No Experience Needed

Vasu Reddy From Chicago
vasureddy@aol.com

There is a lot of discussion and expectation prior to being elected for being a leader of nation.  Much importance is placed on time in public office and what the person has done prior to making to claim to manage the nation.  Where there is a choice with electoral process, much is made out of what was done rather than what needs to be done.  We always forget that the past is already past, and the country needs to look forward, rather than rest on the laurels of one’s past.

Past experience, education, and training and on the ground development is valuable, but no one can gain the experience of running a country until you get into the hot seat.  The only claim to experience in such a position is from a person who is already elected as the head of the state and planning for reelection.  Running for reelection has a real history of performance that allows the public to evaluate if the reelection of the person is really warranted.

 

Next year’s elections in India should be an interesting scenario as to the future of the political parties and which party will have the ability to forge a coalition to form a central government.  The current scenario of the political landscape doesn’t present a clear indication of which party will have the votes to come into power in the center.

Congress although currently in control, doesn’t clearly have the indications of having the ability to once again form a coalition government at the center.  It has already lost a lot of regional alliances and in some places it holds current seats, is vulnerable to the next contested elections.  Some of its charismatic leaders have passed away leaving leadership vacuum at the state level.  Congress has also lost several electoral alliances and currently barely hangs on to the power at the center.  As the elections are coming in 2014, it may not be worthwhile for the opposition to get into midterm elections; it would rather be better suited for the upcoming general elections.  It is likely that congress would further falter in its administration, which will obviously help the opposition parties.

The experience of being power multiple times has not done much for the current leadership in managing affairs of the nation and where it is in power in the individual states.  If all the scams and strife is to be sidelined, the management of day to day affairs is also to be desired.  There is constant procrastination of making decisions at the state level where the party is also in power, and where states which are run by opposition there is absolute differences in managing the people’s issues.  Although the opposition is expected to keep the ruling party honest, the honesty is the last thing from reality in the way things are being handled.  With 24/7/365 badgering from TV, News Papers and the internet, it is difficult to figure what is real verses made-up information.  Sometimes even the person making the statements perhaps doesn’t know what the truth is.

The country is no longer young and freshly independent.  The country is not at war and doesn’t have any external influences in governing, other than its standard across the border issues.  There are no new threats or disturbances or economic calamities that are out of the ordinary, but we still have no solutions to economic and well being of the nation and its people.

It is difficult to envision that we might have brand new direction taken by the current leadership, even if we have a change of the parties that are in power at the center.  The amount of mismanagement at every level needs to addressed and cleaned-up bottom-up to top-down and every which way we can.  Irrespective of who comes into power and anointed as the nest chief needs no experience to run the country as the experienced lot we have had really unresponsive to the needs of the people.

The new chief needs motivation to do the right thing and not be self centered or just do the things that will help hold on to the seat.  There are many competent people who are available to help plan a great course for the nation, but need a leader who will think and work for the people’s agenda.  The experience to lead is not to follow the past or current leaders, but cater to the needs of current people.