Blog: Popularity is not enough

The people's support makes leaders and they stay in power as long as the going is good. Were Papandreou of Greece or Berlusconi of Italy successful leaders? The political popularity of leaders by democratic means is a transient, volatile fidelity because the mass is a selfish, pleasure-seeking, hypocritical lot that entertains a hero as long as it can cash its cheque of desires and needs at the leader's till.

The public, the social network is highly demanding. Years of rule mixed with the country's civilisational values shape expectations. What are these values? In India if poverty is a curse sent by God to the sinner of previous birth it is accepted fatalistically. The mere slump of prices of flour, onions and kerosene may catapult a government back to power. Today Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and populistic governments that have not corrected their excesses during the 2007 recession and have relied heavily on debts without curtailing lavish expenses and extravagant consumption have ousted the leaders who have proved incompetent in the face of crisis. Greece knows serious unemployment, high inflation, wage cuts. The budget of many social service ministries has been drastically slashed. The hero of the past is a shame for the country. Leadership all over the world follows the logic of the mass, which does not differ across the world.

When Paul Berenger had confessed that the economy was in a state of emergency he confessed to his incapacity to rise to the occasion. The winning government of  Navin Ramgoolam not only discovered skeletons in the closet, but also reversed the data making the country's economy rise above danger zones and boosting economic growth. Ramgoolam had to take unpalatable decisions like tax on residence. Somehow he was able to make the population swallow the bitter pill. He increased the pension of seniors and preserved measures of positive discrimination, insisted on giving tangible evidence of material progress through the propagandist instruments. He emerged as the uncontested hero of difficult times. This is what gives him the confidence to foretell his stay in power beyond 2015.

Berenger has gone down in history as an incompetent Finance Minister, an intransigent negotiator when in power, a timid, selfconscious cultural leader who is traumatised by the fact that he is not a Hindu. His multiple outfits and marks on his forehead betray a homelessness, a fear of being refused, a thirst to be accepted.

There is nothing insincere in his attempts to seek familiarity, to court affiliation. It is just that after the sharing of power exercise between Sir Anerood Jugnauth and himself that Berenger lost much of his glitter. He became a guest in his own house and his mismanagement of the economy sealed his doom.

Today Berenger is emerging as an astute champion of a clean Mauritius, purified of graft, venality and administrative malpractices. It is unfortunate that the opposition is not proposing an alternative to the ideologies of government. We are stuck at the same philosophy of educational management. We are not being provided with an alternative to Labour's management of economy, we are not being told what other vision of tourism, energy consumption we have to reckon with if the Labour Party does not satisfy the public.

At least when the MMM is clamouring for elections and for the deepening of democracy we must be in the presence of an alternative. The MMM is today synonymous with an ideological vacancy. It is more people-oriented than thought-based. It is more imitative than creative; more conformist than inventive.

Leadership needs to seep into the consciousness, into the marrows of the people. There is no doubt a core of constituents who are incontrovertibly party loving. The MMM can easily pride itself of 30% of the electorate. This group cannot be excised from the party. So does the LP boast of an equal number of radically loyal followers. It is elsewhere that both parties must look for to shape, educate and mould public opinion.

For the time being the skills and the competence as a party lie with the ruling government.