The global circus called politics
THE EDITOR, Madam: CANADIANS BECAME tired with 10 years of Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party rule in 2015, and elected the Liberal Party with a majority government headed by Justin Trudeau. With little parliamentary experience, but a fresh face with a young wife at his side, his great advantage was name recognition.
Pierre Elliot Trudeau had been prime minister for over 15 years, and his eldest son’s photogenic looks drew admiring crowds around the globe. He relished the attention, but he turned out to be ‘all hat and no cattle’, as they say in Texas; with his achievements never stellar by any stretch of the imagination. He had an inability to admit mistakes and a propensity to stray far away from telling the truth, but still he managed to win minority governments in 2019 and 2021; taking advantage of the Conservative Party’s revolving door to their leader’s office. Mr Trudeau’s leadership has been plagued by many scandals, with the ethics commissioner finding him guilty of repeated breaches; so much gross mismanagement and overspending of government funds on personal vacations, hotel stays, etc. The next scheduled election date is October 20, 2025, and his survival looks tenuous.
The vainglorious Trudeau is not the only politician facing problems, as government leaders often suffer the same fate as sports managers who are shown the door when their team hits a bad patch. In the UK, with one of the oldest legislatures in the world, there were three prime ministers within six weeks during 2022. In Pakistan, Oxford-educated Prime Minister Imran Khan, a cricketing hero before entering politics, now fights for re-election from his jail cell. He was removed from office and found guilty of leaking state secrets, selling state gifts, and marrying his third wife too soon after her divorce; all charges that look more than a tad dubious.
With the US presidential election less than nine months away, the leaders of both parties have more than a few dubious distinctions themselves. The Democratic Party choice is 81 years old, and looks way past his ‘Best Before Date’; while the Republican Party leader is just three years younger, and facing 91 criminal indictments. Meanwhile, in Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev was re-elected with 92 per cent vote; he has been in power for over 20 years, having succeeded his father, who became president after the USSR dissolved in 1991. These few examples prove that democracy is a messy process, and politicians are really nothing more than entertainers. We should never take them, or ourselves, too seriously, but only the smartest politicians know how to react when being run out of town. They get to the front of the crowd, and make it look like a parade.
BERNIE SMITH Parksville, BC Canada