Today’s article on Egypt’s nuclear aspirations in the New York Times talks about Gamal Mubarak, the son of President Mubarak, as the potential future president of the country. In fact, the word ‘potential’ may not be the right one to use – since he is called a successor, the term which we be all too unfamiliar to many of the functional democracies. In fact, it is not just the international media calling him that, Mr. Mubarak is really viewed and called by many in the country as the person set to replace his father. But, I thought that in democracies we don’t have successors. We have candidates in elections. Am I missing something here?
Egypt is not the only country where the next leader may be known ahead of the elections. In Russia, everyone is anxiously awaiting for preemnik – the Russian word for successor – to be named. There is virtually no talk about the upcoming Presidential elections there — only speculations about when Mr. Putin will reveal the name of the next president. And Mr. Putin has dropped some hints recently, saying that the person will be not who everyone expects him to be. The people don’t need to choose – the choice will be made for them.
A candidate in democratic elections may be able to have a landslide victory in elections, but that does not make him a successor. It should not be decided ahead of the elections and all the campaigning who the next leader will be. The way I think about it, is if we have the names of successors why hold elections in the first place? Why spend the valuable resources? In fact, there are no successors in democracies. Such political systems are called something else.
Published Date: September 20, 2006