (PWF) was hailed as a master stroke ! – then came the reports his
wife Premalatha was the kingmaker. A group
from the same party charged that DMDK was controlled not by the actor but by his wife Premalatha, and were sacked
from the party duly.
The children released their own statement from Colorado
ski country in 1993 even as paparazzi followed them everywhere seeking one. Don
Jr. was 15, Ivanka 12, Eric 9. It read -
“in discussions among ourselves, we decided to stay in Aspen with our mother
and grandmother.” They were responding to their remarriage of their father after a spectacular divorce from their mother
!!
Miles away, Democrats
knew a general election battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would
be rough, but many never considered the potential of a nailbiter. During a
primary in which Trump usurped the GOP establishment, alienated crucial sectors
of the general electorate on issues like immigration and abortion and dinged
his own approval ratings, many Democrats salivated at talk of a November duel
with the billionaire.
It is all about - Donald
John Trump, a businessman, politician, television personality, author, and the
presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States
in the 2016 election. Trump is the Chairman and President of The Trump
Organization, as well as the founder of the gaming and hotel enterprise Trump
Entertainment Resorts. Trump's father
was New York City real estate developer Fred Trump. Trump first campaigned for the U.S. presidency
in 2000, and withdrew before any votes were cast. On June 16, 2015, he again
announced his candidacy for president, as a Republican. Trump became known for
his opposition to illegal immigration, his opposition to various free-trade
agreements that he regards as unfair, his frequently non-interventionist views
on foreign policy, and his proposal to temporarily ban foreign Muslims from entering
the United States until Congress can determine how to address Islamic
terrorism. Trump quickly emerged as the front-runner for the Republican
nomination. After Trump won the 2016 Indiana primary, his main rival, Ted Cruz,
suspended his campaign. Accordingly, Republican chairman Reince Priebus
declared Trump the party's presumptive presidential nominee. Trump's final
remaining Republican rival, John Kasich, suspended his campaign the next day.
However, still a powerful array of the Republican Party’s
largest financial backers remains deeply resistant to Trump’s presidential
candidacy, forming a wall of opposition that could make it exceedingly
difficult for him to meet his goal of raising $1 billion before the November
election. NY reports that more than a dozen of the party’s most reliable
individual contributors and wealthy families indicated that they would not give
to or raise money for Mr. Trump. Trump has succeeded while defying conventions of
presidential campaigning, relying on media attention and large rallies to fire
up supporters, and funding his operation with a mix of his own money and
small-dollar contributions. The formula for sure would be tested as he presents
himself to a far larger audience of voters.
The United States
presidential election of 2016, scheduled for Tuesday, November 8, 2016, will be
the 58th quadrennial U.S. presidential election. Voters will select
presidential electors who in turn will elect a new president and vice president
through the Electoral College. The term limit established in the 22nd amendment to the United States Constitution
prevents the incumbent President, Barack Obama, of the Democratic Party, from
being elected to a third term. The series of presidential primary elections and
caucuses is taking place between February 1 and June 14, 2016, staggered among
the 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. This nominating
process is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of
delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who then in turn elect
their party's presidential nominee.
Trump is expected
to face the as of yet undetermined presidential nominee of the Democratic Party
in the general election, presumably either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Reports
suggest that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders from Vermont has
outraised his rival Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race to the White House
for the fourth consecutive month. Sanders’campaign on Friday filed a report
with the Federal Election Commission showing he raised more than $26.9 million
in April, out-raising Secretary Clinton for the fourth month in a row. He has
raised more than $212 million since the start of the campaign.
Things are far
different than the way it happens here and the way we understand the elections
here in India. Five Assembly elections, and five different winners. Voters have
not distributed their favours equitably. The Congress, the only party with a
realistic chance of being part of a winning coalition in all the five
elections, won only one, the least important politically, the Union Territory
of Puducherry. In Assam, it ceded ground
to its principal rival at the national level, the Bharatiya Janata Party, for
the first time. In Kerala, where it headed a coalition government as the
leading member of the United Democratic Front, it lost heavily to the Left
Democratic Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In West Bengal,
the party’s incongruous alliance with the Left Front failed to enthuse voters,
who saw it as devious and opportunistic. And in Tamil Nadu, the revival of the
alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam yielded little dividend for the
Congress.
It’s amazing how
politicians interpret every election in their favour —irrespective of whether
they win or lose. In this five-state election (a mini general election), the
primary loser is the Congress. But their
leaders say that “We will review the
situation and come back with renewed vigour.” Not a word about its inability to
present a new face in Assam in place of the tired old face of Tarun Gogoi, or
the irrelevance it has achieved in Bengal, or its virtual non-existence in
Tamil Nadu, or the way the entrenched Congress coalition in Kerala destroyed
itself through corruption and the make-believe politics of Oommen Chandy.
In West Bengal, the
arithmetic was perfect, but the
chemistry did not work well. Our great
analyst Thuglak Cho has written so many times that in elections, when there is
an alliance, it does not always happen that you add 2 + 2 together. The
Congress-Communist combined alliance forged on the eve of the state Assembly
polls in West Bengal did not prove good enough to dislodge the "autocratic
and fascist Mamata Banerjee government." The electoral understanding of CPM & Congress was a step backward for
both the parties – and now comes the bad news that the Election Commission is
likely to review the CPM's recognition as a national party in the aftermath of
the party's poor showing in the assembly polls in West Bengal. TOI reported that EC may favour a change in
the criteria for the nation party tag, opting for reviews every two polls
instead of the prevailing five-yearly assessments. CPM's identity as a 'national party' -which
entitles it to privileges such as free airtime on national media for
campaigning and exemption of travel expenditure by 40 VVIP campaigners from
being billed to the candidate -had come under threat after the party returned
only nine MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2014. As per the Election Symbols
(Reservation and Allotment) Order, a party is recognised as being 'national' if
it has 11 Lok Sabha MPs from at least three states, or polls at least 6% of
votes in Lok Sabha assembly polls in at least four states in addition to
winning 4 Lok Sabha seats. Being recognized as a state party in four or more
states also allows the party to claim the national tag.
For the first time,
there will be no red representative in Tamilnadu Assembly. Marxists like to believe that they read, and
therefore understand, history. Perhaps. But the jury is still out on whether
they learn anything from the past. After
being in power for decades in WB, in 2011, the CPI(M) was defeated by the laws
of incumbency that can afflict any political organisation. In 2016, it has been
destroyed because it betrayed its own ideology, and abandoned principle in
search of a cheap return ticket to power.
Perhaps no
political analyst saw this coming – the DMDK contested in 104 seats, won nothing and
saw its vote share drop to a paltry 2.4 percent and failed to make a mark. Its
leader Vijaykant lost his deposit in the Ulundurpettai constituency, by a
margin of 47,500 votes. The party will now to have to revaluate its positioning
in Tamil Nadu's politics if it wants to make a comeback. Worser still, the
party has been stripped of its recognition as a 'state party' by the Election
Commission, news agency ANI reported. The main impact of the loss of the 'state
party' status for the DMDK means it will no longer have exclusive access to the
drum symbol (murasu in Tamil and nagara in Hindi).
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
22nd May
2016.
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