Politics shouldn't be just about winning: The China Post

Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian-turned-politician and the founder of the populist Five Star Movement, summed up the ideology behind the global rise of anti-establishment movements with his message for the "No" campaign of a referendum on constitutional reform in Italy: "Vote with your gut, not with your brain."

The public apparently took heed to his call.

More than 59 per cent of voters rejected the parliamentary reform proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who resigned on Sunday after taking responsibility of the defeat.

Despite the fact that a bloated congress has long been seen as one of the biggest problems in Italian politics, people voted "No" to punish the establishment.

Voters around the world increasingly regard elections as a way to vent their frustrations and anger, instead of a chance to make an informed choice on the future of their country.

In the US, voters elected a president who had no political experience, who boasted of paying no taxes and who made sexual advances on women without their consent. In the UK, the people voted to leave the EU even though no one - including the politicians who campaigned for Brexit - truly knew what that meant.

The blatant disregard for reason in Grillo's message reminds one of an observation by Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero: "The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct."

The irony is that in the supposed "information age," nations are increasingly guided by impulses and emotions.

In a world in which "Big Data" has become a buzzword, voters are willingly making choices on gut instinct alone.

It is easy to blame voters clouded by anger and the politicians who exploited them for the decline of liberal democracy. Yet they are not solely to blame.

People used to say that politicians campaigned in poetry and governed in prose. Nowadays, they are often campaigning in tweets and governing in Martian.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggested, rightly, in this paper's opinion, that any person willing to do or say anything to get elected president should be disqualified from running.

Today's politicians, (especially those in opposition,) make sweeping and unrealistic campaign promises, pinning every woe in the world on their opponents and every hope for correction on themselves.

By grossly over promising and undermining the authority of the government on the campaign trial, these politicians set themselves up for failure in power.

And yet the idea of winning at all costs is so prevalent that leaders around the world are willing to poison the seat they are clamouring for just to occupy it.

In France, President Francois Hollande made the unenviable record of becoming the first president in modern times not to seek reelection, with his approval rating down to an abysmal 4 per cent.

Hollande won on a socialist policy platform, promising to drastically rise taxes on the rich and to revive the economy while protecting labour rights.

After a brief attempt, he changed course completely and pushed for a more pro-business direction. Hollande's failure, it seems, was set even before he began his tenure.

President Tsai Ing-wen is already facing protests from people who are demanding she fulfil her promises on upholding labor rights, economic growth and keeping Taiwan nuclear free.

Her Democratic Progressive Party, which largely supported the protests by students and labour groups during the tenure President Ma Ying-jeou, now faces ridicule for calling similar protests a "disturbance of social order."

The government's troubles, in other words, are of their own making.

Politics should not be about just winning for the sake of winning. What is more important is what elected officials do after they get into office.

It is not unreasonable to ask whether not being president at all would be more dignified for a politician such as Hollande than to bow out with ratings barely above the statistical margin of error.

More importantly, as democratic politics become more and more unrealistic, disappointed voters will look for alternatives, even if the alternatives are chaos, anger and "going with your gut."

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The China Post is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 21 media outlets.