India: MPs Vote to Elect Head of State

The current President of the Union of India, Pratibha Patil, discreet and little known abroad, will leave office two days after the results were announced Sunday. She was the first woman to be appointed President of the Indian Union, July 25, 2007.

Unless dramatic turn of events, Pranab Mukherjee of Congress party candidate who leads the governing coalition, would end a career spanning over 40 years as head of an emerging power of 1.2 billion people, a mosaic of cultures, religions and identities. A former Minister of Finance, 76, is credited with much more support than his rival, former parliament speaker PA Sangma, 64, who is supported by the main opposition party, the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Indifference

According to the news channel CNN-IBN, Mr. Mukherjee, who voted with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi should collect 67% of the vote against 30% for M. Sangma.

The election took place amid general indifference, major national newspapers have preferred to make their "A" on the death Thursday on the eve of the first "superstar" of Bollywood Rajesh Khanna. The TV also filmed continuously popular homage to the first "Indian lover".

Connoisseur of the turbulent politics of India, Mr. Mukherjee, however, could play a key role in organizing the next government after general elections in 2014 where close results should lead to negotiations between parties, especially regional. Most observers predict indeed results in a handkerchief because of popular discontent due to failures of growth and corruption scandals in government.

"Each party looking for new partners in order to form a new government. As president, Mr. Mukherjee could pilot the ship. It is a mediator," said to AFP Sanjay Kumar, a political analyst at the Center Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.

A mixed

But Mukherjee, born December 11, 1935 in West Bengal (East) resigned last month the Ministry of Finance on a balance sheet mitigé. Car for months, the third largest economy in Asia is going wrong: worsening deficits the country's trade balance, slowing foreign capital inflows, sharp slowdown in growth, persistent inflation and reforms avortées. La Indian growth only rose by 5.3% last quarter from 2011 to 2012, the lowest performance quarterly for nine years.

In India, the head of state is elected by indirect suffrage for a five-year term by a special electoral college composed of members of federal parliament, a bicameral parliament and by local assemblies. India inherited the British parliamentary model in which the head of state has a representative role, even if it is the supreme commander of the armed forces. The real executive power belongs to the government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh now, 79 years.