Politics everywhere is being stood on its head. The decline of politicians has been conspicuous.
And therefore we are not quite surprised when men who have never been in politics and have never gone through its rough-and-tumble make their way, improbably, to the top in these indefinable times. The election of the comedian Volodmyr Zelenskiy as Ukraine's president is a reflection of the strange times we live through, observing the vicissitudes into which politics appears to have slipped.
One is not quite sure if Zelenskiy has the answers to the manifold problems his country faces --- his predecessors have fallen by the wayside trying to restore economic order and stabilize politics --- for the good reason that other than acting as president in a long-running television show and being a source of humour for his countrymen, he has had nothing else on offer during his campaign for the top job.
It is a dangerous situation for any individual to be in, and especially when it is a new president who will now be called upon to sort out the mess across the country he is expected to provide leadership to. Of course, politicians around the world have in these past many years failed to live up to their calling. But when politicians are sidelined or ignored in favour of non-political individuals, it is uncertainty which takes over.
Clearly the brightest instance of the chaos that can ensue from the rise to political office of a non-political being is the entry of Donald Trump into the White House. Trump is the most visible example of the confusion which takes over when politicians are pushed aside, as Hillary Clinton was pushed aside, in order for a country ostensibly to have a new beginning.
In these past three years, the Trump administration has been nothing less than a chaotic confection of non-ideas and of an absence of coherence, proof that while people in their earlier professions may have been success personified, they are at sea when it comes to handling political issues and dealing with the larger world out there.
That is the worry which now assails people outside Ukraine, where one politician who could have made a difference was the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She did not qualify for the second round, which was unfortunate. It may yet be, though, that the future will someday belong to her.
As Charles de Gaulle said at the end of his first government following the Second World War, his country would call him someday and he would be there. That call came in 1958 and De Gaulle went on to govern France purposefully for the next ten years. Tymoshenko could thus wait for that call of history.
We have Imran Khan in Pakistan. The country is in the hands of a former cricketer catapulted to power by its powerful army. One might argue that Khan too is an entrant from outside the political arena, but there is a certain caveat here. Imran Khan has been in politics for more than a decade, which is a strong sign of the many miles he has walked in his search for a political base.
Despite the many stumbles he has faced, he has come of age. He has given Pakistanis a new confidence through his record of incorruptibility and if the Pakistan army permits him the leverage of staying on in office, Khan might end up doing much good for his country, despite the critical economic problems his government is beset with today. Again, he could find himself up against a wall. The point, though, is that Imran Khan has not suddenly been lifted to high office. He has earned his spurs. That is not what one can say about Trump or Zelenskiy.
The early 1990s were a time of great ferment in Europe. The end of the Cold War brought in its wake a number of realities not conceived of earlier, though signs of probable new trouble were out there. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia brought to power the playwright Vaclav Havel, who then went on to preside over the division of the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
One tends to ask the question: for all his role in the demise of communism in Czecholovakia, should Havel have been raised to the presidency of the country? Or consider the disaster that was Lech Walesa in Poland. His leadership of the Solidarity movement was remarkable, but such men, once in high political office, often find themselves in the woods. Their nations suffer.
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