When a person applies for a position, he/she submits a resume which includes suitable qualifications and relevant experience. If it is a senior position in an organisation, there can be two or three rounds of interviews, and invariably, an exhaustive one before a panel of senior personnel during which the applicant is thoroughly grilled on his/her suitability for the post. Of course, there are also the standard character references and background checks to be executed by the company’s human resources department. It can be a time consuming process with a significant cost factor attached to it. Firms go to great lengths to ensure that they have selected the right candidate. This intense recruiting exercise is the standard operating procedure in the business world today.
Which sparks the question, why aren’t those persons managing the most important business in any country, that of running it – a country is in reality an extremely complex business replete with a host of variable factors competing against themselves – subjected to the same rigorous scrutiny as is applicable in the business world? Why aren’t the most suitably qualified personnel managing the affairs of countries? Of course, the egotistical politicians, who tightly clutch the reins of power, will vehemently argue that they are the most apt candidates to fill those sensitive positions, despite, in most instances, never having managed a business of any nature in their entire life.
Modern democratic society, for the most part, it can be argued, has arrived at a Catch-22 watershed. The democratic process is working, by and large (the Ortegas and Putins of the world, notwithstanding) in that it facilitates the concept of majority rule determined by the ballot box. However, the election machinery has evolved into more of a popularity contest rather than one based on policies, whilst simultaneously attracting participants who are, typically, either educationally unqualified, or inexperienced, or ethically and morally unsuitable for the role of public office. Of course, one can never accurately predict how someone will behave once he/she has stepped into the hallways of power. The Jose Mujicas of the world are an extremely rare and dying breed, one in fact which is rapidly approaching extinction. The former Uruguayan Prime Minister (2010 – 2015) eschewed the trappings of the office, forgoing the presidential palace and its staff to remain on his flower farm and drive his old Volkswagen Beetle during his single term in office, as dictated by the Uruguayan Constitution, which does not allow for consecutive presidential terms.
Democracy was invented in ancient Greece and officials were selected through a sortition process, random selection from a pool of candidates, who had volunteered, but had been subjected to culling by having to pass an examination showing their capacity to exercise public rights and duties. Randomly appointed (but suitably qualified) candidates were preferred. This provided the chance of arriving at those best suited to rule since they were least likely to pursue power for the sake of power, as opposed to those less suited for the role who are more inclined to desire power due to their own shortcomings. The political landscape across the globe is littered with appalling examples of characters who fit the mould of the latter.
Whilst the advances in technology and computers have, for the most part, led to improvement in living standards, it can be argued that the manner in which we govern ourselves has not evolved at the same rate. One way of eliminating the career politician, whose lifelong ambition is, it seems, to be in charge at all times, is to limit their involvement to two terms in office, encompassing local, regional and national levels, after which they are no longer eligible to serve in any public capacity. Today, the populations of many countries around the world find themselves subject to the whims and fancies of unpopular governments or dictator regimes, which are infested with these long-in-the-tooth politicians, rife with nepotism and cronyism, with generally myopic outlooks to national development.
We are cognisant of the dilemma – square pegs in round holes – but solving it is an entirely different matter. The current Catch-22 is that those who have the power to set the wheels in motion to create an efficiently managed society will steadfastly refuse to do so, since their prized positions of power for the sake of power will no longer be available. Major structural changes to the framework of a society will not happen overnight. Even checks and balances, which can somewhat curb abuses of power, if the rules and laws are actually being applied, have been hurdled, limboed under and otherwise bypassed in some instances.
Addressing the complex local scenario, where every major decision is filtered through the political prism, one can envisage no change in the way we manage our affairs, for at least a generation or two. The evidence does not suggest otherwise. We are now approaching the half-way point of watching another generation (arbitrarily using 1980 as the commencement) of our best and brightest minds depart for ‘greener pastures’, due in no small part to the political climate, and the accompanying economic situation. Government utterances of economic progress aside, no one wants ‘a soft dollar’ of useless international value. Coupled with this brain drain is the tap dance routine which has ensued around the draconian 1980 Constitution, upon which has been heaped more assurances for its modification than any other campaign promise since 1992. Strange is it not, how every succeeding government finds it a useful document once it’s on their side of the ledger?
As long as we continue to be stuck with the second tier of the crop, we will be subject to Plato’s philosophy, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
