The wheel of time move on
Around two decades ago, when French President Francois Mitterrand left office, the people of the country couldn’t have imagined another Socialist Party president anytime soon. Now, they have just elected another one.
This follows the yin and yang of the western liberal-democratic model. A self-correcting gyroscope of sorts that will oscillate between the left and the right. Time spent under a leftist dispensation might serve to remove the stark inequalities in the economy and enable the state to look after its citizens but too much time might curtail, even stifle, private enterprise that generates growth, wealth and, most importantly, jobs in any country.
Conversely, too much time spent under a freer enterprise dispensation means that the lesser regulation leaves the people, especially the vulnerable poor, at the mercy of the economic elements.
The economic crisis that the West is currently facing has brought about a change towards left-leaning dispensations the world over. Though the above was just the economic aspect of the divide, there are other aspects to the whole dynamic as well, with the right usually being closer to being xenophobic whereas the left generally tends to be more inclusive.
But sometimes it is not these ideological divides that changes governments. Sometimes it is the practice of statecraft and issues of governance and misgovernance, not placement on the larger political spectrum that determines these outcomes. In other cases, especially in parliamentary systems like ours, it is determined by no single national issue at all.
If the change in France was quite the ideological sweep it is made out to be, the stats of the winning candidate would have been higher than even the 52 percent that he actually did score.
The Socialist Party, it is assumed, will also take an inclusive view towards the minorities in the country, especially the Muslim community. The troubled young Muslim male demographic needs a benevolent hand that will incentivise assimilation (of a particular type) not a strict purist government.
