The Capitals: Modi keeps Neighbourhood First during third inauguration in New Delhi; and more

New Delhi

Narendra Modi became India's prime minister for a third term in a row but this time with a reduced majority. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was 32 seats short of majority, and is now dependent on allies Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to keep parliamentary majority for the next five years in New Delhi's corridors of power.

Also read | What is Neighbourhood First, SAGAR outlook? Foreign policy frameworks at centre of Modi 3.0 inauguration

Consistent with the 'Neighbourhood First' foreign policy paradigm, the heads of state and government from Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles featured as distinguished guests during the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi on Sunday (June 9), reflecting New Delhi's continued focus on the neighbourhood and Indian Ocean Region as part of its foreign policy initiatives.

The Neighbourhood First and SAGAR frameworks serve as the basis for New Delhi's ongoing engagements with the countries in the region that potentially offset Chinese strategic designs in the region in the long-term. While internal policy initiatives may differ due to compulsions of India's coalition politics, the foreign policy trajectory — with minister Dr S Jaishankar as PM Modi's foreign affairs lieutenant — is expected to stay the same during the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance's third term in power.

Pretoria, South Africa

On a punishingly humid evening of New Delhi on June 4, 2024, as this journalist stepped outside the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters to sense the public mood following the evolving results of India's Lok Sabha Elections, an image from New Delhi G20 Leaders summit — showing Presidents Lula of Brazil and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa with host Indian PM Narendra Modi — was put out as the highlight of PM Modi's second term in power. Two of the leaders on that hoarding — PM Modi and President Ramaphosa — faced a similar challenge. Their parties had lost the majority, so they had to ensure that either their alliance crosses the majority mark, and if not, they are able to forge an alliance to return to power. 

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed victory the same evening, won letters of support from National Democratic Alliance leaders two days later, got appointed as Prime Minister-designate on next, and took oath to office and secrecy with his cabinet on June 9, the South African leader has not been as politically-savvy.  

Unlike Indian leader Narendra Modi, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa — whose African Nationalist Party, like India's BJP, also lost parliamentary majority in the just-held elections — is still struggling to forge an alliance. 

Indian PM Narendra Modi's G20 image featuring South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa outside the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on June 4, 2024 | Mukul Sharma/WION

Reeling from its worst electoral performance in 30 years, the ANC is seeking to stitch together a "Government of National Unity" to administer the nation. This means that instead of entering into a coalition agreement with its main rival parties, the ANC under Ramaphosa will now seeking a broad multiparty alliance.

The road to South Africa's new government remains full of uncertainty. If you want to know what turn South Africa's road to power could take, read this piece on WION by Rajiv Bhatia, Distinguished Fellow at Mumbai's Gateway House and a former Indian Ambassador — South Africa after elections: Four scenarios

Tehran, Iran

Iran will have a new president soon as the country's constitution requires fresh elections in case the serving president is incapacitated. After President Ebrahim Raisi's death in a helicopter crash last month, Mohammed Mokhber — the vice president in Raisi's tenure — assumed presidency. 

But Mokhber does not feature in the list of six presidential candidates announced by Tehran on Sunday for June 28 election, meaning that the country's all-powerful Guardian Council  — composed of 12 clerics, six of whom are directly elected (and can be summarily dismissed) by the Supreme Leader — wants somebody else at the helm.  The approved candidates include conservative speaker of parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Just one reformist candidate, Massoud Pezeshkian, who is a lawmaker representing Tabriz in Iran's parliament, has been approved.

The conservative former interior minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi has also been authorised to run. Others on the list include conservative Tehran mayor Alireza Zakaani and incumbent vice president Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, the ultraconservative head of the Martyrs' Foundation. Former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was previously disqualified from entering the presidential races in 2017 and 2021, was again excluded from the list. 

Copenhagen, Denmark

The country of a little more than 6 million in Europe was taken aback by shock when its Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was "hit" by a man in a Copenhagen square on Friday (June 7) ahead of ongoing elections for European Union parliament. But Danish authorities later said that the incident was not thought to be politically motivated.

"It is not our guiding... hypothesis that there is a political motive here. But that is something that the police of course will investigate," prosecutor Taruh Sekeroglu told reporters.

File photo of Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen | AFP

Sekeroglu said the man was suspected of violence against a public servant and deemed a flight risk.

In a post on social media platform Instagram on Saturday evening, the head of government said she needed "peace and quiet."

"I am saddened and shaken by the incident yesterday, but otherwise I am fine," said Frederiksen, 46.

She thanked people for the "many, many, many messages of support and encouragement," and said she now needed to be with her family.