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The story here in most African countries is weird. Its like the only time these politicians seem to care is when election is approaching. They visit us, give us empty promises and a whole lot. Funny enough, they are voted for massively. Then once they are in power, we are out of the picture. In my country for instance, apart from what I was taught back in school, I cant really pinpoint the essence of the Legislature. From my observation, this has become a cycle. Its like instead of them bringing up policies that will improve lives, they waste resources just like that and master how to make us vote for them when the time comes.
My worry is, are we naive or thats just how the game of politics is played?

it's a strategy for campaigning and most politicians do this to gain trust from the public and yes it has become a cycle because there are gullible citizens to fool who will believe whatever the politician says.
and of course, there are those who sell their vote for a couple of bucks. yes, most of us are naive, most of us are the reason why scummy politicians are in elected and yes, most politicians take us for granted
because there are people, gullible people who believe in pretty lies and hate the ugly truth which politician take advantage off. but there are politicians who believes in making their country better but being ignored
because they tell the ugly truth.

I think it happened in a country where a popularity vote is practiced. They are sweet,religious, amiable,helpful,loving person almost a saint  during election but  don't know you after election. They run for a position,their own personal interest and gain only.

We need a real civil servant whose heart is for the improvement of his constituents,address the problems immediately like in health, poverty,crime,education,employment etc. Those are pressing issues that needs to be address and we need to hear  how they tackle and provide solution for such during campaigns.

Not only in African Countries but Asian countries as well, they only know you in times of election, but after the election, you will never see them again in the next three years,  I've known one politician who shakes hands-on every people he comes across when election time, but after he gets on his car, his bodyguard pour alcohols in his hands because he feared that he might contaminated by the people he shakes his hands with, Damn politician.

I'm surprised there even is an election when they can just vote themselves in. Like that Mugabe who kept winning elections - and won the lottery multiple times as well. Oh well, let's see if he wins the elections in hell.

Incumbent just need enough public approval to keep themselves in office and new entrants, of course, want to get in. Sure there are politicians who probably care about their constituents but the thing is, I think they are rare, especially when majority of politicians in a country are from political dynasties.


Everyone does that though. I've seen celebrities and other public figures do that as they exit the venue. It don't turn me off, knowing they've probably shaken like a hundred hands before that. I too would do that.

That is happening in many countries apart from Africa.
It is noticed more in poor countries where people struggle to live. Politicians give expectations and voters have a hope that something of all these is going to be implemented. That's why the get voted massively.

Well I can tell you it's not something which is specific to Africa. Politicians have stopped caring about trying to solve problems and fixing things, they've changed their view. Now anything they do is going to result in short term gain and hopefully a reelection for them.

That's all most politicians care about -- reelection.

I do feel for the politicians that have great monumental plans that look as if they're going to be able to help the country but then they lose because they didn't provide the short term gain that their people wanted. We're to blame for some of this as well, as we get outraged very quickly and want immediate change when that's just not always possible.

Should we be taking politicians for granite?     :D

Does a farmer take his animals for granted?

Politicians play the role of workers on the factory farm and slaughterhouse environments.  The so-called 0.001% are the farm owners.

Just like those working the floors, some percentage of politicians take a sadistic pleasure in making the animals lives even less pleasant than they already are.  Probably not a high percent.  Most of them just do what they are paid to do:  follow their bosses directives and keep things working smoothly and efficiently.

At the end of the day though, there are some politicians that actually do want to see the benefit of the people. Not a majority of politicians, though I don't think there are politicians present that take pleasure in hurting people. They're just in the game to make money and sometimes the people don't get everything they want when you're elected -- so that's the way they make themselves feel better.

It's game, and we're losing. Politicians are winning, corporations are winning, the rich are winning.

Politics has been a dirty game and every politician needs some degree of cunningness to success within their party. Replacing the politicians might not be a solution either as we've seen newer politician more committed to corruption. The greatest power are the people itself. Politicians could be forced to act according to the interest of people. Education is the most powerful weapon.
One of the largest contributing factor for success of democracy is a free and unbiased media.
In case of Africa, things are changing for good. We've seen impressive improvement in lifestyle of many African countries in recent years led by democratically elected leaders.

Don't feel that you are the only one who experiencing such thing, we and many countries across the globe got the same thing. But ours is a little bit improving because after we elected our president, you can feel that he is keeping his promises and lead our country in greater progress. Unlike the previous ones, the Duterte administration shows its claws against crime. Though many humanitarian orgs. and groups are against in his way of ruling, I still like it because you can really see the good results.
Are you sure? They are not corrupting the money at all and use for their personal interests?

The biggest reason I think that Duterte might actually really be 'for real' and not just riding on marketing hype generated from mined social media data is the vicious attacks he gets from globalists (NGO's, United Nations, mainstream media, etc.)

My contention is that Duterte really is screwing up some long term globalist programs for The Philippines.  Especially their illicit drug operations which are meant to undermine society by corrupting government at all levels. Globalists want country's national governments  to be unstable, paralyzed, and focused on internal problems.  The more exploitable resources a country has the more important it is to control them, and The Philippines is actually fairly rich.

The interesting thing to see is that once people see that there is some possibility for things to get better when it comes to drugs and other such things, and see it happen even just a little bit, they will work vigorously to not regress and their tolerance for future problems goes way down.  At least that is what it seems like to me.

One decent person making forward progress for a brief time can undue years of hard work on the 'evil' side dragging the country toward collapse and/or revolution.  The world is full of such 'asymmetric phenomenon'.  Identifying them is key to good strategy.

I still believe that this kind of politics will not be effective if people will not allow themselves to be fooled. Politicians are using this strategy over and over again because it is effective. They will not bother doing this if such strategy proves nothing. But since people are always swayed by sweet yet empty promises, politicians have already become comfortable using it. Voter's awareness, empowerment, and the courage to oppose such dirty politicians are what it takes for this to end.

Yeah! He really don't give a f*ck. He don't care if his way of leadership irritates the eyes of this global organizations. I actually like his bravery for doing what he think is good for our country without even letting the bodies outside our sovereignty interfere. What a strong conviction.
I foresee the same thing that's why our president is working for a Plan B. That's why he try to befriend Russia and also keep befriending China despite of the despute on the reclamation of West Philippine Sea because he knew that they can be a strong allies when new WW began. I can see that he already want to stop our relationship to America, probably he, an me also, thought that we will only suffer more in the end. I thought that all of the help we get coming from.the Americans has something for exchange and that would be human force. We might end up as their "pawns"in case of war.

Anyway, do you really think we are rich? I don't think so ;D.

ps: these are just my opinions.

It would be quite foolish to rely on the U.S. for any sort of help when the shit hit's the fan.  Seems that those who control the U.S. at this time actually take a perverse pleasure in backstabbing their 'friends' and would so it even just for the fun of it for no particular gain.  That said, life under the Chinese would probably be 10 times worse than what most people experienced under the U.S..  At least most naive American peeps where indoctrinated with the idea that 'all men are created equal' which imparts some degree of humanity.  Not so many other societies.

As for rich, I mean that The Philippines as a nation is quite well off with minerals, arable land, water, etc.

As I've said before, it would be great to see some real cooperation between Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia to contain China's expansionist dreams of claiming everyone else's resources.  I think that this would be vastly more robust than relying on help form the U.S. if/when any real shooting starts.

As a mater of fact, I'm expecting the U.S. to sell their S and SE Asian 'friends' off to China for basically nothing just before themselves are imploded.  Those who have been parasitizing the U.S. have already moved their factories to China and are having their kids learn Mandarin.  They are one gulfstream jet ride away from switching hosts.

That corrupt practices is not just present in Africa but to other third world countries as well. During election period politicians will do anything to gain the favor of the masses and of course they will spend millions to win the election. After they win the election they will forget the promises they made because they are busy earning back what they spent during the elections. If people will accept money or any kind of goods during the election then they will still win the election and the cycle will continue. Sometimes we need to vote for the right people and do not accept gifts and bribe from them so that right people will be seated in the right position. If that happens the welfare sector will have enough budget since corruption will be lessened if not removed.

This happens not only in African countries, but almost all over the world.
Why? Because it works. People are so naive and silly that always fall for some politician and then vote him/her. They just believe any promise politicians made.
Politicians, on the other hand, are masters of communication and marketing and thus are very skilled in manipulating people for their own benefits.

That's not how politics is played. That's how you let them play it. We are greedy and we allow them to lure us. To divide us. To create fear in us as well as greed. It's all like how religion is. We listen to the preacher no matter how naive he talks. Beside, politics is nowadays a dirty profession so the wise upper class so called people also don't want make themselves dirty and just votes who ever stands in election.

It's already a known fact for decades now. politics is one dark game where people in power continously exploit those who are barely eating 3 square meals. I've seen situations where a 4 year tenure brought severe hardship and even a recession. Yet during election, these politicians would give out 1 - 2 cups of rice and people would still line up to vote for them. The way I see it, the masses are part of the problem. When we start realizing we're worth more than we're getting, that's the point they stop taking us for granted. But as long as we allow such, why won't they go overboard?

It's not just these politicians. In life, if you're 'too' gentle and take things easily, people would exploit that and take you for granted.

Of course every unpopular running candidates would show that they are responsible and they can help for the country to show that they are the one who need to be voted. In the end we will know on how they work for us if we didn't know how they actually work.

Especially for some poor country do vote buying for they to be win so the country doesn't improve anything because of undeserving choose of votes.

This is the story of every country all across the world, it is just relatively worse or better. I have too come across false promises by politicians and once they get elected, it takes them whole term or even the next one to complete those promises or sometimes just forget about them. In my country, the authorities fight over petty issues but not addresses important challenges like hunger, education, employment etc.

Why are you surprised?, Latin America is the same, my country is copying Zimbabwe in most things, especially the economy...

Maybe it has something to do that these lands were once colonies, maybe its the "too nice" weather of the tropics, i have no idea. The poorest countries unsurprisingly have the worst politicians and the most corruption.

And yes the politicians here do exactly as you describe, until they can mend things so they can remain in power regardless of elections...

If people protest they get killed. Who is going to defend the protesters, US? Russia? pff they are busy with their own matters. No one cares.

Sometimes there are internal disputes, mostly the military intervenes and a new gov is installed. Then things repeat all over again, never to improve. And you get people emigrating, which the "nice" countries complain about but do nothing of significance. People wouldn't be risking their lives emigrating if their country of origin conditions weren't so bad in the first place. But you know, sovereignty, allies, yadda, yadda, the UN is for decoration and endless speeches that amount to nothing. The Security council is a joke with the veto members, nothing ever gets done unless its some (no one cares) half island in the Caribbean no one bothers vetoing sending troops.

We all live in oppression by the State.

well there where once empires colonising africa (building infrastructure) but african's wanted rather those democrats.

enjoy.

There's also a further point that politicians themselves dont just take us for granted. They know that they're able to get away with not truly helping us because the 'next best evil' (their opponent) is going to do the same exact thing to them in the next election.

If they're all bad, all we do is look for the best out of the worst and move on.

That's why they're able to get away with this. Once we move past the 2 party system in the US, we can at least hope for this sort of change. But that's the only thing the two parties agree on -- fucking the people into accepting the two party system.

Politics kills the essence of public service. We hope that after the election, those elected officials must serve earnestly, by setting aside the political differences. It is happening mostly in the democratic country especially on popular vote.


Every country has its own corruption story, nothing new. There are few / rare politicians who are honest to their post, that serve their constituent as to their capacity until their term ends.

You guys are all correct. I can think that there is only a small percentage of politicians that actually care for its people. Politicians work for the rich people because they reap good benefits when doing it. Rich people are only a small percentage of the populace. I know there are very rich countries in some part of the world, maybe corruption there is not that high.

These happen actually in other country politicians are doing good when the election is almost near. Some people are in favor also of these vote buying since they are in need of money to sustain their cost of living. Corruption happen for some countries this is why we have to be responsible to excercise our rights to vote to choose the riht person and responsible when being elected.

politics is cruel that friends can become opponents and opponents can become friends.
politicians in my country are the same as you they make promises but will never be kept, even the policies they make are not for the welfare of the people but instead, for example they promise to provide hospitals free of charge for those who cannot afford hospital fees, but in reality every treatment is always complicated.

More than taking us for granted, politicians take us for idiots. Unfortunately sufficient numbers of people are idiots, so the politicans get re-elected.

It's election time in the UK, and this tw*t is already out and about doing his 'man of the people' bit.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/11/02/22/20525020-0-image-a-16_1572733845665.jpg

Well i don't really think they think of us as idiot. They know that a lot of people are smart. We just don't have the power to go against what they want to do. That's ll there is to it. You the smug faces of these old politicians and they're like "I'm doing anything i need to stay in power and you can stay in misery and poverty. And you can't do anything about it."

Individually, yes. They don't give a bat shit about you nor me. They only care that they get back into office. Which is where interest groups come in. Groups that can give them votes and campaign funds (which can be the same group) are groups they listen to. It counts to be able to organize so we can give them a piece of our mind.

i feel politicians need to set a mission statement, with clear targets and a progress report
that way we can see how far they are actually achieving the goals they 'promise'

EG if a government vote on certain things each week. there needs to be a summary report that people can see that shows that politicians voted 90% of the time (not hundred percent because even politicians ned a few weeks vacation

EG where thee votes show 100% sway in the direction that benefits their main mission
for instance a vote on a bill that can lead to more unemployment by halting production/manufacturing. would b a no vote for someones political mission of improving employment
that way the bill would not pass unless it was altered to also include retraining and new enterprises to start up in its place.
EG retrain coal miners into being solar panel installers and ensuring all employees got a job

we cant just have a system of empty promise one day and 1459 days of twiddling thumbs doing nothing every 4 years

I wonder if we'd do better without politial parties at all. Every representative an independent, accountable to their constituents. Of course they'd need to agree a leader amongst themselves once they got elected, but it seems a better option than the current arrangement.

As an African I will say that OPs statement is totally accurate and this thing persist because people don't seem to learn, there are lots of people who vote mainly on tribal lines and that's the reason why most politicians are very confident because they know that once they win the primaries in their constituency they are going to end up winning the elections. Some tribes and locations are strictly for one political party and they sure aren't going to change now.

Hmm that's extremely difficult question to answer. I do believe it depends how big the politician is and how much people he directly has to represent. Contact with people is really important, and when you have good relation with them you can do lots of things. But at the most cases, politicians starts to see themselves as someone incredible big and important.

Any discussion is mute.

Politicians distribute public money stolen from the countries residents.
Why would someone use someone elses money on someone elses benefit?
Any group calling controlling public funds will always try to use the money for their own benefit.
That's how it is and how it will always be with public funds.

I agree that some corruption is inevitable. The ideal system of government is whatever reduces the possibility for this corruption. It's part of why capitalism triumphed over communism. The excesses of capitalism may be distasteful, but less so than some of the excesses of communism.

Yes. The annoying thing for me is so many people aren't remotely interested in politics, and just vote according to whatever the manipulative tabloid headlines tell them to do.
I wish people could only vote if they genuinely understood what they were voting for.

While there are few politicians who are egoistic and money-centered who seek only for one's own advantage and pleasure while disregarding others, there are some politicians who are sincere in devoting themselves in the service for the general welfare of their people. But having more self-centered politicians other than good public servants made  us believe that they are all the same. We often generalized them as one who are good only from the start who corrupt the minds of their people using flowery words just to convince to vote for them and to get what they want, but in truth their true intention is to enrich themselves at the expense of the others, amassing money, betraying their people trust again and again. Devoured by their ambitions and selfishness. But luckily in these days, people are getting smarter in choosing their leaders. They carefully look for someone who is competent enough to represent them, having the ability and skills enough to meet their standards and having concerns with the others without ill motives. They say that a person is inherently good but money is the root of all evil.

   Well done Styca! This picture shows how smarter people are in choosing their leaders! It's the same situation in many
countries, including my own.
   I would not call this leader, and many other leaders 'competent'! This new politicians are making things worst then they
been ever before.

Thanks. A picture says a thousand words. My own country (UK) is the same. We have 'Trump-Lite' Boris Johnson...

https://www.pedestrian.tv/content/uploads/2019/07/20151211001208833643-original-637x397.jpg

Is not only applicable in your country but the whole of African countries and some other developing countries of the world. Politicians in Africa are self centered, corrupt and they lack leadership quality and they built a political system in such a way that good people with good intentions will not be able to attain any of such position expecially if you are in there group.

Sadly, yes. It happens everywhere. In some countries the electorate has very little choice. I'm lucky that in my country the electorate is able to vote freely. The problem in the UK at least is that many people have a sufficiently good standard of living that they couldn't really care about politics. They will vote according to whichever way the tabloid press and TV news (and carefully curated social media feeds) pull them, rather than voting after carefully considering the pros and cons of each argument from their own independent viewpoint.

UK is a develop country and cannot in any way be compared to any of the African countries. I would have love to say one day some African country will get to such level in terms of politics and development but sadly, I don't think it will ever happen in decades to come because the level of corruption in African countries is so high that they can't even feed themselves despite the fact that they have all the resources at their disposal.

That is one thing the politicians in Africa are good for and the reason why they can get away with it is because the people allowed them and its even rampant to the extent that a politician who have offered nothing to its people in its first term could have the effrontery to go for second term by winning its party ticket and even contesting for election but the people are just there rallying behind such individual giving him the right to ride them and cheat them for the next four years without any apology.

In my opinion, the problem exists worldwide.
Due to the fact that African countries have a lot of citizens that live under the poverty level this is more intense in the region. That's why politicians promise a better future and also end up as corrupted governments. It is easier to do so in the African continent.

Yes they do. In most African countries especially in the West, this is a norm. Prior to election, they come home, campaigning, making unbelievable promises. The same town they haven't visited in years, they do during electioneering campaign. And after the election, they disappear. Feigning memory loss as per their manifesto. The little things they do like road construction is broadcasted on air like they are doing the masses a favor. Why else where they voted into office if not to fix things/fulfill their promises? But they act like the masses needed them badly to save them. There's no accountability on the part of politicians. They seem to do as they please, with reckless abandon.