by Dr Rahim Said
There’s an interesting story about a top politician in a South East Asian country that’s always filled with political intrigue and who’s likened to a guy showing up at the airport only to realise that his flight had left hours ago.
After a national election sometime back, the politician concerned thought that he had gathered more than enough Statutory Declarations (SDs) from Members of Parliament required to form a national government, and was convinced that the keys to the prime minister’s office were about to be handed over.
Alas, the Crown of the country had other plans, and just like that, the politician found himself standing on the runway with no plane in sight.
Now, this isn’t just any political saga. This is Shakespearean-level irony, where fate teases and tantalises before pulling the rug out from under him.
About a dozen or so Members of Parliament, led by someone whom we shall refer as the Conduit, were part of the grand plan to put the political leader back in the Prime Minister’s seat.
But when the royal “proposal” for a coalition government came down like thunder from the heavens, these ‘brave’ souls quickly realigned, like toddlers in a game of musical chairs, scrambling to avoid the dread of being declared “no longer representing their constituencies”!
The Conduit, ever the diplomat, insists that there was no betrayal on his part. “We just withdrew our SDs,” he says, in the same tone one might use to explain the return of a faulty toaster to the store.
“So where’s the betrayal?” he asks, sounding more like someone who got lost on the way somewhat.
Perhaps the true betrayal here is the one that the political leader concerned feels in his gut – that sinking feeling of being ghosted by the group of MPs at the eleventh hour.
One can’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the politician concerned. The man had the numbers, the SDs, and, for a brief moment, the winds of destiny at his back.
But just like the ending of those old slapstick films where the hero slips, he watched his plans crumble into an administration that didn’t include him at all.
Perhaps the moral of this story is that in cut-and-thrust politics, the real winner is fate – and it always has the last laugh.
Dr. Rahim Said is a human behaviourist and regular contributor on digital media platforms. He is a professional management consultant, a corporate trainer and an executive coach specialising in coaching of senior executives and individual entrepreneurs with the purpose of modifying their behaviour in the pursuit of their cherished missions. (The views expressed by our columnist are entirely his own)
WE