These days, PMs and presidents must be asking that age-old question, ‘So, when do I call for elections?’ to Alexa, Siri, ChatGPT, or even their trusted band of advisers (read: reach-out groups). Rishi Sunak recently called for elections in Britain on America’s Independence Day, while Emmanuel Macron snapped his fingers (thus the term ‘snap polls’) to call for the first round of elections on June 30 and the final run-off on July 7. Both gentlemen have called it from a position of weakness, the Brit almost certain to lose and the French likely to. So, why call for polls now? Getting the ‘right time’ to call for elections is much like deciding when to serve dessert at a dinner party. Too early, and you risk spoiling the main course. Too late, and your guests might have dozed off. And, remember, when Indira Gandhi called for elections even before the Emergency officially ended on March 21, 1977, she thought she was calling it from a position of supreme advantage. Well…
During normal times, call for elections too soon and you may be accused of rank opportunism. Wait too long and the public, with their notoriously short corgi tail memory, may forget your achievements, focusing, instead, on the latest crisis. But, sometimes, as with Sunak’n’Mac, it’s like, ‘What the hell, let’s just get over it!’ Unlike here where we just call the astrologers.
