Powerful and popular leaders have the enormous capacity to shape a country and bring reforms needed for betterment.
PLAIN CITY, OH, US: This is with respect to Yaqoob Khan Bangash’s article of August 24 titled “The futile search for a leader”. The writer seems to ignore the fact that every election in the world is fought in some way, shape or form on the basis of a cult, whether it was Nicolas Sarkozy in France or Barack Obama in the US. In fact, in a true Republican system (which Pakistan claims to be but really isn’t) the entire election is based on the presidential candidate’s personality, who after winning brings on in a team that he believes will carry out his vision (which he sold to the people in the elections). A case in point is the greatest democracy in the world and the most institutionally powerful country in the world: the United States of America.
Powerful and popular leaders have the enormous capacity needed to shape a country and bring in reforms needed for its betterment. The key traits that are required for their tenures to be successful are sincerity to a cause and a capacity for pushing through improvements in the existing system. Last week, Mr Bangash gave the example of Turkey (and was equally lackadaisical in his analysis as this time). But it is very interesting to note that two very important strong-willed leaders have radically changed Turkey for the better in the past two decades alone. The first was Turgut Ozal who brought in a series of structural changes in the economic landscape of Turkey as prime minister and then president. And, since 2003, Recep Teyyip Erdogan has been another almost cult-like leader to have changed the landscape of the way Turkey functions.
Taimur Malik
Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2011.
