Maravi

Dependence on politics as careers

Dependence on politics as careers
By Editor
Tuesday February 26, 2008 [03:00]

Citizenship demands a positive contribution of everyone to build our nation’s future. And this includes running for office. We should regard politics as a vocation, a way of building up society for the common good. We say this because politics is an area of great importance for promoting justice, peace, development and community for all.

We can only govern ourselves in an efficient, effective and orderly manner when we have intelligent, honest and humble politicians who see politics as a vocation to serve the people. And no one deserves to be in politics unless they love this country more than themselves. We need politicians who are known for their honesty, ability, dedication and concern for the welfare of all.

We need politicians whose participation in politics is motivated by very noble sentiments, and not those who join politics out of vanity and for totally selfish motives. Politics needs people with high credibility; people who are ready to truly be servants of the people. And as the Bible says, “Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:14).

Therefore, those who decide to make politics their vocation – as a result of a special urge, inclination, or predisposition – must be conscious of their specific and proper role in the political community.

We need politicians – no matter how much we may hate them or we may be frustrated with them – because an authority is needed to guide the energies of all towards the common good. We need politicians to run government and government is the instrument by which we can cooperate in order to achieve the common good.

But this does not mean politics should not be rewarding in any way to those who engage in it. Of course, there is the non-monetary benefit that being near and necessary to one’s people as a politician brings to those who engage in politics.

But this by itself alone – very important and satisfying as it may be – cannot put food on the table, pay the school and medical fees of one’s children or help one to look after his old mother or father. In short, what we are trying to say is that there should be reasonable remuneration for those who take up politics as a vocation.

And we don’t agree with Ben Mwila that politics should only be for those who don’t need a salary from a political office, those who have alternative sources of income. This would be tantamount to saying that politics should only be for rich businessmen like him.

However, we agree with Ben that care should be taken or else we risk turning our politics into careerist undertakings. And to be honest – and Ben is right to a certain extent on this score – career politicians are killing us, and it doesn’t matter one iota if they are in the opposition or they are in government. They are killing us!

Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties of our politicians with the masses.

There is also the danger of weakness. If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to a political vocation, a public service calling means that in return he should not have such worries as that his son or daughter lacks certain things, or that his children’s shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of future corruption.

We believe that children of those in politics should have or should go without those things that the children of the average man have or go without, and their families should understand this and uphold this standard. Politics are made through man, but man must forge his political spirit day by day.

We need to attain consciousness of what must be done, to fight to escape from the realm of necessity and to enter that of freedom.

We shouldn’t cheat ourselves that we can go far paying nothing or very little for the services of our politicians. Actually, cheap politicians are expensive politicians, currently costing us as taxpayers billions if not trillions of kwacha.

We may not be making much money in our jobs or businesses as citizens, but we think our politicians, our elected officials should be paid reasonable salaries or allowances. We are not saying this because the people we have as councilors, members of parliament or ministers of government deserve it. It is because we deserve a lot better people than we have in these institutions.

The cost of paying these politicians good salaries or allowances is absolutely trivial compared to the vast amounts of the taxpayers’ money wasted by cheap politicians doing things to get themselves re-elected.

There is no point complaining about the ineptness, deception or corruption of our politicians while refusing to do anything to change the incentives and constraints which lead to ineptness, deception and corruption.

We are not going to get the most highly skilled or intelligent people in the country, people with real-world experience, while offering them peanuts.

How many people in the top layer of their respective professions are going to sacrifice the future of their families – the ability to give their children the best education, the ability to have something to fall back on in case of illness or tragedy, the ability to retire in comfort and with peace of mind – in order to go into politics?

A few people here and there may be willing to make such sacrifices for the good of their country but, by and large, we get what we pay for.

What we are getting as cheap politicians are often a disgrace – and enormously costly as reckless spenders of the taxpayers’ money in order to keep themselves getting re-elected.

Whatever the problems faced by our people and our country, the number one priority of our elected officials today is to get re-elected or pension themselves off in one way or another.

Nothing does that better than the handing out money from the public treasury.

There are many ways in which we can avoid the problem of career politicians Ben is talking about. Term limits can be employed.

But since re-election is the key, term limits are only effective in so far as they get rid of re-election. If the limit is say two terms for everyone – from councillor to president – then one of those two terms will be spend trying to be re-elected and the second term will be spent trying to get elected to some other office.

What terms limits need to do is to make it nearly impossible to spend a whole career in politics. One term per office and some period of years outside of politics before running again may be a good principle.

Power is such a dangerous thing that ideally, it should be wielded by people who don’t want to use it, who would rather be doing something else, but who are willing to serve a certain number of years as a one-time duty, preferably at the end of a career doing something else. But what about all the experience we would lose?

Most of that is experience in creating appearances, posturing, rhetoric, and spin – in a word, deception. We need leaders with experience in the real world, not experience in the phony world of politics.

Labels: POLITICS

posted by MrK @ 4:39 AM