ISAS Insights

Because of its position as a long-time bastion of communist parties and its progress in health and well-being, election trends and results in the southern Indian State of Kerala are invariably watched with special interest. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) is expected to win the poll on 16 May 2016, and thus continue the Kerala tradition of ousting incumbent governments. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aims to win seats in Kerala for the first time and thereby signal the demise of the CPI(M). Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), in power for the past five years, struggles desperately to hang on. The next government will face major financial and environmental challenges. Kerala’s relative prosperity, based on remittances from more than two million Keralites working overseas, means growing environmental degradation. Governments, committed to longstanding social programs, lack funds for much-needed infrastructure. And in spite of its famed level of female literacy and favourable sex ratio, few women participate in Kerala’s politics.