GOVERNING BY AND FOR THE POLLS Every society needs to know itself, explore its movements, know which forces and trends are critical for it. It is for that reason that the polls have an important function and have reached, globally, a high technical degree of accuracy. The polls allow the society to look at itself internally, and are, undoubtedly, good tools for many decisions that people and organizations of every type make, daily, in the cultural, entrepreneur, productive or commercial, or in executing any initiative of interest to the community. This valuable instrument, culturally and statistically, the polls, may produce very negative consequences and distort the decision making process when it is used in the political and institutional level with a clear demagogic objective. We are referring to the poor deviation that public authorities, and politics in general, incur when the make their decisions exclusive in order to satisfy the wishes and preferences of public opinion, as they are shown in the polls. This dependency on the polls, which has reached very intensive levels in many cases is very negative. When government officials, elected officials and politicians make their institutional decisions with the view in the polls, they end up being prisoners of the emotional changes, sometimes purely temporary, of public opinion. They also miss their fundamental mission which is to govern in the benefit of public interest, short and long term. The duties of the elected officials is to lead the society into the future and not be led by it. When they resign to this essential duty they are not longer authentic leaders. They are just politicians looking at polls and elections. The polls give a "frozen" information of a particular moment of the society, That photography cannot replace what every states person should provide the same society : leadership, initiative, a long term view, capability to go beyond today and have an integrated version of the present and the future in the context of the different visions both socially and politically. The polls are, very frequently, a photography that makes the society prisoner of its own short term view. It leaves outside the view and the perception of the fundamentals of politics, which is the clear and crisp perception of what is going to happen in the middle and long term. Politicians who become blinded by the polls, do not take any risks. However the political leadership is fundamentally, decision making, risk and courage to lead the society in one direction. If it just follows the moments reflected in the polls will be subject to its changes, its emotions and will only satisfy short term interests which may jeopardize the future of the society as a whole. It will not lead but follow and will end up in not meeting any objectives. Sometimes the society reacts emotionally on short term actions, but in the long term it always ends up recognizing the importance of a long term view, so this short term "poll" driven actions have very little chance of success. Many times the major challenge a politician has is to impose a solution to a problem that although is resisted in the short term, will be functional, within a certain time frame, to the true interests of the community. A good and true leader governs with a repertoire of principles and objectives, not with a thermometer of the citizens emotions. That is what separates democracy from demagogy.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:24:13 +0000
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