People from all over the world appear these days to be following an interesting trend in selection of elected leaders of their respective nations. Many recently elected leaders in key nations won their elections on the wave of anti-incumbency factor.
Recently completed elections in Germany clearly gave reasonable majority to the right wing party Alternative for Germany (AFD) to push German Chancellor, Angela Merkel's Christian Democartic Union (CDU) party to the third place. AFD simply won the second place by using anti European policies initially followed by anti-immigration policies. The anti-incumbency factor resulted in AFD gaining a huge share of electoral vote even in Berlin elections.
Arvind Kejirwal the founder of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the state elections in 2013 in New Delhi using the anti-incumbency factor against previous Congress Government. He retained the power somehow again in 2015 by targeting the anti-incumbency factor against central government and Prime Minister Modi after collapse of his initial coalation with BJP government in just 49 days.
Both AFD and AAP encashed the anti-incumbency factor in their respective elections. The simple tactic they followed was to show the opponent from ruling party in a very bad light. The underlying tones of their campaign are based on spewing negativity against opposition leaders or against policies in favour of a section of population .
Mr Donald Trump is using the same tactic in USA elections.Trump and his campaign team did not have much clarity on any key policy matters but their campaign was very direct and toxic in targeting a section of population and blaming the immigrants for all the current woes faced in USA. Trump was also very direct in trying to show Secretary Clinton and the current Obama administration in a very bad light.
British politician and UKIP leader, Mr Farage endorsed Trump and his policies recently just before Brexit referendum.
Brexit is clearly a result of anti-incumbency where Britishers voted against existing policies favoring European Union and lot of negative campaigning targeting a section of population in Britain i.e immigrants as well as policies favoring the immigration.Whether Brexit will really benefit Great Britain is something left for everyone's imagination now.
Trump was affected badly by the recent allegation of improper conduct against women and had to go on a back foot to defend himself. Anti-incumbency factor will still favor him in a big way in whatever gains he may make in the coming elections next month. Whether the anti-incumbency factor alone will rescue Trump is yet to be seen.
