Gone with the swing

Swing votes, political analysts in my newsroom as indeed from every nook and cranny in the country's media space are quick to inform, will determine the outcome of the general elections this time. This is hardly profound discovery considering the massive disillusionment of the people with the political class as a whole for a while now, but the suspense does liven up the battle and also explains why the two major parties - the Congress and the BJP - are on tenterhooks. <br><br> Why and how do voters 'swing'? "In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from one side to the other, thinking they will be more comfortable, '' wrote the great German writer-thinker Johann Wolfgang Goethe, and I can find no pithier explanation. It highlights the exasperation of the voter with his present situation, as well as the nature of the risk involved in change. <br><br> It would be imprudent to believe that all swing votes emerge only out of unhappiness: swing voters could have educated themselves thoroughly about who is what and why on the political landscape, or could even act out of sheer impulse. But it is fair to say that the swing happens because the status quo becomes unacceptable. <br><br> The election of Barack Obama as President of the US serves as a classic example of this. He was an unlikely nominee of the Democrats, and even after he defeated Hillary Clinton in the primaries, was given no chance of winning against his Republican rival. But by the time John McCain had got his tie knot right for the much-publicised television debates, the pendulum had swung in favour of Obama: by the time the country voted for a new president, it had become so massive that it became a movement. <br><br> The essential character of the swing vote, of course, is that it goes in favour of the individual, not the party: issues pertinent to an individual and the personality of the politician tend to become more significant than the party manifesto. In the American system, it is believed that as much as 40 per cent of the electorate could be swing voters, which perhaps explains why Obama beat such heavy odds. <br><br> In a multi-party parliamentary system like ours, the swing vote may not be as huge as in America, but it may be no less crucial, though the generation of several regional parties over the past couple of decades has queered the pitch, so to speak, for any straightforward analysis. Indeed, the erosion in the seats for the Congress and the BJP over the past few elections is adequate expression of the disappointment of the people, making it a moot question whether these are still national parties. <br><br> For the sake of form and argument, let's say that they are, which I'm afraid deepens the anguish. The Congress is trying to hard-sell the flavours of a themeless pudding while the BJP still seems like a party of troglodytes (due acknowledgment to Wlliam Safire's New Political Dictionary for introducing such entity to me), even young Varun Gandhi ranting the sentiments that really belong to the Stone Age of politics. <br><br> So exciting as it may seem, the swing, alas, may only be from Tweedledum to Tweedledee.