Pandemic response laid bare efficacy of populist leadership
The outbreak of the coronavirus has spread to at least 213 countries and territories. The first death from an illness caused by the virus was reported in China on January 11. Nearly six months after the first death became public, more than 11.7 million people across the world have been infected and over 5.4 million have died. The fast spread of the virus, the high casualty rates in many countries and the economic damage it has caused raises important questions about how different countries and their elected leaders have dealt with the pandemic and coped with the challenges to bring the virus under control. Some countries have managed the virus well, some have bungled and many continue to struggle on medical, administrative, economic and political fronts.
New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof compiled death rates from the coronavirus for 21 countries around the world, 13 led by men and 8 by women. Kristof says the male-led countries suffered an average of 214 coronavirus-related deaths per million. Those led by women suffered only onefifth as many – 36 per million. One should resist drawing conclusions about women leaders from a few exceptional individuals acting in exceptional circumstances. But experts say that the women’s success may still offer valuable lessons about what can help countries weather not just this crisis but others in the future. According to experts, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Iceland and Taiwan seem to have been particularly successful in fighting the virus perhaps due to the leadership and management styles attributed to their female leaders. Kristof says it’s not that the leaders who best managed the virus were all women. “But those who bungled the response were all men and mostly a particular type – authoritarian, vainglorious and blustering,” he notes.
He gives four examples: Boris Johnson in Britain, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran and Donald Trump in the US. Virtually every country that has experienced coronavirus mortality at a rate more than 150 per million population is male-led. India has been excluded from Kristof ’s list because of its death rate per million population is only 15. Susan Rice, ex-national security adviser under President Barack Obama, is of the view that it’s not a coincidence that some of the best-run countries have been run by women – New Zealand, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Norway, Taiwan etc. “And where we have seen things go most badly wrong – the US, Brazil, Russia, the UK – it’s a lot of male ego and bluster,” she observes. Kristof says “those leaders who handled the virus best were those who humbly consulted public health experts and acted quickly, and many were women; in contrast, male authoritarians who botched the response were suspicious of experts and too full of themselves.”
As of July 7, the total number of coronavirus cases in the world are 11.07 million, of which 4.6 million are active cases and over 5.4 lakh people have died. Four democratic countries – the US, Brazil, India and Britain – are among the top five countries in the COVID-19 infections league table; the fifth is Russia, which has a facade of democracy. The US leads the table with a big margin: it has 30.41 lakh infected cases and 1.32 lakh deaths. Brazil follows with 16.26 lakh cases and over 65,000 deaths. India is third with 7.21 lakh cases and 20,184 deaths, followed by UK with 2.85 lakh cases and 44,236 deaths. The US, UK, Brazil and India together account for nearly 50 per cent of global COVID-19 infections and deaths. What do these numbers tell us about the political leadership of the four functioning democratic countries from different continents?
The answer is evident in the number of infections in each of these countries where new cases are still surging and deaths rising. Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi and Johnson are heading different countries with different political, social and economic backgrounds. But they are known as “populist leaders” and share certain traits: they are strong in rhetoric and dislike criticism; they are said to be egoistical and confident in their own knowledge, understanding and wisdom; and they project themselves as outsiders who have forced themselves into national politics to rid the system of the corrupt “elite” who pandered to self-interest and pampered minority groups.
The pandemic is the real test of their ability in handling a serious national crisis and offers an insight into their style of functioning in the face of huge challenges before them. The entire American continent – both North and South America – is the global hotspot for COVID-19. Trump has handled the crisis miserably: his delayed and inconsistent response without a plan to tackle the virus has left America with millions of infections and highest death toll in the world. Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a physician and immunologist and America’s trusted voice on infectious diseases, said he would not be surprised if the number of new cases reached a hundred thousand a day. If the pandemic remains a national problem in North America, populists have also inflamed the virus outbreak across Latin America where Brazil is second only to the US in everything related to the pandemic.
Brazil’s far-right president has made no real effort to curb the pandemic. Instead, he has belittled the threat of the virus and responded of sufferers by declaring, “We all have to die someday.” Among its neighbours, two nearby countries – Ecuador and Peru – have suffered soaring rates of COVID-19. Mexico is no better either and it’s the same story in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Moving on to UK, Johnson’s government is confronting the havoc wreaked by the pandemic on the national health and economy, thanks to its “sluggish imposition of the lockdown”, followed by “chaotic mismanagement” of the easing of restrictions.
On March 25, when Modi declared the three-week national lockdown, he had exuded confidence that the battle against coronavirus would be won in 21 days. However, 104 days later, India’s “war” is far from over. In fact, it may well have just begun. But the government seems to be focused on managing public perception. What does the pandemic reveal about the affected counties and their political leadership? While heads of state in some countries have succeeded in controlling the virus and some have used the lockdown to flatten the curve, populist leaders have been severely tested and found wanting in their ability to defeat the virus.
The writer is an independent Mumbai-based senior journalist.