Democratic Alliance Research Articles

Shifting Budget Allocation Priorities in India

Budget allocation is an amount designated to a certain aspect of the economy as an expenditure for a particular year. There are various sectors in an economy that are allocated certain shares of the central budget of a country each financial year. The present research paper focuses on studying the allocation of the budget among four pillars of the Indian economy: education, agriculture, healthcare, and defence, by the United Progressive Alliance as well as the National Democratic Alliance over the course of the past few years. The objective of this paper is to determine which government focuses more on which sector in a specific year and to study the various factors which influence it. The data which has been used to analyze the allocations have been picked up from the official Ministry of Finance website and any ambiguity in the data should not be present. Accuracy has been maintained throughout the paper but any ambiguity in the official data is regretted. This paper has been written from the perspective of one individual and does not aim to influence public opinion or harm any emotional or political sentiments.

The Baltic Pipe Gas Pipeline in the Concept of Ensuring Poland’s Energy Security in the Political Thought of the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People’s Party

The Baltic Pipe Gas Pipeline in the Concept of Ensuring Poland’s Energy Security in the Political Thought of the Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish People’s Party

Revisiting the Pasmanda Political Discourse: Feasibility, Failure and the Way Forward

This article attempts to revisit the Pasmanda political discourse (PPD) which is grounded on the premise that there exist a number of backward and dalit Muslims who remain under-represented and whose demands remain unheard in contemporary India. In recognising this reality, this article tries to understand the PPD from three perspectives. First, the feasibility and importance of the PPD in the context of the resounding victory of the National Democratic Alliance which has indicated that the present dispensation managed to dismantle caste-based politics in the last 2019 general elections. Second, it tries to explain the reasons for the failure of Pasmanda politics which could not make a headway in the Muslim community in general and Pasmanda Muslims in particular and also in other socio-religious groups and political parties, despite it being a century-old political discourse. Third, it seeks to articulate the way forward to strengthen and rejuvenate the idea of Pasmanda in India today which is witnessing a domination of majoritarian politics.

A Rhetoric or Genuine Transformation? An Afro- Decolonial analysis of Democratic Alliance Economic Justice Policy

The post-apartheid African National Congress-led government adopted several affirmative actions with an intention to dismantle the colonial-apartheid sponsored racial inequality manifested by the exclusion of black people in the country’s socio-economic and political developments. Equally, the emergence of black people in the Democratic Alliance leadership positions, saw the use of race as a basis to argue against persisting inequality between the majority of black South Africans and their white counterparts. This occasioned a heated debate within the party between white and black leaders, with the former refuting the use of race in policymaking to address the challenges faced by South Africa. Consequently, most black leaders left the party in a manner that academics and media regard as being pushed by their white counterparts inside the party, who oppose a shift from conservative to transformative policies. In recent times, the Democratic Alliance has adopted an Economic Justice Policy which excluded race as a basis to address inequality, poverty, and unemployment. This desktop article employs Afro-Decolonial perspective as an alternative lens to interrogate the question of whether Democratic Alliance Economic Justice Policy manifests that the organization is committed to transformation or the latter is just rhetoric. Methodologically, this is Afrocentric qualitative research that relied heavily on secondary data and adopted document analysis.

One Plus Four: What NATO’s New Strategic Concept Should Say and How to Achieve It

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) must pivot to address a new era of persistent threats and disruptive challenges unbounded by geography. Reaffirming NATO’s cohesion as an alliance of democracies will be paramount. Each of NATO’s core tasks—defense and deterrence, crisis management, and cooperative security—must evolve to meet new dangers. The Alliance should add a fourth core task of comprehensive resilience: the ability to anticipate, prevent, and, if necessary, protect against and move forward from disruptions to critical functions of allied societies. A more capable Europe is essential to each of these tasks.

ЭЛЕКТОРАЛЬНЫЙ РЕГИОНАЛИЗМ: СЛУЧАЙ ДЕМОКРАТИЧЕСКОГО СОЮЗА ВЕНГРОВ РУМЫНИИ

The article analyzes the dynamics of the regionalism strategy of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians of Romania (UDMR), representing the interests of the Hungarian minority, in the 1990s-2010s. The study uses official policy documents and manifestos of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, official electoral data, materials of coalition interactions and parliamentary debates, along with materials from the Manifesto Project Database. The results of the analysis show that the strategy of the regionalist party is transforming: from the rigid and consistent ethnolinguistic regionalism of the 1990s-2000s, in the 2010s the party is shifting to a more flexible adaptive strategy, which is a synthesis of moderate regionalism and competent positioning of the party as a coalition partner with a centrist social-economic agenda. The regionalist agenda is used by the party during the years of electoral activity, which serves as a tool for achieving institutional opportunities for participation in the national political process (shared-rule). The UDMR intention to expand the party's political subjectivity is not the main aim but the tool and opportunity for lobbying the interests of the regional community. The turn of the Hungarian regionalists from a strategy of confrontation with the Romanian unionist parties to a strategy of bargaining and cooperation is also the result.

Centre-state relations under Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) Post 2014 elections

The adoption of a federal structure in India was viewed as a requirement in order to address the diversity of the Indian situation. The elements of heterogeneity and plurality could be addressed by achieving reconciliation between national and constituent unit identities. In political context balancing the relationship of Union and States become evidently important, particularly after 1975, the time when Emergency was imposed in the Country. The system's dynamism, with all of its checks and balances, causes issues and friction in the functioning of Union State relations. A mixture of pressures caused by such issues may obstruct the system's operation and jeopardise the country's unity and integrity. It is therefore necessary to review the evolution of the Union States arrangement not only to identify persistent problems and seek solutions based on past experience, but also to adapt the system to changing times so that, propelled or moved by the spirit of common endeavour and cooperative efforts, the country moves ever closer to the social welfare goals set forth in the Constitution.” It was expected that conflicts would arise in the working of Union-State relations in India, so some structural devices for conflict resolution between the centre and states were carved out, such as provision of supremacy of the Constitution, independence of the judiciary, judicial Review, and amendment process, among others. However, the built-in system for resolving disputes between the Union and its constituent states proved insufficient. This argument can be expanded upon when the BJP-led NDA gains a majority at both levels post 2014 elections, and the relations may became smooth or as it's earlier.

Stanowisko ukraińskich środowisk politycznych w II Rzeczypospolitej wobec „pacyfikacji Galicji Wschodniej” w 1930 roku

During the second half of 1930, Polish police and army units carried out so-called the „pacification of Eastern Galicia”. That event played an important role in the Polish-Ukrainian relations in the interwar period. The instances of sabotage carried out by the Ukrainian Military Organization were announced as the official reason for the „pacification”. The nature of repressions, which affected civilians who were not connected with the Ukrainian Military Organization, caused a reaction from leading Ukrainian circles. In the beginning, the Ukrainian press, such as the most opinion-forming daily „Dilo”, reported acts of sabotage. Next, the three leading Ukrainian parties, Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance, the Ukrainian Socialist-Radical Party and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party made an agreement and issued a communiqué in which they condemned such the perpetrators of the sabotages as the state authorities’ action. At the turn of September and October, the political leaders of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance and the head of the Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Andrej Szeptycki, attempted to intervene with the Polish authorities. Until December 1930, when the new Sejm and Senate were convened, all Ukrainian efforts were unsuccessful. Despite the defeat, it was the starting point for the discussion about the „pacification of Eastern Galicia” in the Polish parliament and on the international forum.

Disinformation as Geopolitical Risk for Transatlantic Institutions

Disinformation has become a geopolitical risk for transatlantic institutions and for the global democratic alliance. Russia and China as authoritarian powers have had a long-standing interest to undermine the institutions of the liberal international order, led by the United States, the European Union and the NATO alliance. That way, disinformation can undermine trust in the liberal democratic system, including free market economy, individual liberty and open society. This geopolitical risk poses a significant threat to fact-based and evidence-based policymaking in many areas, including economy and security. Comprehensive counter-intelligence policy solutions can detect and mitigate this risk by ensuring broader institutional and societal resilience through lifelong civic education.

Election preferences of the inhabitants of West Pomerania in local elections in the Third Republic of Poland

Western Pomerania was said to be called as a stronghold of the left, for the Democratic Left Alliance both in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century achieved some of the best results in the country. Only after the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2005 and the local government elections in 2006, the electoral preferences changed towards the center of the political scene. The Civic Platform of the Republic of Poland turned out to be the change, Law and Justice to a lesser extent.
 The article presents a political analysis of the voting preferences of the inhabitants of West Pomerania in the local government elections with regard to the three mentioned parties. The aim of the research was to analyze the direction in which the electorate goes. It was checked whether the SLD was permanently eliminated and how strong the dominance of the PO was. Furthermore it was examined whether PiS is a real threat to the PO RP and whether the SLD has a chance to regain its lost position.
 It seems that regardless of the attempts made, the position of the SLD after the 2006 elections is stable and there are no indications that the Alliance could dominate the analyzed region again. However, in spite of the fact that since 2006 the PO enjoys high support, since 2014 PiS has been achieving better and better results, depriving the PO RP hegemon in its position in 2006–2014.

Populist parties shifting the political discourse? A case study of the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa

ABSTRACTThis article examines the use of populist discourse in South African politics. We investigate speeches of leaders from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). We find that the EFF consistently employs populist appeals, while both the incumbent ANC and official opposition DA largely refrain. Our longitudinal analysis allows an examination of fluctuation across party leaders and electoral cycles, and illustrates that neither the ANC nor the DA have modified their political discourses in light of a rising populist challenger. However, there is some evidence that the two most dominant parties have reformed their programmatic offerings and behaviour in an attempt to compete with the EFF's popular appeal. The South African case offers important insights into the study of oppositional populism on the African continent, and a window into how major political parties may respond to emerging populist contenders.

Intra-Party Conflicts and Party Stability in Nigeria: A Study of the Alliance for Democracy (AD)

Abstract: Purpose: The study examined the effects of the strategies employed by the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the main opposition party in the 1999 general elections in Nigeria, to manage its internal conflicts. Research methodology: This study is qualitative. It analyzed secondary data on Nigeria’s Fourth Republic to explain the management of intra-party conflicts in the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Results: It found that the AD was able to record remarkable successes in the 1998/1999 general elections as a result of its internal mechanism for mediation, bargaining, consultations, and negotiations among the party members. However, its inability to employ effective management strategies to settle internal crises before and after the 2003 general elections signaled the loss of its status as one of the leading parties in the country. Limitations: Despite being the main opposition party in the 1999 general elections, literature on the AD is scanty. This limited insights into events that culminated in the AD’s loss of status as a frontline political party in Nigeria. Contribution: It enriches the literature on the causes of intra-party conflicts and the effects of mismanaging such conflicts on party stability. It also provides deep insights into the reasons for AD’s loss of status from being the main opposition party in Nigeria between 1999 and 2003 to being deregistered in 2020. Keywords: 1. intra-party conflicts 2. management strategies 3. political parties 4. party primaries 5. party stability

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit to Sri Lanka and its impacts on Indo-Sri Lankan relations

In Globe, no nation is not an isolate it depends upon one another to fulfill their needs as a result of these multilateral relations build-up. Such a strong relationship we need to maintain means we need strong leadership. Such strong leaders are there before and after independence also. The several party leaders and their alliances are formed and implemented the policies for the development of India at the Internal level as well as external level. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was formed under two prominent leaders known as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. After Vajpayee, the NDA Government under the leadership of Narendra Modi realized the importance of foreign policy and maintaining a good relationship. Sri Lanka is also one of the closest neighboring countries; Prime Minister Narendra Modi from 2014 to 2019 he officially visited Sri Lanka three times within these three visits he used to make several new initiatives in many fields.

SIGNS OF CHANGE: THE RENAMING OF DURBAN’S STREETS Democratic Alliance v eThekwini Municipality: Unreported Judgment (KZD) Case Numbers 10787/08 and 6608/07 Judgment delivered: 3 June 2010

On 27 February 2007, the council of the eThekwini Municipality, the governing entity of the Durban and surrounding metropolitan region, passed the first of two resolutions in terms whereof certain byways and landmarks would be renamed. In a public municipal advertisement, the City’s mayor announced: “The street renaming is indeed an ultimate step towards honouring all the heroes and heroines who fought a fight for a good cause. Chief among these are those who in the pursuit of freedom ventured their way through the troubled bridges of apartheid. Therefore as eThekwini council, we feel honoured to be part of such a historic process of ensuring that names of these great men and women of the struggle remain known even to the generations to come … It is indeed a democratic process: members of the public were consulted and given an opportunity to suggest names. This will ensure that the city we live in is indeed accurately reflecting its people and its history …” Notwithstanding these sentiments, on 1 May 2007, about 10 000 demonstrators marched through the city’s central business district and converged on the City Hall, where the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) held a joint protest to complain, not about the fact that the streets and landmarks were being renamed, but about the new names themselves. The suggested names of SWAPO, Griffiths Mxenge, Andrew Zondo and Che Guevara spawned a public outcry and accusations that the process was carried out without proper consultation. The controversy prompted the New York Times to observe that “Durban is different. Intentional or not, some of the proposed name changes clearly flick at scabs covering deep divisions”. Against this background, the DA and the IFP launched an application in the public interest in the Durban High Court which will be analyzed hereunder. The Applicants prayed for an order to the effect that the decision by the Municipality to rename the streets must be set aside and for the old names to be restored. A representative for the DA announced that:“We took this case to court because we believed, and still do believe that the rights and opinions of thousands of eThekwini’s citizens were trampled by the actions of the municipality who simply roughshod over their objections”.

The “Imagined Other”

In 2014, the National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won the general election with the highest number of seats won by any party since 1984 and went on to win a second term victory in 2019. Since the rise of the BJP, Hindu nationalist interventions into education have increased. Their agenda has been to “indigenise, nationalise and spiritualise” education in India. To this end, textbooks were written to promote a Hindu majoritarian idea of India that sees Hindus as the primary citizens of India and categorizes Muslims as the “other”. This article outlines the political context in which Hindu nationalists have recently attempted to rewrite Indian history by focusing on the period of Muslim rule in India. It looks at textbooks published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and media reports about regional history rewriting in India.

“HEARING THE PEOPLE ON THE STREET” TESTING THE EXTENT OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN DURBAN’S STREETRENAMING PROCESS Democratic Alliance v eThekwini Municipality [2012] 1 All SA 412 (SCA); 2012 (2) SA 151 (SCA)

Section 152(1)(e) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, provides that one of the objectives of local government is “to encourage the involvement of communities and community organizations in local government”. This objective is further entrenched in section 16 of the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000, which requires that municipalities must develop a culture of participation by the community, and create mechanisms, processes and procedures accordingly. These obligations gave rise to a number of interesting questions. One of these is whether the local sphere of government is obliged to facilitate public participation in its legislative andexecutive functions. This issue was considered by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Democratic Alliance v eThekwini Municipality (2012 (2) SA 151 (SCA)). In this case, the SCA had to decide whether two decisions taken by the eThekwini Municipality to rename certain streets in Durban were, first, lawful and second, rational. Before turning to consider the facts of this case, however, it is important to note that the renaming of streets figures prominently in periods of regime change and revolutionary transformations.The process of street renaming in Durban prompted a large public response locally. The local newspaper, The Mercury, published a series of media reports and letters from the public on the renaming process. A researcher who interviewed its journalists, established that the changing of street names resulted in the biggest audience response ever experienced in the more than 150-year history of the newspaper.

Narinder Modi’s Administration and 2019 Parliamentary Election

The National Democratic Alliance govt was formed in May 2014 after BJP led NDA coalition secured a total of 336 LokSabha seats and delivered a serious blow to the UPA II govt in general and congress in particular. The BJP on its own secured 282 seats while its allies secured 54 seats. This was a watershed moment in the Indian democracy as it was after 1984 general elections that any single party has been able to cross the magical parliamentary electoral threshold figure. The 2014 election is said to have redefined Indian politics and is being considered as tectonic shift within Indian political system. With about a year to go for 2019 general elections, politics in India is turning high voltage undergoing fast political churning and wheeling dealing on the part of different political parties. The 2019 would be like 2014 elections the largest democratic exercise on earth. Although opinion polls predict in favor of BJP but with the recent by poll defeats of BJP in various states and the attempts of opposition parties towards forging Mahagathbandhan, 2019 is believed to be no cakewalk for BJP & co. The party will need to address the challenges of varying nature for staying in electoral fray against opposition.

Assembly Elections of India, 2021: Revisiting Assam

In India, Assembly Elections were held in Assam, West Bengal, Kerela, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the first half of 2021. Driving this study is an attempt to analyse the election results of the state of Assam where Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, Mitrajot or National Democratic Alliance (NDA), successfully defeated the Indian National Congress (INC), and its allies, Mahajot (Grand Alliance). Drawing primarily upon secondary data and applying GIS techniques, the study makes a critical analogy of how Mitrajot managed to accomplish victory.
 This is a solicited article. Submitted: 10 May 2021; Accepted: 24 June 2021.

Prosecutorial Discretion and Judicial Review: An Analysis of Recent Canadian and South African Decisions

The question whether the functions performed by the prosecutor in the criminal justice system are subject to judicial scrutiny has been a matter for concern in common-law jurisdictions for quite some time. The courts in the Commonwealth generally agree that prosecutors must function independently; act fairly and responsibly in the interests of the public; and must be free from political interference. Their role in the administration of justice is to uphold the rule of law. Therefore, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion should ordinarily not be interfered with by the courts except in rare cases. However, the extent to which the courts, in respective Commonwealth jurisdictions, review prosecutorial discretions differs. A comparative study of the Canadian experience and the South African approach, where the judicial approaches to the review of prosecutorial discretion significantly differ, is a clear illustration. In Canada, the courts hardly interfere with, or review the manner in which the prosecutor performs his or her duties, except that prosecutorial discretion is not immune from all judicial oversight, since it is reviewable for abuse of process (see R v Anderson [2014] 2 SCR 167). In South Africa on the other hand, the exercise of the powers of the prosecutor and their ramifications are, like every exercise of public power, subject to the constitutional principles of legality and rationality. The recent judgments of the Full Bench of the Gauteng Division, Pretoria in Democratic Alliance v Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions 2016 (2) SACR 1 (GP) as affirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeal in Zuma v Democratic Alliance 2018 (1) SA 200 (SCA)—the so-called ‘spy-tape’ saga—are the latest illustrations of this approach.

South Africa’s 2016 municipal elections How the ANC and DA leveraged Twitter to Capture the Urban Vote

This paper focuses on how South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), and main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), leveraged microblogging site Twitter. This was part of their urban election campaign arsenal in the 2016 local government elections (LGE) to promote party-political digital issue ownership within an urban context. Using each party’s corpus of 2016 election-related tweets and election manifestos, this three-phased grounded theory study found that each party used Twitter as a digital political communication platform to communicate their election campaigns. The DA notably leveraged the social networking site more for intense focused messaging of its negative campaign against the ANC while simultaneously promoting positive electoral messages around its own core issues and metro (urban) mayoral candidates. Furthermore, battleground metros were identified, narrow-cast and subsequently audience.segmented by the party in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Tshwane (in Gauteng) and Nelson Mandela Bay (in the Eastern Cape). This led to an emphasised campaign to either activate the party’s own urban support base and/or to suppress the ANC’s turnout in these highly-contested areas. The results of this study further indicate that the ANC and DA both used Twitter to claim explicit and implicit digital party-political issue ownership in the 2016 LGE.