Mukti Rijal

A well-known political commentator in Great Britain A. A. Gill had observed interestingly about the rise and fall of leadership of former British prime minister Tony Blair saying, "We call him, with curled lips, a sociable man who has worked very, very hard on being liked. He is by his own admission a people's person, a straight kind of guy, and he has done his best. But it counts for naught. He will leave office well and truly loathed. Loathed and mocked. Loathed, mocked and despised." The aforesaid comment indicates that political leadership is a very challenging and uncertain destiny in a constitutional democratic system.
A leader who is elected to the office of the government obtaining a thumping majority of vote and securing greater trust of the people like Tony Blair may suddenly lose the confidence of people in his or her leadership. He or she will have to face a barrage of criticism not only of the opposition but also of the fellow leaders and functionaries within the party. He or she may turn out to be an object of ridicule and loath not long after his or her ascendance to the seat of power. It happens especially when his or her actions start failing to rhyme with the expectations of the people. When there persists a gap between the expectations of the people and the performance of the political leadership, people start to harbour suspicion and be distrustful of him or her in a gradual manner.

Surging expectations
Furthermore, if the surging expectations of the people remain unaddressed or unmet, people feel frustrated and tend to express their dismay and discontent that costs on the image of the political leadership dearly. At least, political leadership at the helm of state affairs should initiate measures or lend an impression that some concrete steps are underway towards fulfilling some of the promises made during the polls to contain and limit the frustrations to grow and spill over.
In the society like ours when a popular leader wins the polls, voters wait for some period before they start to question his or her performance. He or she is allowed to bask in the comforts of grace period also known as the honeymoon period before voters start to subject him or her to scrutiny. The leadership is spared from criticism or attack assuming that he or she may be learning the craft of governance in running the state administration effectively and delivers results. Oftentimes, the popularity or unpopularity, like or dislike of a leader depends not on his or her real actions but the perceptions, make-believe image and stereotypes allowed to be created by the media and several other agencies and factors at play in a democratic system.
Nepal has reckoned with the pluralist democratic polity for at least four decades since 1990, and several party leaders have tested their popularity, competence, ethics and morality as the head of the party, state and government. The first elected prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala who took the reins of the government riding on the crest of popularity in 1991 failed to keep the party dissidence in check as a result of which he had to dissolve the parliament and call for new elections.
His popularity had plummeted low and he was accused of being undemocratic and authoritarian in handling the party and state affairs. In the mid-term polls, his party Nepali Congress had lost out to the rival CPN (UML). Likewise, another leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda has to countenance with the similar fate. He had chalked out strategy, planned and conducted the violent insurgency for ten years and romped home to victory in the Constituent Assembly elections capitalising on the image of a revolutionary icon. But he vowed out of the office due to some controversial decisions he took as the prime minister. His image as a leader of the new epoch has been severely mauled since he has been accused of compromising on political morals and ethics. The incumbent Prime Minister KP Oli does not seem to have properly nursed his image as a popular leader if the current dissident voices are any indications.
Morals and ethics are crucial for a political leader to survive the test of the popularity and sustain the trust of the people. Integrity is central to both moral and ethical leadership. A leader's ethics is based on the obligation to recognise the costs and benefits of a specific public policy and to ensure fairness in both the process and the outcome.

Leadership integrity
It is said that the character of citizenry and the integrity of leadership determine the strength and resilience of a nation. Unethical leaders, and even unethical citizens, who put their own interests above the interests of the nation weaken democracy and fuel discontents. Generally, some pillars of character of leadership integrity are widely accepted within and across the democracies around the world. They include trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and so on.
All these characters are integral to democracy. Trustworthiness is essential to democracy because it builds the trust that is necessary to inspire confidence and work together to find those solutions. Democracy exists only to the extent that leaders uphold and protect the principle of political honesty and integrity. Political leaders should imbibe and internalise that democracy is not about serving one’s own self-centered interests. It is about working together to collectively find the ways for the overall wellbeing of the nation.

(The author is presently associated with Policy Research Institute (PRI) as a senior research fellow.  rijalmukti@gmail.com)