THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The reason for the better electoral performance of the Left in the recently-held Assembly election was the support extended by the lower middle classes, former Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac said. Isaac, addressing a seminar Kerala Assembly Election 2011 and the Future of Coalition Politics in Kerala,’ organised by the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala, said that three factors contributed to the left debacle in Kerala: coalition partners like Janata Dal and Kerala Congress (Joseph) crossing over to the UDF camp and the consequent reduction in vote share; communal consolidation against the Left and thirdly; the internal bickering within the CPM and the Front. He warned that if the present UDF government was to succeed, it required a high growth rate as achieved by the previous left government.C P John, in his presentation, lamented that coalitions are losing moral decorum and the success of V S Achuthanandan was that he was clever in cashing in on this factor. However, Achuthanandan as the erchant of morality’ has gone too far, he said.Dr Gopa Kumar pointed out that neo-liberalism has produced ideology-free coalitions. He maintained that ability of the smaller parties to upset the electoral prospect is great in Kerala. Even such parties take the entire coalition to ransom, which he termed as lack-mailing potentiality.’The meeting was presided over by Dr Shaji Varkey.jeena proposed the vote of thanks.
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