BRITAIN’S ELECTION: A ‘HUNG’ PARLIAMENT?

PHOTO: BRITISH PM. GORDON BROWN (C) FLANKED BY LIBERAL DEMOCRAT NICK CLEGG (L) AND CONSERVATIVE LEADER, DAVID CAMERON (R).

The May 6 general election in Britain appears unpredictable. That compares well with the 1992 elections. Opinion polls, at the time, predicted one thing, but election result showed another. Now analysts say the 2010 election is difficult to call. Its likely outcome is the reason, and the polls are behind it. The outlook shows it may produce a ‘hung’ parliament. It means no single party wins clear majority. Two parties, in the event, will jointly form the government. The implications of this are serious. The electorates don’t like it. Polls have found them hoping for a clear majority government to emerge after May 6. Yet they, the electorates, contribute to the present situation. That is because nothing is settled in their reactions to questions posed as to their intentions on election day.

What the opinion polls said way back in December 2009 compared to what they say now is interesting. Some thirty four percent of those polled had said Conservative’s David William Duncan Cameron, a former public relations executive, born in London on October 9, 1966, would make the best Prime Minister then. Twenty two percent said Labour’s Gordon Brown, born February 20, 1951 in Scotland would; and ten percent were for Liberal Democrat’s Nicholas William Peter Clegg, born January 7, 1967 and since 18 December 2007, leader of the Liberal Democrats. All of that had since gone on its head from the Prime Ministerial debate became the best soap on TV in Britain.  Lately, the TV debate among the would-be prime ministers is better watched than ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and   ‘Coronation Street’. TV watchers, in the event, are for Clegg, behind whom Cameron and Brown queued up. Why Clegg? He is perceived as less arrogant than the other two co-debaters, and he is said to be honest on most of the issues debated. And the issues? They remain largely centred around the economy.

Brown is the most unlucky, the fall guy in the global economic meltdown. Though largely not anything of his party’s making, it happened on his watch. And the effect hit voters most, the main reason he and his Labour colleagues face such serious a challenge to their stay in power. Yes, the economy is the number one issue, but the aftermath of the expenses scandal still scars the political landscape. Taxpayers don’t forget such things easily. Members of House of Commons were caught asking for refunds, just a touch higher than they actually spent. The offence cut across party line. One female MP had made the public pay for home movies her husband watched. A male MP asked for expenses incurred on his dog. The entire parliament that the Queen gave Brown her consent to dissolve days back was the culprit. But it is not impossible that more Labour MPs than from other parties will suffer the consequences during election.  

Incidentally, Brown and Labour have not been much of a bag for opposition punches concerning the economic meltdown. Even the electorates, in most polls, agree that a level of recovery has been recorded. Then why is Labour fighting so hard for votes? How to manage an economy slowly emerging from the worst recession since World War Two is. And that is entangled with issues that include how to manage public services on tight budgets. Issues in recent TV debates, where Clegg gets his shine, have been essentially on this. But there are several reasons the matter of who occupies Downing Street next is not yet settled, and why a party may not win enough votes to form government after May 6.

One, the line of differences between the two major parties are not so clear on policy issues. The ‘how to do it’ of the main issue – the economy - has become blurred. Among several issues to raise, "you (the electorates) don't have to put up with another five years of Gordon Brown," was the main line of attack by Cameron when the date for election was announced.  For example, his party only promised to cut the deficit harder and faster than Labour, and it wants to exempt most workers from a payroll tax rise Labour plans for next year.

"Britain is on the road to recovery and nothing we do should put that recovery at risk," Brown, who replaced Tony Blair as prime minister in mid-term in 2007, said as his election campaign prong. That recovery, he argued, was too fragile to be entrusted to the Conservatives. The Prime Minister continues to sell Labour as a steady hand that the British taxpayers need. As for Clegg, he wants the electorates to leave the old parties and try him and his Liberal Democrats. If his success in debates eventually reflects in the election results, he will not only make opinion polls unpredictable, he will also will create problems for the two main parties from which he grabs votes. But Clegg is one man in one constituency; candidates of other parties may yet give his foot soldiers a good fight in the remaining 649 constituencies. He has won instant post-debate polling, yes, but that was based on samples of people who watched the debates. About 36 million people on the electoral register did not.  

But contenders for Brown’s post may yet have stiff challenge on their hands, another reason that may also justify the polls’ unpredictability. Cameron, the main challenger, has not translated some level of distrust for Labour that the polls show into a concrete switch over to his own party. And of course, with the exception of Labour's landslide victory in 1997, no party has secured more than a 5-percent swing in the national vote at a general election since 1950. Cameron and his men will need a swing of 6.9 percent for outright victory over Labour.  It is the only way to prevent a ‘hung’ parliament. And yet the polls may be awfully wrong for all the hype, emphasizing the present unpredictability, as they had were in 1992, when the polls placed Welsh Neil Kinnock in front, only for his Labour party to lose to John Major, the favoured English boy, on the election day. Could the fact of being Scottish play against Brown? It may yet be another factor that will shape how the next British government is formed. For there are other issues too, though largely unsaid and apart from economy, that influence voting behaviour even in Britain.  

Ajibade, a Consultant Writer, lives in Abuja, email: tunjioa@yahoo.com.