QUOTE: ‘I believe that virtually every apparent glamorous perk associated with political leadership comes with an associated burden. You have an enormous property at your disposal, but no effective privacy.  The Presidential security detail is only there because people have had a history of killing their political leaders when displeased with them’

THERE IS probably no more apt an example to illustrate the theme of this week’s column than the American presidency; more specifically, the situation in which the administration of Barack Obama currently finds itself.
When Obama was elected to the Presidency over a year ago, it was on a groundswell of support, based as equally upon the clarity of vision as outlined in his campaign as it were upon an overwhelming disappointment with two-term President George W. Bush’s leadership in the White House.
As Obama is now discovering, not only was he handed the power to bring the change he promised, but when he was voted into office, he was also tasked with the responsibility to make that change happen to the satisfaction of the people. From the healthcare standoff – not really his own fault – to the failure so far to wind up Guantanamo Bay, to the slow recovery of the economy, people in America are beginning to clamour for the chance to say, yes we did.
Undoubtedly, the perks that come with political leadership are great. A president doesn’t have to worry about the kinds of things which bother ordinary mortals, such as monthly utility bills, food, staying on good terms with the boss and so on. An electoral mandate is in many ways a blank cheque from the people; one in which the primary value isn’t money but power. As the recurring gag in Mel Brooks movies goes: “It’s good to be the king.”
Another more sober saying, however, is from someone who understood well the sort of burden that comes with leadership: Sir Winston Churchill, who observed that “The price of greatness is responsibility.”
In a sense, while the President might not have to worry about his monthly electricity bill, for example, the reason this is so is because inherent in the mandate from the people is the responsibility for him to ensure – through effective economic stewardship – that not only are their electricity bills kept to a minimum, but that their income, out of which bills are paid, are kept to a maximum.
And there are, of course, deeper burdens which come with political leadership.  I recall in yesterday’s newspapers, the image of Haitian President, René Préval during the day of mourning held on Friday for the estimated 200,000 Haitians killed in the earthquake.  No one can underestimate the troubles faced by the average survivor of that tragedy; the uphill climb when it comes to rebuilding their lives. Imagine, therefore, the burden placed on Préval, whose decisions, more than any single citizen’s, will ultimately be responsible for the recovery of each one of the survivors. If he fails to manage crime through the administration of a depleted security force, roving bands of criminals threaten to take his society back to the Dark Ages. Unless he comes up with a consensus for the management of aid, his people starve. As a leader, you are expected to delegate tasks; what you cannot delegate really, is the responsibility with which those tasks are associated. Indeed, even delegation is a responsibility in itself; it is like choosing to start a family. However the internal politics of the household runs, the person at the head of a home is not given the choice of disengaging from that commitment.
I believe that virtually every apparent glamorous perk associated with political leadership comes with an associated burden. You have an enormous property at your disposal, but no effective privacy.  The Presidential security detail is only there because people have had a history of killing their political leaders when displeased with them.  There is the power to shape policy for the good of the people, but in democratic societies, there is the necessary but often frustrating element of opposition (political and otherwise), as the Obama healthcare debacle demonstrated.
Related to the latter problem is the general issue of appreciation. There is the story that Roman emperors, on returning from a successful military campaign abroad, would reenter the city, in the middle of all the fanfare and welcome, with a servant whispering in their ear: “You are just a man.”  Modern political leaders don’t have to pay for this sobering reminder.  When the euphoria of the election campaign is finished, almost immediately the criticism begins.  If the job of governance is done extremely well, there is no congratulatory praise, probably because people expect that’s what you’re put there to do in the first place; on the flipside, any stumble, or even a hint thereof, is attacked viciously by various partisan interests, overtly political and otherwise.  You are, as they say, damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
I believe that no one here in Guyana goes after political leadership with the primary intent of benefitting from it. There is something, for me, inherent within the democratic process that weeds out pretenders and opportunists.  The election of leadership in a democracy is a process of current refinement, first at the internal party level, and ultimately at the national level. The successful leader, therefore, is one who has passed through fire and ultimately arrived, in many ways, to a state of relative purity, granted within whatever ideological mode his or her party happens to operate in.
To close off this article, I would like to leave you with an excerpt from Shakespeare, part of which inspired the title for this article, but which I had actually not seen the major part of until researching that title.
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Congratulations, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo!