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| Politics
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| Who will be the President? |
| Who will be the President? Why so much rides on this
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| INDIA
, 11-June-2012
2:36:48 AM |
| Pratibha Patil wakes to the sound of trumpets and horse-backed riders in the cobbled courtyard of her magnificent palace in New Delhi, she walks on a treadmill, prays at her private temple and prepares for a long, hollow day.
That's how it has been for Mrs Patil and her 11 predecessors as president of India: a grand office and an opulent home with liveried attendants, but almost no power.
But that might change when Mrs Patil leaves office in July and a new president is elected for the next five years.
For the first time since India became independent 65 years ago, it may have a president with political clout.
That power will flow from a prerogative that effectively gives the president a casting vote when no one political party has a clear mandate to rule - the likely outcome of the next national elections due by 2014.
A politically driven president - and the leading contender for the job, current Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is certainly that - could also take advantage of India's vaguely worded constitution to influence legislation in a parliament splintered by many parties and alliances.
He could also use his power to dissolve an impossibly fractured parliament, and delay or even scupper legislation by withholding the required presidential assent.
"The role of the president will be critical after the next general elections," wrote MJ Akbar, a former Congress party lawmaker, in the India Today weekly. "In theory, a president is above politics; in practice, he is what he chooses to be."
'HUNG PARLIAMENT' AHEAD
The Indian constitution recognises the president as head of state but stipulates that real executive power sits with the prime minister and his ministers. Where the president does have a say, however, is on the appointment of the prime minister.
Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party, which leads today's coalition government,
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