Sunday Times 2
The rise of the unelected
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History has shown us that when dynasties come to power, nepotism rules.
Members of the extended family, chuck-golayaas and old school friends rise to power, being appointed to positions for which they are not trained or qualified and to which they could never aspire even in their wildest dreams.
Money and connections matter while qualifications and experience are not worth a jot or tittle. Transparency becomes conspicuous by its absence with nobody being held accountable. When nobody is held accountable, a democracy becomes a dictatorship.
Just as President Trump appointed his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner (son of convicted criminal and former property developer Charles Kushner) as “special advisors” and takes/sends them to conferences and negotiations to various parts of the world, just as President Sirisena used his position to promote his unqualified son as a member of the national delegation to the UN, his daughter Chathurika as chief guest extraordinary and his brother and son-in-law to corporation and defence ministry jobs, the phenomenon of nepotism prevails all over the world.
Sometimes, nepotism can be justified by leaders appointing appropriately qualified persons to important posts – a good example was President John Kennedy appointing his brother, lawyer Robert Kennedy as Attorney General (a cabinet post equivalent to Minister of Justice in Si Lanka’s Cabinet) and President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointing his brother Gotabaya (a battle hardened, capable and well-reputed former military officer) as Secretary of Defence. Both presidents needed qualified and loyal persons to handle these powerful and sensitive jobs. Their choices were amply vindicated – Robert Kennedy prosecuted a successful war on organised crime and crooked union leaders and sent many lords and sublords of crime to prison – while Gotabaya was instrumental in successfully prosecuting a war against the terrorist LTTE.
But even President Rajapaksa (He Who Won The War) and President Kennedy (The King of Camelot) were not immune to looking after their relatives and their wives’ relatives. It will take Sri Lankan Airlines a long time (if ever) to recover from the frauds and mismanagement plus the sins of omission and commission of the man that Rajapaksa put in as chairman – his wife’s brother Nishantha.
It was not for nothing that Baron Acton said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Just as Macbeth, the once honourable Thane of Glamis, underwent a transformation from good to evil after he became King of Scotland, our political leaders aspire to office with the best of intentions and then stay in office for so long that they get addicted to the taste of power. They are loathe to give up the privileges they have acquired of being able to appoint their kith and kin — as well as their sycophants and torchbearers and chuck golaayas — to positions of authority.
And the longer they are allowed to stay on in public office, the more they assume that (as in the days when monarchs enjoyed what was known as the divine right of kings) they too have a divine right to do as they please. Appointing their relations to posts for which they are not entitled or qualified, unconstitutionally sacking prime ministers and willy-nilly appointing ministers and deputy ministers just so that these appointees can enjoy the perks of office — these are “rights” that our current crop of politicians take for granted.
In his Two Treatises on Government, John Locke attacked absolute power and the divine right of kings. Locke’s main argument was that political power ultimately rests with the people and not with the leader or the monarch. Absolutist rule cannot be imposed on the people by the ruler — it is restricted by limits that should be subject to the will of the people.
Just as nepotism rules when dynasties cling to power, we the “ordinary people” constantly find that these days the party loyalties of our politicians are becoming increasingly blurred. They are based on the personal interests of these politicians whose alliances and coalitions cross party lines rather than being based on principles.
The clearly defined political parties of the past have become obsolete.
We have seen the two main political parties of our country, formed with high ideals in the middle of the last century, disintegrate into insignificant nonentities. The United National party is neither United nor of National significance any more – and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party no longer provides its members the Freedom to select capable rulers.
Our self-serving and short-sighted politicians have made a mockery of the democratic process in our country.
The Marxist ideology that was embraced by the Soviet Union held that under capitalism, one class, the bourgeoisie, controls the ownership of wealth and production. Here in Sri Lanka we have a similar situation but it is not the bourgeoisie but a different class, the political class (made up of professional politicians), that wrests power and controls wealth and production.
Political scientists postulate that the solution to this problem of class rule is revolution (as in France in 1789 and Russia in 1917) — where the exploited proletariat takes control and seizes the means of production.
It is not unreasonable to predict that if our political classes continue to behave in the manner they have been doing, it can only result in the disenfranchised voters, those who see no future in this form of “Rule of the politicians by the politicians for the politicians”, seeking to change the situation themselves.
Just like the French did in 1789.