Many years ago a wise man made a witticism that applied to politicians. " One day a crowing Rooster - the next - just a feather duster ! " Such is the temporary nature of the hold on power and the uncertainty that follows when that power ends.
The world watched enthralled in 1990 when the Soviet Union imploded and reactionary forces imprisoned Michael Gorbachov. The unlikely figure of Boris Nikolayevick Yeltsin came to his rescue and Yeltsin ruled Russia as president from 1991 to 1999 when he handed the reins of power to Vladimir Putin.
Yeltsin was addicted to vodka and his administration was beset with corruption. It is rumoured that he chose Putin in a deal that ensured that he and his family would be free of recriminations for excesses from when he headed government. That obligation was repaid and Yeltsin died peacefully in 1999.
It seems that the world has entered a new era of strongman politics and this time it is the former democracies that are electing leaders who rule with an iron fist. Rogrigo Duterte is the man in power in the Philippines who condones the summary execution of those in the drug trade. Victor Orban is firmly in control of Hungary and he has installed an illiberal regime that is dismantling the rule of law and in Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan is abandoning a secular state and moving towards Sharia law.
In every case these extreme leaders won power at the ballot box and the undercurrent of unrest that propelled them to office was either the threat of refugees pouring over their borders or a latent civil war brewing on religious grounds. Then to compound the issue the United States elected Donald Trump to office and he has completely reversed the roles expected of the leader of the free world. Trump is an enigmatic mystery who seems to govern purely on impulse and rejects the wise counsel of all who advise that office.
Vladimir Putin has just won a fresh election and all credible opposition were either in jail or intimidated from running for office. Putin is carefully stoking foreign adventures to promote nationalism as the antidote to growing unrest and he has an ever expansive China on his border to contend with. Russian threatens its neighbours as it tries to regain the hegemony it held over them in its Communist era.
The eyes of the world will be focussed on events in Malaysia. This south east Asian nation has just had an election that unseated the government that has ruled continuously since it gained independence from Britain in1957. The dumping of the ruling UMNO party was completely unexpected because it has jailed any opposition and had control of the media to stifle all forms of opposition.
This reversal at the ballot box can be attributed to an unsolved crime where billions disappeared from the IMDB Sovereign wealth fund and several million dollars was discovered in the reigning prime ministers bank account, and that has never been satisfactorily explained. Now former prime minister Najib Razak and his wife have been served with orders forbidding them to leave the country as they planned departure on a holiday.
Considering that the man expected to become prime minister is awaiting release from prison on a trumped up sodomy charge it is unlikely that he will be reticent in ordering an examination of the former prime ministers accountability. That is a turn of events that will make many holding office in various foreign countries extremely nervous. It can portend what can happen when public opinion turns unexpectedly - unfavourable.
There is another witticism that applies. " Uneasy lays the head that wears a crown " !
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