Reproduced from page 11 of the Wednesday, October 3, 2007, #2179 issue of Amandala
If the choice was yours, which would you rather your son to become – a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer? There are other fine professions, but these are the ones most thought of when parents dream about their son’s futures.
It is said that Irish Catholics with large families like to have one of their male offspring become a priest. To dedicate your life to serve God, that, to their mind, is the noblest of all professions.
What about being a politician? To dedicate yourself to the service of your countrymen. To put the interests of the people above your own. To totally subordinate the well-being of self to the greater good of your people and your country. That, to my mind, is second only to being consecrated to the service of our Maker, as a priest.
If being a politician is such a noble profession, why then does it seem to attract so many selfish and self-centred individuals? I confess that I don’t know the answer to the question.
Whatever is good for the politicians is bad for the country and, whatever is bad for the politicians is good for the country. I repeat myself. Let me illustrate. Strong, united, and well financed political parties are good for the politicians. They get them elected but, when they are elected, their first allegiance is to the party and its financiers. The people and the nation come second. Fanatical supporters who will carry out their wishes, even to the extent of doing harm to or intimidating opponents or critics, are good for the politicians and bad for the people.
Above all, politicians are in favor of a long term of office. It is better for the people to have a government’s term of office to be as short as is consistent with the need for prudence and the constraints of finance. One of the good reasons for a short term is that when we elect a government it cannot be removed during its term of office and, furthermore, it cannot be prevented from taking whatever action it chooses.
There are checks and balances mandated by the Constitution, such as the judiciary and the Public Accounts Committee. But, in the case of the latter, of what use is it when there are no annually audited national accounts to consider? The annual audited accounts mandated by the Constitution have been ignored by successive governments.
All this clamor for restrictions and control of Ministerial prerogatives is praiseworthy but, in the final analysis, there is only one judge of the performance of elected officials and governments, and that is the electorate!
By the way, who devised our Constitution and who made it the Supreme Law? The political directorate. Did the people have a chance to study and comment? Not to my recollection. I think that it is a very good Constitution and, had it been put to the people in a referendum, it would have been approved because, the people had no experience of a five-year term of office. Now we do. If it were put to the people now, I believe the majority of the electorate would prefer a four to a five-year term.
The name of Lord Acton will live forever because of his cryptic remarks about the corrupting influence of power. I will take the liberty to add a corollary. The longer someone exercises power, the greater the temptation to abuse it. And, another – the greater the power, the greater the temptation.
We don’t elect governments. We elect representatives. It will do more than any other measure to affect the performance and behaviour of the chosen ones, in a positive way, when they know they have to face the electorate in FOUR years instead of FIVE.