You can’t party when your voters are struggling
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- 01 Sep 2022
When one has to wait for an hour for the bus to arrive, when one has to join a kilometre-long line to get the car refuelled, when one has to barter clothes to buy food, when one has to wait for relief trucks to arrive so that he can return home and feed his child (Horn of Africa), then it really hurts, it bleeds, to find one’s talked-about premier partying or the president shooting off punitive orders from the calm of a swimming pool.
The elected leader’s job is to ensure that the bus is on time, fuel is easily available and there is enough food for all. Otherwise, the hurt was expected to turn into anger and anger into turmoil.
The president shooting off punitive orders from the calm of a swimming pool
Granted, the situation in Finland is not as bad as the above even then it can be terribly disturbing to watch the country’s chief executive gyrating with the gusto of an unwavering Epicurean aesthete, backdropped by loud music. After all, Finland too, like others, is fighting the world economic crisis and its citizens have been affected by the economic meltdown.
A report said,“Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin took a drug test week before last for her own legal protection after a video was leaked of her dancing and lip-syncing songs at a private party. Marin defended her actions, saying she drank alcohol with friends but did not do any drugs. A video posted on social media showed six people at a party dancing and lip-syncing a song, including Marin.”
Later in the video, the 36-year-old prime minister is seen on her knees dancing while lip-syncing. “I have taken a drug test for my own legal protection, the results of which will come in about a week,” Marin told a news conference.
Marin said she didn’t have any government meetings that weekend and “I had some time off and I spent it with my friends. And I didn’t do anything illegal.”
True, prime ministers are human beings too and do have the right to enjoy. But they can’t afford to forget that they who are left to handle the destinies of millions can’t take the path treaded by the ordinary. The first fallout of their extraordinary responsibility and grandeur is the automatic forfeiture of self-serving bliss and they mustn’t grumble about that. Any laxity on that front was bound to trigger trouble. And convert their glass of joy into shards of woe.