London Calling: What does India look like from afar? Imminent global power or dysfunctional democracy? And what is going on in Britain and the West that India needs to know about and perhaps learn from? This bimonthly column helps forge the links that are so essential in our globalized world.
“The genie is out of the bottle.” That’s what Dutch politician Geert Wilders said last week after his far-right, anti-immigration party’s surprise election victory in the Netherlands. For decades he was rejected and reviled. From now on, this flamboyant politician with bouffant blond hair and spectacular comb-over (sound familiar to anyone?) will lead the largest party in the Dutch parliament.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
The Netherlands is not a benchmark for global political trends. But by most standards, it is a strong, stable democracy that avoids political extremism on the right or left. When the populist right makes a breakthrough here, the rest of the world needs to sit up and take notice. And the same week, another right-wing populist (with another questionable hairstyle), Javier Milei, also scored an against-the-odds election victory to become the new president of Argentina, one of the largest countries in America Latin.
This is, of course, not a uniform global trend. The center left is (for now) in power in two of the major Western democracies, Germany and the United States; in Brazil, leftist Lula da Silva managed to oust far-right Jair Bolsonaro last year; and in Britain, the social-democratic Labor Party is expected to return to power next year after 14 years in opposition.
But in much of the world, voters are turning to populists who are extremely suspicious of the institutions on which liberal democracy rests: fair and unfettered elections; unrestricted media; religious tolerance; and political pluralism. At times it feels like a repeat of the early 1930s.
Wilders is unlikely to become Prime Minister of his country following the Dutch elections. His party will have 37 seats in Parliament’s 150 – the largest party but far from a majority. Early signs indicate that center-right parties will refuse to form a coalition with Wilders on the grounds that they should not deal with the devil. This will allow Wilders to complain that the political establishment has closed ranks to keep him out of power – which of course will infuriate his most radical supporters.
But Wilders’s politics are not simply those of the center right; they are, in every way, extremists. His party advocates reducing net immigration to the Netherlands to zero and banning mosques and Koran. He is convicted of inciting hatred. There is a strong whiff of Islamophobia and intolerance from him and his party.
Look across Europe: the populist right is on the rise. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Melon began her political career in movements that sought to resurrect Italian fascism, and her current party, the Brothers of Italy, is considered the most right-wing to govern the country since the collapse of the Mussolini dictatorship 80 years ago.
There have been pockets of far-right influence in Eastern Europe for some time – notably Hungary and Poland – where democratic traditions and institutions are arguably not as strongly entrenched due to decades of domination Soviet. In France, far-right Marine Le Pen was runner-up in the last two presidential elections.
And the shadow of the right grows. In Germany, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) has more than 70 seats in the national parliament and is a serious candidate in the elections. In Scandinavia too – a model of political moderation for many decades – the right is on the rise, with right-wing populists being the second largest party in the national parliaments of Sweden and Finland.
These movements do not constitute a coherent political group: some are mainly nationalist; others are racist or reactionary; still others are eurosceptic, wishing to build on the British example – partly shaped by the populist right – and withdraw from the European Union.
The root cause is the unease of those who feel they are losing their jobs and homes due to large-scale immigration, exacerbated by economic stagnation and a worrying level of global turmoil.
Milei’s victory in Argentina is a reminder that populism continues to weigh on politics in Latin America after Bolsonaro’s eclipse. Argentina has a tradition of maverick political leaders – after all, it is the land of Peronism – and its economic crisis is far more severe than in most other major democracies, but here again the sirens are sounding. Or rather they should be.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 provided a significant boost to populism around the world. If he returns to power next year, it will be an even bigger boost to the far right. Polls suggest he would have the edge in a rematch with Joe Biden. It is despite his alleged role in inciting what many see as an insurrection and the vehemence with which he contested his 2020 defeat without any substantial evidence to support his claims of election fraud.
From a distance, it might be tempting to smile indulgently as Western democracy threatens to consume itself. But the pandemic of ultranationalism, racism, protectionism and intolerance that could be unleashed will fall on each of us. It’s best to keep this genie with the cap firmly in place.
Andrew Whitehead is an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom and a former BBC India correspondent.
