Of the pilloried politician and democracy

The average local politician is pilloried by sections of our public for almost every conceivable ill under the sun. Ranging from issues, such as, the cost of living, the perceived collapse of law and order, immorality, bribery and corruption to poverty, the politician is seen to be in some way linked with all these and many more such 'sins.'

To be sure, some politicians have proved more of a bane than a boon to the general public over the decades and were found to be guilty of perpetrating some of the mentioned blights, but the question to be probed is whether the general and continued deriding of politicians would in some way weaken our democratic foundations and ethos.

This issue is now being addressed in some influential sections and this should be considered a positive trend, insofar as it is the impact on democracy which is in focus. The principal concern is whether the continued deriding of the people's representatives, at the popular level, would weaken the faith of the public in democratic governance. In other words, would the democratic system eventually stand invalidated in the eyes of the public?

As we see it, some politicians give credence to these popular perceptions of themselves by being found guilty of a number of ills and irregularities. There is the perception of growing rich almost overnight, for instance. As is well known, some politicians build plush residences for themselves no sooner they occupy public office, having begun their lives in humble huts in the rural backwaters. There are others, who veritably take the law into their own hands by ordering even senior law enforcers around, thereby weakening law enforcement. Some others run private armies for the purpose of terrorizing political opponents and others who are seen as threats. There are yet other 'servants of the people' who prey on young female lives and visit on the latter outrageous sexual offences, as happened recently in the South.

For these reasons and more, the average politician is caricatured and ridiculed but such general pillorying could be unfair by the exemplary politicians who are not few in number.

While the state and political party managers need to think of ways of getting the average politician to give a better account of himself to the public, and this has been a much discussed issue over the years, it is also relevant to indicate that the public expects much from its legislators in particular. If the general tendency is to destructively criticize and caricature the politician, it is because, in very many cases, the elected representatives of the people have not lived-up to the standards that the latter have set-up for them. This break-down of confidence is reflected in the popular tendency to deride the politician.

It is difficult to agree with the view that such continuous derision will lead to a weakening of democratic governance because from the time democracy has been in place the politician has been pilloried and lampooned by the public for his misdemeanours and this has not led to the crumbling of the most vibrant liberal democracies. In fact, in some instances, this practice may have had the effect of strengthening democratic institutions because adverse public opinion could have led to self-reform.

Be that as it may, it needs to be conceded that disillusionment with politicians could lead to the more volatile sections of the public seeking ways and means, which are not necessarily democratic, of changing the 'system'. This has happened in Sri Lanka's case too, but it is an open question whether such disillusionment leads to precipitous mass-scale rebellion against the established order of things.

Rather than take a negative view of the practice of pillorying, the politician and the state should look at ways of enabling the politician to project a more positive image of himself to the public. Politicians need to realize that it is the irregularities that they commit that lead to their being considered hate figures by some.

As we see it, the average politician should be schooled into the belief that they must act responsibly and they must, in their everyday conduct, subject themselves to the laws of the land. Herein constitutes the path to an exemplary public life.