We all followed 3 years ago how Jamie Oliver asked Tony Blair to reform school dinners in good old England. Both men had a constructive chat and it seems that there was a light at the end of the tunnel
3 years later, lots of English children are still eating industrial rubbish and Tony Blair is no longer in charge.
And that’s once of the main problems democracy is facing: unlike Mahathir in Malaysia who managed to stay in power for 22 years, most democracies don’t allow the same person in charge for an extended period.
Take again Mahathir: although 22 years in power, he actually had a vision until the year 2020. That would mean he would have to live until reaching 100 in order to see his vision come through. That’s quite unrealistic.
But few years after he left power, and after the crushing defeat in the last elections in March 2008, Malaysian politics are reduced to:
- the Prime Minister should go
- they set a date and agree that he should go
- they review the date he should go
- they already have a successor appointed
- they want to contest the place of the successor
And all this is done inside the ruling party. On top of that the opposition party also thinks that it should be the opposition who should be ruling the country.
But with all this bickering about, one really wonders if there is actually anybody ruling the country in the first place or is everybody waiting until the Prime Minister steps down?
Even without bickering: problems stay, politicians go
Back to Jamie Oliver and Tony Blair: even without power struggles, Tony Blair is no longer on top, so whatever deals were made in the past, are they going to be continued in the future or are they going to be revised, especially in times of economical recession as today?
And it gets even worse in the US: Clinton managed to get the US economics back on track, to see it utterly butchered by president Bush in the last 8 years. So incredibly butchered that the US deficit is in trillions of dollars and the whole world economy is in recession due to useless spending of the US.
Can you really imagine a CEO of a leading US car company begging for money? well, that’s exactly what happened a few days ago, just that those CEO’s beg in style, private jet included.
So there are the problems, there is the mess and the person who was on top of the country can just wave his hand, say goodbye and let his successor deal with the mess.
Maybe it is time that we revise the democratic system or even better: people who mess up should be personal accounted for.
Just combine the corporate world with the student loan world: whatever you use up now, you will have to pay back sooner or later and there is no room for bankruptcy.
Who would be ready to take that challenge? For sure not your power hungry politician who knows nuts about economics.
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