Comedians as Rulers

“Did you read about a TV comedian becoming the President of Ukraine?” A friend sounded absolutely miffed. Volodymyr Zelensky, the 40-year old comedian actor had appeared as Ukraine’s President in a teleserial for the past four years. Now, voters have rewarded him with that role in real life.

I told my friend I wasn’t surprised at all. A buffoon afflicted with NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is the elected leader of world’s most powerful democracy. A low-intelligence woman, a living answering machine, is the Prime Minister of a democratic queendom. That woman is and is not the Prime Minister currently, a political Schrödinger’s cat if you like. A TV comedian is a better choice.

In this article, I will analyze why we end up electing such rulers to rule over us.  

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In my article Professions, hobbies and relaxation [open diary week 13 (2014)], I mentioned the four critical elements that qualify a particular activity as a profession. (a) The activity needs to be the key occupation of the person. It has to take the major chunk of the day, and several years of his working life. (b) The occupation requires specialized training and education. For example, nobody can or should practice as a doctor without attending a medical school and first working as a medical assistant/intern. (c) The job should have direct and definite monetary compensation/reward. (d) The work provides advice, products or service to other human beings. A lawyer or a Chartered accountant can’t practice their professions unless they are servicing their clients.

Let me apply those four tests to check if politics is a profession.

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First, a professional spends most of his working day and working life devoted to that particular activity. Elected politicians are, as a rule, busy the whole time. The greatest democracies have an upper and a lower house which can bicker and fight with one another perennially. In UK’s parliament, the government and the opposition are placed across one another. Procedures require them to turn up every day and scream at each other as if it was a football stadium. Like ordinary corporate employees devising schemes to “kill time” at work, politicians can engage in endless debates, at times shamelessly and openly filibuster. Elected politicians certainly have enough on the plate to keep themselves occupied if they wish to.

But what happens when that politician loses an election? What is he or she supposed to do from the next day? What happens to their salaries and perks?

Take the case of Hillary Clinton. On 9 November 2016, after the results, she was expected to be the most powerful political leader in the world. With a little luck, she would have been America’s first woman president. For the past two and a half years, and perhaps for another five and a half years, Hillary would have been super-busy, travelling the world, deciding which countries to bomb, passing executive orders, giving wicked smiles in front of cameras, taking part in the next presidential debates. Each minute of her four years, or eight years would be planned or busy. What happened instead? She lost the election, and turned into a nobody. It’s like Federer losing a match to Nadal, and then being asked not to play tennis for four years.

For Hillary, the election loss was only a psychological trauma. But most ordinary politicians, on losing an election, get thrown out of their house. One day they have handsome salaries, private staff sponsored by the govt treasury, free travel, offices in heritage buildings. The next day, they are out of their home and office, their salary and perks stop.  

UK is supposed to be a civilized State. In 1997, when 160 Tories lost their seats in a Labour landslide, one former MP drank himself to death, three suffered from depression and alcohol problems, and one MP was so financially broke, he had to take his children out of their school.

We often wonder why we get such bad politicians at all levels. What can the British voter do if the choice is between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn (or Boris Johnson)? Why can’t decent, bright people join politics? The answer is simple. Would you or any rational person want to take up a job, where you can be de-elected at a whim? Where you can work sincerely and diligently and still lose as a result of your party or economy? Have you ever taken up a job where you can lose your salary and perks in a single day?

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The second test for a profession is that it requires specialized education and training. In all great democracies, education is strictly regulated. I was educated in three universities in three different countries. Still I am not qualified to teach in an Indian school, I need a Bed (Bachelor of Education) degree. Universities may require PhDs and corporations MBAs before candidates can attend interviews.

What is the education and training required to be a politician? To be the President of the USA? Prime Minister of UK or India? Absolutely nothing. In most cases, the requirements are age and residency (and at times absence of a criminal conviction). An illiterate idiot is capable of fulfilling those conditions. We would be petrified if the pilot of the plane we ride in hasn’t passed the necessary exams, or accumulated the necessary training hours and miles. But we are indifferent to the qualifications of the person who can rule over our lives for four, five, eight or twenty-five years. Despite my three degrees, I can’t teach at a school in India, but I am qualified to become the country’s education minister, no issues.

Donald Trump is reportedly a BS in Economics from the Wharton school. His actions suggest that he either bought the degree, or doesn’t remember any of the Economics lessons. Theresa May is a second class BA with geography. (A geography degree didn’t help her understand the Irish border issue). As an aside, Queen Elizabeth, whose annual salary is 107 million dollars, never went to a school or college. Marion Crawford, a governess taught her at the palace. When Ms Crawford wrote a memoir, The Little Princesses, it so angered the royal family, nobody ever spoke to her again. When the governess died, the palace didn’t even send a wreath to her funeral. That much for the  compassion of the longest serving monarch.

Though minimum age is prescribed, there is no upper age limit. Politicians are the only species in full control of their faculties even in their 70s and 80s. Ronald Reagan was 78 when he stepped down after eight years. Donald Trump assumed presidency in his 70s. Winston Churchill was more than eighty when he handed over the PM post to Anthony Eden. Four Indian Prime ministers, Morarji Desai, I.K.Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were around eighty or above while still in the PM chair. Strangely, none of these octogenarians died in office. Politicians may not need qualifications, but they invariably lead a long life. Particularly those we wish to see depart early.

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The third test is the remuneration. An occupation to be called a profession must receive commensurate compensation.

 In the last decade, attempts have been made to increase the salaries of the heads of state.

The US president’s current salary is 400,000 USD per annum. (Though Trump works free of cost, compensation commensurate with his intellectual caliber).

Have you heard of Hock Tan (CEO, Broadcom: salary $103.2 million), Frank Bisignano (CEO, First data: salary $102.2 million), Michael Rapino (CEO, Live Nation Entertainment: salary $70.6 million)?

Theresa May earns Sterling Pounds 150,000 per annum. Several CEOs in her country, including Martin Sorrell (WPP: 48 million pounds), Arnold Donald (Carnival, 22.5 million pounds), Rakesh Kapoor (Reckitt Benkizer, 14.5 million pounds) earn in millions.

Narendra Modi earns USD 27,500 as his annual salary. India is a poor country. And yet Kalanithi Maran (Sun TV network: 12.5 million USD), Pawan Munjal (Hero Motocorp: 11 million USD), Sajjan Jindal (JSW steel: 7 million USD) and several other CEOs receive millions of dollars as the official annual salary.

You may think top politicians have better perks. That is not true. Big corporations take care of most expenses of their CEOs and senior managers. The CEOs routinely have private planes. I have quoted here only the official salaries. I don’t think any President or a Prime Minister gets stock options.

Do you find it odd, like I do, that unheard CEOs of unknown companies should earn in millions, while the President or the Prime Minister of their nation should earn a pittance?

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Which brings me to the fourth point: offering service to others, a hallmark of a profession.

As we saw above, salary can’t be a motive for joining politics. PhDs, MBAs, scientists, academicians have little incentive to join politics which requires no qualifications at all. A rational person would not risk unemployment every time the voter elects your opponent. What can be the motive for anybody to join politics?

First, Power. Not simply power but power that can be converted into money. You need to provide for the time you are in service, and for the time you are out of power. So you need to be even more corrupt, take more kickbacks.

Second, as a job opportunity for the uneducated, low caliber, low IQ people. No corporations will employ them. So politics is the right field. Earlier, it was assumed leaders need to be good orators. But as Trump and Theresa May have shown, being articulate is no longer a requirement.

Third, dynasts. Like the junior George Bush or India’s Gandhi family. Growing in a family of presidents or prime ministers, they witness how power can be turned into obscene amounts of money. They would like to perpetuate it by keeping the power in the family.

Fourth, extremely rich people. Low salaries and job insecurity don’t matter to them. Increasingly, the excessive spend on elections, particularly in the USA, means only superrich candidates can succeed at elections.

As a result, we usually end up having corrupt, low-intelligence, low-caliber, low-integrity politicians. As Ronald Reagan rightly said: Business and science take away the best people. Politics gets the residue.

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In the next part, I will discuss what could be done to improve the current system.

Ravi