The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Lessons on Elections and Faith from Unexpected Places || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

We've got a few more elections to talk about today, and who knows, maybe the US might even learn something from South Africa and India. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/elections-in-south-africa-and-india

Hey everybody, Peter Zion here coming you from Birmingham, Alabama. Today we're going to try to look about a couple of the major elections that have happened recently. I mean, we've already covered Mexico, but I want to do South Africa and India now. The conventional wisdom in most places is actually correct on this one. In India, the government of the BJP, which is Prime Minister Modi, suffered a significant setback. Polling as recently as a week ago, or a week before the elections, indicated that they were on track to get a two-thirds majority,

which would have allowed the Modi government to amend. the Constitution without restriction. And instead, they came at it under 50%. And so they actually have to form a coalition government. So they're still in charge. Modi's still the prime minister, but it has been a significant hit to his prestige. And lots of people are talking about how this is a savior, Indian seizing control of their own democracy and preventing an autocracy from happening

because Modi has become more and more authoritarian as he's been prime minister. All of that is correct. I would argue that Modi's reputation for being an economic whiz has proven wrong. and he has mismanaged a lot of the government finances and a lot of economic policies turning towards populism, and that was rejected to a certain degree. But rather than Poo Pooh-Po Modi or the BJP in general, I think what's something that is far more important is what's happening under the hood. This is a country that has lots of issues in infrastructure and education and equality, but they just ran an election where a billion people voted. and the government didn't win in the way it had hoped, and it's okay.

The trust in the political system is high. The Indians may have their faults, but wow, do they know how to count votes? They ran a clean election, the government has accepted it. Modi has accepted it. That's something that we could probably learn a little bit from. The other country, of course, is South Africa. There you've got the ANC, which fought against the apartheid system back in the 70s and 80s, that has basically run the government ever since.

usually with a super majority. And they too have now gotten the smallest share of their vote in a very long time, if not ever. And again, below 50%, they also will have to form a coalition. Here the problem's a little bit more intractable, because there aren't a lot of people to draw from. You've got a group called the Democratic Alliance that is basically a pro-business libertarian group that is primarily ethnically white. You've got the economic freedom fighters who would find Latin American Socialists to be two conservatives. And then you have a new group that has formed by the former president of the country, Jacob Zuma, basically around his cult of personality. I mean, Zuma is arguably one of the most corrupt people in human history who's trying to make a comeback.

So whoever the ANC has to form a coalition with, it's going to be awkward. But again, here, the ANC, which is known for corruption, has just run an election in which they love. lost and no one has an issue with it because it was free and fair. One of the things we forget about in the United States is we actually do run the most free, most fair elections in the world. Don't believe me, believe a guy by the name of Chris Coons, who was Donald Trump's appointed election integrity advisor who said the day of the election four years ago that it was the cleanest election in American history. Now Coons was of course fired within an hour for making that statement, but he hasn't recounted and of all of the challenges we have seen to the American

electoral system in the last three years. Of all the court cases, not one shred of evidence has yet to be produced indicating that anything had gone wrong the day of. Running elections isn't hard, believing in them. That's a little bit more difficult.