Daily Archives: September 28, 2020

Because sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted.

Jos Eduardo dos Santos State of the Union address to Angolas Parliament in October 2013 included a shocker: Trade with former colonial master Portugal for which the country remains the fourth-largest export destination would be stopped, the then president threatened. There have been misunderstandings at the highest level of the state, and the current political climate does not encourage the implementation of the previously announced strategic partnerships, dos Santos said.

The presidential rebuke was prompted by Portuguese investigations into financial dealings of the Angolan elite, including members of dos Santos family. It didnt help that Portugals foreign affairs minister, Rui Machete, had publicly withdrawn his apology to dos Santos under pressure from the Portuguese public. And Luanda was willing to flex its muscles, aware of the economic lifeline it provided to Lisbon. Relations improved. Today, Angola and Portugal are witnessing a remarkable turnaround in their relationship, 45 years after the Central African state gained independence following 400 years of colonial rule.

Angolas economy grew from a state of chaos to stability in the years following the 2002 end of the countrys civil war, expanding by more than 8 percent in 2012. Around the same time, the Portuguese economy was smarting from the eurozone crisis.

So when Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho went hand in hand to beg the Angolan presidency in 2011 to invest in its privatization program, Africas second-largest oil producer, brimming with Chinese investments and billions of petrodollars in revenue, rose to the occasion.

In Angola, they call Portugal the laundromat.

Ana Gomes, former member of the European Parliament

Angolas elite began investing in Portugal while the latters middle and lower class increasingly started migrating to the former colony for work and business opportunities. Ties between the elite of both countries go back many years to the time some were in the same schools or got to know each other in the formative years, says Carlos Lopes, a professor at the University of Cape Town and a former executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

For a decade now, Angolas state oil corporation, Sonangol, has been a major shareholder in Millennium BCP, Portugals second-largest bank by assets. A third of the popular soccer team Sporting Lisbon is in the portfolio of Luanda-based holding company Holdimo.

Portugals Golden Visa program, which awards residency to non-EU citizens after investments upward of 350,000 euros ($415,000), has also lured many Angolan oligarchs and politicians to spend and launder money in Lisbon. In Angola, they call Portugal the laundromat, Ana Gomes, a Portuguese diplomat and former member of the European Parliament, says wryly.

The most influential of them remains Isabel dos Santos, the former presidents billionaire daughter who chaired Sonangol for almost two years until she was fired by her fathers successor, Joo Loureno, for corruption. In 2015, she acquired a 65 percent stake in Portuguese power corporation Efacec for 200 million euros ($236 million). According to the Luanda Leaks investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists earlier this year, she is also part owner of Portuguese bank EuroBic and holds significant interests in the countrys telecommunications and real estate sectors.

The new relationship between Angola and Portugal hasnt always been smooth. When oil prices plummeted in 2014, causing the Angolan economy to contract for a few years, the heat was felt across the Atlantic in Portuguese households whose breadwinners were affected by the economic fluctuations.

The combination of reduced oil prices, limited access to credit and the crisis surrounding Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht the company at the heart of Latin Americas infamous Operation Car Wash scandal was also a major public works firm in Angola was a rude awakening for Angola, says Lopes, who grew up in Guinea-Bissau, another former Portuguese colony. It has led to a fiscal deficit and has eroded the purchasing power of the Angolan kwanza, he says.

When Isabel dos Santos accounts in Lisbon were frozen earlier this year as part of investigations by the Loureno administration, that also created a ripple effect. Angolans are now divesting many of their shares in key Portuguese corporations. There is no appetite in the current regime in Luanda to pursue the approaches of the past, Lopes says.

That shift could potentially hurt both economies. But decades after Angola gained political independence, the transition could perhaps grant Portugal financial independence from its former colony.

Continue reading here:

Is It Portugal's Turn to Gain 'Freedom' From Angola? - OZY

A DRUNK thug who shouted Freedom before smashing a bouncer over the head with a metal pole has been ordered to pay his victim compensation.

Ross Gibson, 32, impersonated Scots hero William Wallace before launching the savage attack on doorman Gabriel Greechan outside the Jam House club in Edinburgh.

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Gibson had been thrown out of the city centre nightclub following an altercation inside and challenged the door staff while outside.

During last Decembers confrontation he picked up the metal pole and smashed doorman Mr Greechan over the head.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told the bouncer suffered a gash to his head and a large amount of blood was spilled onto the pavement.

Gibson admitted the unprovoked attack at a previous court hearing and he returned for sentencing today.

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Sheriff Roderick Flinn ordered the plumbing and heating engineer to pay Mr Greechan 300 in compensation.

Gibson, from Dalkeith, Midlothian, was also fined 200 and told he must also pay a victim surcharge of 10.

A witness, who did want to be identified, said: The guy was acting like a complete lunatic after he had been thrown out of the club.

He was shouting and swearing and acting the big man in front of the door staff and everyone was laughing at him when he began shouting Freedom at the top of his voice.

But we couldnt quite believe it when he picked up the metal barrier pole and hit one of the bouncers over the head - it was really shocking to see.

The doorman didn't go down but there was a lot of blood on the ground and the other door staff then jumped on him and took him to the ground before police were called.

Last month prosecutor Jack Castor said the bouncer was on duty outside the popular Jam House venue at around 12.40am on December 21 last year.

The fiscal said the doormans colleagues were in the process of ejecting Gibson from inside the club and once outside he turned violent.

Mr Caster said: The accused remained on the pavement and Mr Greechan told him to leave but the accused took hold of a heavy metal barrier pole.

The accuse lifted the pole above his head and Mr Greechan attempted to grab the pole from the accuseds hands.

The accused then brought the pole down onto Mr Greechans head.

Colleagues rushed in to help the injured doorman and Gibson was restrained to the ground by the staff members.

The fiscal added a gash opened up on the scalp of Mr Greechan which resulted in a large amount of blood spilling out onto the pavement.

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Solicitor Paul Dunne said his client had received injuries himself while being detained by the door staff but admitted his behaviour had been reckless.

Mr Dunne added Gibson has reduced his drinking significantly since the incident.

Gibson pleaded guilty to assaulting Mr Greechan by striking him on the head with a metal pole to his injury at Queen Street, Edinburgh, on December 21 last year.

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Edinburgh thug who shouted freedom before smashing bouncer over head with metal pole ordered to pay com - The Scottish Sun

The U.S. Navy's forthcoming force structure review may call for a fleet with up to 534 ships and submarines, including various kinds of unmanned vessels. The is far bigger than the existing Congressionally-mandated goal of a 355-ship fleet, which has long proven to be a struggle for the service to achieve. Plans for an even larger force could run into significant budgetary, recruiting, sustainment, and other hurdles.

Defense Newsgot the scoop on the expanded fleet concepts after obtaining draft copies of naval force structure studies that the Pentagons Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) and the Hudson Institute think tank produced for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Those reports date back to April 2020 and were meant to present a proposed ideal fleet composition and plans for obtaining it by 2045. The Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was also set to produce a study, the details of which remain unknown.

Those studies have since been evaluated, including through simulated wargames, and have been incorporated, at least in some part, into the Navy's Future Naval Force Study, according to Defense News. This new force structure plan was originally expected to be completed sometime last year, but has been repeatedly pushed back. At present, the plan is to use this final study to inform the next shipbuilding plan, which will accompany the service's budget request for the 2022 Fiscal Year, a public version of which should come out sometime between February and March 2021.

The Future Naval Force Study is a collaborative OSD, Joint Staff and Department of the Navy effort to assess future naval force structure options and inform future naval force structure decisions and the 30-year shipbuilding plan, Navy Lieutenant Tim Pietrack, a spokesperson for the service, told Defense News. Although COVID-19 has delayed some portions of the study, the effort remains on track to be complete in late 2020 and provide analytic insights in time to inform Program Budget Review [FY] 22.

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The proposed fleets from both CAPE and Hudson have significant differences compared to the Navy's existing structure, which currently has around 290 ships and is expected to grow to 301 ships by the end of this year. Both of the plans notably recommended cutting the total number of supercarriers to nine from the service's current total of 11, which includes the 10 Nimitz class carriers and the first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford.

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The first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford, in front, sails with the Nimitz class Harry S. Truman.

It is also worth noting that, by law, the Navy is compelled to always be working toward having a dozen active supercarriers, something that would have to change for either of these plans to go into effect. Hudson's proposal also included four smaller light aircraft carriers in addition to the remaining supercarriers, something the service was considering in April, but publicly said it was no longer exploring, at least in the near term, the following month.

CAPE also recommended a total of between 80 and 90 large surface combatants, a category that presently includes the Navy's Arleigh Burke class destroyers and Ticonderoga class cruisers, while Hudson favored reducing these number of these types of ships The Arleigh Burkes andTiconderogasaccount for 89 ships in the service's present fleet. There has also been talk about a future Large Surface Combatant that could replace both types, but the Navy is still just in the process of crafting the basic requirements for this vessel.

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The Ticonderoga class cruiser USS Hue City sails ahead of the Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Oscar Austin.

The plan from CAPE called for around 70 small surface combatants, while Hudson proposed slashing that number to just 56. At present, the Navy's two subclasses of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) are the only vessels it operates in this category. At the end of the day, the Navy expects to have bought 38 Freedom and Independence class ships in total, some of which are already being retired.

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The first-in-class USS Independence, in front, sails alongside the first-in-class USS Freedom. These are the leads ship in the two Littoral Combat Ship subclasses

The service is now also in the process of acquiring a new fleet of guided-missile frigates, presently referred to as FFG(X), which would also bolster the size of its small surface combat fleet. The first of these, at least, will be based on Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri's European Multi-Purpose Frigate design, also known by the Franco-Italian acronym FREMM.

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An artist's conception of the future FREMM-based FFG(X).

Both CAPE and Hudson were in favor of increasing the Navy's number of attack submarines, but Defense News did not give the exact proposed submarine fleet totals for either study. The service is already looking to begin development of a new attack submarine with capabilities more akin to its trio of advanced Seawolf class boats, which were originally designed primarily as hunter-killers, rather than the more multi-purpose Virginia class.

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The Seawolf class submarine USS Connecticut.

Defense News said that the proposals from CAPE and Hudson called for between 15 and 19 amphibious warfare ships, with CAPE's plan including 10 large amphibious assault ships, such as the Wasp and America classes, while Hudson's notional fleet had only five.

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The first-in-class amphibious assault ship USS America.

This category also includes dock landing ships, such as the San Antonio class, and these figures represent what would a major reduction in the number of traditional amphibious ships in the Navy's overall fleet. This is in line with new radical concepts of operation emanating from the U.S. Marine Corps under its present Commandant General David Berger, who has called for a major shift away from long-standing views of amphibious warfare.

As such, CAPE and Hudson included between 20 and 26 Light Amphibious Warships (LAW) in their proposed fleets, a type of ship that the Navy is now working to acquire based on requirements from the Marines, which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece. The Navy has publicly said it could buy as many as 30 LAWs.

Sea Transport Solutions

An artist's conception of a so-called stern landing vessel design from Australian shipbuilder Sea Transport Solutions, which is reportedly one of the types the Navy and Marines are considering for the Light Amphibious Warship.

Both plans included significant increases in the total number of logistics and support ships in the Navy. This included adding between 19 and 30 new "future small logistics" ships, which could potentially be a type of offshore support vessel-type ship, and increasing the number of fleet oilers, ships able to refuel conventionally powered ships, from 17 to between 21 to 31. Hudson's proposal specially called for adding 19 command and support ships, as well. This is a category that presently includes an array of specialized vessels within the Navy, including its two Blue Ridge class command ships, Spearhead class expeditionary fast transports, expeditionary sea bases and transfer dock ships, and other logistics vessels.

By far, the most significant additions in both plans are dozens of unmanned surface vessels (USV), including proposed "large" types that are the size of traditional corvettes, and large unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV). At present, the Navy does not formally include any vessels in these categories when talking about the size of its overall fleet. The notional fleets from CAPE and Hudson included between 65 and 87 large USVs and between 40 and 60 large UUVs.

The Navy, as well as the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the White House's Office of Management and Budget, have all pointed to the inclusion of unmanned vessels as a way of finally reaching the existing 355-ship fleet goal. Their inclusion in the proposals from CAPE and Hudson meant that those notional fleets, which already included between 316 and 358 manned ships, would surge in size, with 534 total vessels between the maximum projected size among both studies.

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Two unmanned offshore support vessel-type ships the Navy, together with the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office, has already been testing as part of the Ghost Fleet Overlord program.

Boeing

An artist's conception of Orca, a large unmanned undersea vehicle that Boeing is building for the Navy.

In a vacuum, both of these proposals make sense in many ways, especially given U.S. military's overall shift in focus to preparing for high-end conflicts and growing interest in distributed concepts of operation, including in the maritime domain, in recent years. The War Zonehas explored these developments on multiple occasions in the past.

In addition, as noted, the Marine Corps is undergoing a massive transition that includes a complete rethinking of how it conducts amphibious operations, especially in a distributed scenario in the Pacific region. The Navy, based on input from the Marines, and, to some extent, the Army, as well, has similarly begun re-evaluating how it might go about supporting ground forces during such operations.

On top of this, China is rapidly expanding the size and scope of its own naval capabilities, including adding significant numbers of new, advanced warships, including multiple aircraft carriers, and submarines. The most recent Pentagon report to Congress on Chinese military developments highlight naval modernization and shipbuilding as key areas where the People's Liberation Army is making major advances that challenge traditional American superiority. This, in turn, has already prompted calls for more funding for new Navy ships.

While there are very real strategic realities and concerns that are clearly driving these fleet proposals, it's unclear how realistic the Navy's plans for getting to the existing 355-ship mark might be, let alone increasing that total to over 500 vessels. In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessed that the shipbuilding plan the Navy had released that year, which envisioned hitting 355 by 2034, would cost the better part of a trillion dollars to implement. The Navy itself had acknowledged that, after getting to its desired 355-ship fleet, it would then need $40 billion every year just to operate and maintain all those ships, some 30 percent more than it spends annually now.

Defense budgets always ebb and flow from year to year and it is especially hard, in general, to project how stable funding might be over a period of 15 to 25 years. Any basic budgetary concerns about this massive increase in the Navy's overall fleet size are only exacerbated by the realities of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has already led to a pronounced recession within the United States and major global economic downturn. The fact of the matter is that the service is having trouble paying for the fleets it has now.

The Navy, which has had trouble meeting recruiting goals in recent years, will still need to provide crews for the existing and new manned ships under both proposals, as well. The service has explored a variety of reduced and other novel crew concepts, as well as deployment mechanisms, to help ensure readiness with, at best, mixed results.

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New Navy recruits arrive at the service's Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois.

There is clearly a hope that a heavy emphasis on smaller ships with smaller crews and unmanned vessels could help defray many of these costs and reduce maintenance, infrastructure, and recruiting demands. However, the proposals from both CAPE and Hudson preserve much of the service's existing surface and submarine fleets and call for the addition of more traditional manned ships, not all of which would be small.

There can only be questions about whether the Navy's internal maintenance infrastructure, as well as the availability of contractors to provide additional shipyard capacity for repairs, could handle the increase in total ships, no matter how small they might be. The Navy's shipyards are in notoriously poor condition. Although there have been some recent investments made to attempt to refurbish them, this reality has limited their ability to keep up with the workload they already have. Two years ago, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), notably assessed that the service has lost more than two decades of operational time across its attack submarine fleets to maintenance backlogs.

The Los Angeles class submarine USS Boise is something of a poster child for these issues and is presently set to return to service in 2023, after which it will have been out of commission over a need for routine repairs for approximately eight years. This submarine only entered service in 1992, meaning that it is set to have spent nearly a third of its career in the Navy so far sitting idle.

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The Los Angeles class submarine Boise, pierside at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia. When she returns to the fleet, scheduled to occur in 2023, she will have spent approximately eight years idle.

Glaring concerns about shipyard capacity, and the rest of the industrial base, apply to building any new ships for the Navy and keeping that construction on schedule. Cost overruns and delays, which are hardly unheard of in the service's shipbuilding programs, could easily have negative cascading impacts on its overall force structure plans.

Pushback from Congress is something that has repeatedly undermined Navy shipbuilding plans, as well. So, there's no guarantee that legislators will agree to fund whatever final proposal the Navy presents to them when asking for its 2022 Fiscal Year budget, either.

All told, while the studies from CAPE and the Hudson Institute are certain to be valuable additions to the continuing debate around the Navy's future fleet structure and shipbuilding priorities, it very much remains to be seen how much, if any of these recommendations will be implemented any time soon.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

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These Are The Pentagon's Highly Questionable Proposals For A Navy With More Than 500 Ships - The Drive

On the annual International Day for Universal Access to Information, BIRN has released data showing dramatic drops in responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests by official bodies, either in time or in their entirety. BIRN keeps track of its FOI requests and produces reports on the topic, because the information gleaned from these requests enables it to produce investigative pieces and expose wrongdoing by governments, companies and powerful individuals.

In a world where COVID-19 has caused chaos and complexity, access to reliable and verified information is more important than ever As these last few months have shown, public health requires transparency whether this means statistics on the scale of the pandemic, or data on public spending. Access to accurate and trustworthy information ensures accountability for actions undertaken in response to the challenges caused by the virus, as the global community works to build back better, Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, wrote on the occasion of the International Day for Universal Access to Information.

In a world where COVID-19 has caused chaos and complexity, access to reliable and verified information is more important than ever.

Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO

Since the beginning of the year, the data shows that BIRN journalists have sent at least 366 FOI requests to various public institutions in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. So far, just 123 requests, or 33.6 per cent, have been answered, either fully or partially, while the remainder are either rejected or still not answered.

By comparison, between January 2017 and June 2019, BIRN journalists submitted 854 official requests to access public documents in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, with slightly under half (408) approved; 224 were partially approved, meaning the institutions provided only technical information; and 221 requests were either rejected or no answer at all was received, despite repeated follow-ups from the journalists.

At the time, BIRN concluded that while FOI laws in the region are among the most liberal in Europe on paper, implementation of these laws is well below European standards a situation that has deteriorated with the spread of the pandemic.

Public institutions that so far have been most likely to answer FOI requests are the Trade Ministry and prosecutors offices (Serbia), the Judicial Council (North Macedonia), the Kosovo Judicial Council and local municipalities (Kosovo).

BIRN also tests the transparency of public institutions by analysing their compliance with the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from national and subnational governments to promote open government, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. So far, four Balkan states have joined the OGP: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Some of the commitments each state proposed in their Action Plans are related to: open data, anti-corruption, public procurement, developing e-governance, adopting laws to support transparency of public institutions etc. But despite their promise to be more transparent and open, these countries are still struggling to meet the commitments.

Albania, the oldest OGP member since 2011, has been shifting the OGP leadership from one institution to another, thus failing to fully implement its own commitments: fiscal transparency, public services, access to information, public administration and anti-corruption.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, which joined OGP in 2014, has not moved a step forward in fulfilling the commitments. Independent published reports note no improvement.

Montenegro, which joined in 2012, is still facing difficulties on internal leadership to deal with OGP and track the developments of the already committed institutions.

Serbia, which joined the partnership in 2013, has the highest number of set commitments. From a total of 14, it failed to develop an IT system to support e-governance, and failed to implement proposed amendments to the laws that were supposed to improve governmental transparency.

All four countries have failed in becoming more transparent and digitally accessible. Publishing the latest updates on their websites, such as financial reports, ministry meetings minutes, or other current and important public documents, seems like too long a process to be ever fully implemented.

Citing the fight against COVID-19, authorities in a number of Central and Southeast European countries extended the amount of time that state bodies had to respond to FOI requests, which media watchdogs warned at the time was part of a worrying crackdown on press freedom since the onset of the pandemic.

We are concerned that in some cases, the suspension or delay of FOI deadlines is being used to hinder media access to information and thereby shield the government from domestic scrutiny or criticism over its handling of the outbreak, warned Scott Griffen, deputy director of the International Press Institute (IPI).

Among those countries extending and suspending deadlines for FOI requests were Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, while Poland passed a law suspending the activity of courts that would rule on issues related to FOI requests.

The current Polish government is not making access to public information easier, but complicating it further on the pretext of battling the pandemic.

Grzegorz Makowski, expert at the Batory Foundations ideaForum

Most of these laws have since been revoked as the states of emergency and lockdown ended, however experts are warning about other legislation in the pipeline that could have a similar detrimental effect on the right to information.

In Poland, for example, legislation has been proposed by MPs from the ruling party that would exempt officials from punishment for breaking the law if they did so as part of efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Health Organization advises that, instead of absolving of liability, it is important to, among other things, produce conditions for better public oversight of the various public decisions made during the pandemic.

This recommendation could be implemented by facilitating access to public information via digitising, obliging institutions to proactively publish information online, shortening dates for information access etc Yet the current government is not making access to public information easier, but complicating it further on the pretext of battling the pandemic, Grzegorz Makowski, an expert at the Batory Foundations ideaForum, wrote.

In Montenegro, the government has been criticised for pressing ahead during the pandemic with proposed amendments to the Montenegrin Law on Free Access to Information that have raised serious concern among experts, who say that the majority of the proposed changes would have a negative effect and take Montenegro further away from international transparency standards.

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Governments Continue to Undermine Right to Information Under Cover of COVID-19 - Balkan Insight

Akali Dals exit from the NDA is a loss for BJP that goes beyond the limited numbers game in Parliament. Ties between the two parties date back to the Jan Sangh days, making Akali Dal perhaps BJPs oldest ally. Though the split was precipitated by resistance in Punjab to the farm reform legislations, relations had nosedived in recent years. Choosing the farm bills to exit NDA is a weak gambit. The bills promise better prices and greater freedom to small farmers to market their produce. Akali Dal may have missed a trick by cosying up to protesters, instead of turning the food processing industries ministry under its belt into a force multiplier for reforms and agricultural prosperity.

But each lost ally and the growing gap between the rhetoric and reality of cooperative federalism makes it harder for BJP to push its national agenda. In Maharashtra and Jharkhand, BJP failed to accommodate Shiv Sena and AJSU, ceding two states to UPA. Supportive or neutral parties like AIADMK, BJD, YSRCP and TRS may help BJP undermine opposition unity. But the Centres tightfisted approach on GST compensation, telling states to borrow to meet shortfalls, and CAGs finding that Centre retained Rs 47,000 crore of GST compensation cess in 2017-19 to understate the fiscal deficit, could undermine trust between BJP and regional parties. While the finance ministry has refuted the CAG report, its worth noting that adverse CAG reports on the previous UPA government helped the current NDA drive it out of power.

Many of its allies and friends, including JD(U), are uncomfortable with BJPs hard-edged Hindutva: One manifestation was the CAA late last year that spawned large scale protests. Sukhbir Singh Badal has attacked Centres callous insensitivity to minority sentiments. The shift from the Vajpayee eras emphasis on coalition dharma to the Modi eras emphasis on single party dominance has left allies chafing. Neither have BJPs sharp tactics in pushing through legislation in the just concluded monsoon session of Parliament without much discussion or debate, and including the controversial passage through just a voice vote of the crucial farm bills endeared it to other parties.

BJP needs to develop a more accommodating style, reach out to political parties across the spectrum and build political capital with allies and potential allies. Else it may face increasing resistance in Parliament or in states even when it is pursuing a productive agenda.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.

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Akalis divorce BJP: Despite national dominance, BJP needs a strong NDA for governance and cutting political ri - The Times of India Blog