A few weeks ago, during an interview, when asked about the criticisms about the executive’s handling of COVID-19 crisis, the French President (Emmanuel Macron) declared that France has 66 million prosecutors, because the French always like to criticize and find flaws. Unfortunately, this is not the first time Emmanuel Macron has made a disdainful statement about his people.
The other day, however, I was thinking about the statement and realized that France has 66 million electors and voters, not prosecutors (47 million registered voters, and the remainder under-age or unregistered voters who influence the other 47 million). And these electors are likely to let know how they judge the government’s anti COVID-19 performance during the major presidential and legislative elections next year.
But this is not just in France or about France. It involves many democracies in which elections have taken place recently or will take place in the next year or two. The people who have been silenced through restrictions and have been sidelined by such fears as the fear of illness, the fear of job loss, and anxiety over their future, will have a chance to express themselves. People’s verdict on their leaders’ performance have already been witnessed in the US, where Trump basically lost the elections because of COVID-19, and in New Zealand, where Jacinda Ardern’s courage and wisdom in handling the crisis won her a massive approval.
It would be wrong, however, to just judge the government in power and give the “benefit of absence” to the opposition. It is too easy for the opposition to sit by the ring side and lecture the government on its failures or on what it should do. Some of that political gaming is part of any opposition posture, but this situation is too important to just limit it to a vote of confidence on COVID-19 handling for the incumbent executive.
But how do you evaluate an opposition who had no say in the decisions and policies? Well… If a party or a coalition is worthy of being considered a serious opposition, it must have been running some level of government: states or provinces or regions, major cities or counties. In any democracy there is a non-negligeable level of regional distribution of power, and any organization worthy of being considered a credible opposition has had to face COVID-19 in some regional capacity, at least.
Sure they may not have had the same means and authority as the ruling executives, but if all they did was to give lessons, then I believe they are no better, or even worse, than the people in central power. We saw this contrast in action in France, where there were cities that tried to fight the pandemic with added zest, effort and alternative methods, and those where their leaders were preparing the future elections.
It is true, COVID-19 has been an exceptional situation, but given the environmental, geopolitical, economic and social crises that loom on the horizon, traumatic situations are likely to become routine happenings in countries, and the electors need to better judge if their future leaders are capable and willing to use courage and wisdom to address them. And words should no longer satisfy the voters. Recent actions and behaviors should be evaluated on priority.
Paris, April 5, 2021
Zeejay