Publicité

The “feel good” factor is fading away

27 août 2015, 15:35

Par

Partager cet article

Facebook X WhatsApp

lexpress.mu | Toute l'actualité de l'île Maurice en temps réel.

The Politicians, Political leaders, Ministers, Parliamentarians, Political appointees and Public officials, they all come from different walks of life and irrespective of the party and/or other interests which they represent, they are, by the positions in the public functions which they hold, custodians of the people’s mandate. As such, they need to understand their role, they need to demarcate clearly the lines to avoid any conflicting interests and they need to comply with the professional and ethical obligations to meet the people’s expectations. The People expect from the Political class that they serve by conviction and ingenuity and not by power and prestige. 

 

Unfortunately, it would seem that the trust in the political class, our political leaders, and in the Independent institutions are waning rapidly due to the number of senior executives, political leaders and public officials being involved in the various mega scandals being currently under scrutiny. 

 

Furthermore, more and more people are having apprehensions on the toxicity of the main stream politics, allowing big funding of main parties from big businesses, reducing the room for manouevering of main parties to toe a narrow line to serve vested interests and encouraging lobbyists, easy and incestual access to our politicians. No doubt, the “feel Good factor” which followed the last General and local elections, is gradually fading away and on the basis of the prevailing trend a sort of “fear” factor is instead being generally perceived. 

 

This Government, being plebiscited massively during the last elections, has many variables which it can use to make things happen to change the people’s fears. This Government will have to fight a battle of perceptions as it would need to take tough decisions to upheld the reputation of our democratic institutions, to safeguard the independency of those institutions, to have the right calibre of persons in the right place, to modernise the economy with the creation of durable jobs as promised and creating avenues for alleviation of poverty and more equality. 

 

The challenge for this Government, however, is not to create further chaos out of the cleaning up the mess of the previous regime. This Government should be cautious as well not to repeat those malpractices, those excesses and abuses for which the previous regime was heavily sanctioned. There are still opportunities of redress, should there have been any deviations from the electoral promises. The People are becoming increasingly impatient to see the conclusion of those high profile enquiries on hand, which so far, are only making the staircase towards CCID, a star historical feature. 

 

There are evident signs lately, of a lack of coherent strategies affecting the collective outcomes of the Government. There has been also a brutal change of attitude noted among some, using the position of power to go out of the way to do things as they want to behave. It would seem that the successive electo- ral victories with massive electo- rate support, have created a sense of invincibility that provokes primitive, obsessive and reactive actions leading most of the time to bad decision making. The leadership has built blindness in its people to such an extent that each one is allowed to act in its own way to position themselves in the political hierarchy. Out of false modesty, insincere charm and cloudy transparency, some do not miss any opportunities to be always in the limelight and to appear as the centre of universe to wield their power. 

 

It makes no doubt that the selfish greed and motives displayed by some people, is bound to have a bearing on the collective performance of the Government. Serious concerns among the people have been expressed recently eg. on the treatment of the DPP in the “SUNTAN” case, the handling of the BAI scam with significant collateral damages to the clients and employees, the confusions created on the outcome of the discussions with the Indian Government on the DATT issue, noisy public display of internal conflicts between two partners of the Government alliance regar- ding a PMSD banner on EID celebration. 

 

Politicians should not fall into the usual trap of arrogantly underestimating the intelligence of ordinary people. One should not forget that the people registered mainly a protest vote during last elections against political arrogance, political hypocricy and non-listening politicalelite. There is an imperative need therefore to get rid of those unconsciously incompetent narcissistic and arrogant leaders who mask their real intentions, reject honest criticism and surround themselves with sycophants who tell them what they want to hear. 

 

Unlike those consciously incompetent leaders, who always look for scapegoats to shift the blame for their problems and force out of their way, anyone standing against them, for finally being surrounded by the few “Yes” persons. What we need as political leaders, are Emotional Intelligent Leaders who show compassions by active listening to the people’s needs, are humble to acknowledge failures and are generous to confront problems and find solutions for the common good.