so much so that you would expect to get retirement benefits (arabic), in Bahrain that is.
and here is silly me thinking all along that they’ve entered the public life simply to serve the public without any ulterior motives, nor as a road to personal enrichment.
Now they want the government to treat their jobs just as any other and they want to be assured that they’d get retirement benefits too. For serving 4 years, they want a retirement package for the rest of their lives. Apparently emulating Kuwaiti MPs who reportedly get 80% of their “salaries” as retirement for the rest of their lives.
In support of their arguments, they’re implying that they will get even fiercer in questioning ministers, as they don’t have to “curry favour” with these ministers just in case they are offered government jobs if they do not re-take their seats in upcoming elections.
As if to confirm this trend, we have MPs “visiting” various ministers in their offices (like yesterday’s “visit” of Bu-Khammas to the Minister of Financial and National Economy, I guess Bu-Khammas is one of those who refused to impeach the under-investigation minister?) and probably their homes! Correct me if I’m wrong here, isn’t it the MPs job to oversee ministers’ performance and ensure that they are impeached if they wrong? If it is, why fraternise with them? Is it another way to curry the government’s favour in order to ensure that they get a highly paid job on their exit from parliament?
What nerve. What imbecilic minds. What money grabbing morons. What duplicitous swine.
They’re in it – ALL OF THEM – to grab as much money as possible and feather their nests for the rest of their lives for very lackluster and in some cases downright disasterous term?
Servents and guardians of the people my ass.
Comments
When being an MP is just another job…
i read alayam today and was gonna email u right away…
i gave it some thought and i’ve come to this conclusion: if people are gonna be dumb enough to re-elect these assholes, then they deserve themand nothing better…the majority of course did not have all this info on the MPs in the first round…lets see what the people of Bahrain will do come the next election….
Re: When being an MP is just another job…
I was discussing this point at lunch today, and also a letter that appeared today in Al-Ayam from a person writing to his MP who he dubbed “Mr. Zero” [arabic], bemoaning the fact that his MP did nothing but receive a fat cheque every month, and did his utmost not to get involved, nor ask any questions.
I know who my mother, father and brothers voted for in their area and I cornered them solid. It transpired (as I have known all along) that they voted for the turban rather than the person. I don’t think that they will ever vote for such a dickhead again. I think now they know what parliament is really for and it needs people of merit, rather than people from the same sect, tribe or whatever. This of course will not change the majority of Bahrain’s voting paterns, but at least it’s one less household I have to worry about.
So yes I agree that it has very little to do with education, but education (one would hope) helps in determining that a person at least has opened his mind by debating at university etc. A weak argument, but a university education is better than a person who has barely scraped through high school and he decided to join the “ulama” route because the tosser doesn’t have any other options available to him. And he gets rewarded with a parliamentary seat.
The worry is for the next elections we might have some people would be admitted because they have finished the Qur’an and memorised it, as that would now equate them with college graduates!
Re: When being an MP is just another job…
That’s very true AdoRe. We didn’t have information about these MPs, nor did we have the “democracy culture” so we could challenge them in debates. Hopefully that will happen in the future.
However one of the main points of the Election Law was that as a minimum qualification, a prospective MP should have at least a graduate degree. In the vast majority of the cases the current crop does not have that. Ironically most of the Islamists do! Look at Adel Al-Moawdah for instance, he’s got a degree in Computer Science and was employed by the Central Statistics Organisation in a good position, and his degree wasn’t from a kook university either, he was educated in England. So the question there for him specifically is: what happened? what changed his mind? what were the repurcussions for him to switch so completely?
When being an MP is just another job…
Mahmood ..
I dont think it is a question of education. I think Adel Al Mowadeh is just being loyal to his religious consituents like George W Bush is loyal to the conservative right. The fact that Sharon got elected in Israel said much more about what the Israeli street was thinking than it did about Sharon…
Whether we like it or not, the makeup today in Parliament is a result of the street’s assessment of the avaiable candidates who went up for election. Next round, we have Al Wifaq and company entering into the fray. I dont know how that will change things. But I do know that as everyone comes up the learning curve – everyone will get more sophistiacted at this game. And perhaps, at the end of this round, the current MP’s will have reached the level of sophistication that the current boycotters have.
The sophistication in the process is all based around the currency of votes. The minute the public votes start differentiating between candidates is the day that candidates will recognize the need to differentiate their agenda from that of another candidate.
This is where we, the voters, have to prove our worth. Are we going to be led by issues? Or by tribal, sectoral, gender loyalties?? So, it is also the public that needs to be educated, through the process. And thats what Democracy is .. a procss …
Serene
Speaking as an American…
…you’ll always have lots of politicians this corrupt, or who at least wish to be this corrupt if they can get away with it.
The trick is to design your political system to function successfully even if many of those involved are morally unworthy. You need safeguards.
One safeguard is opposition parties. They’re probably just as corrupt as the party in power, but they have something to gain from pointing out their opponents’ corruption. Slowly, over time, everyone is forced to be less (visibly) corrupt. The system sets political ambition in opposition to political corruption. Similarly, a free press sells papers by reporting on scandals. Greed works to expose corruption.
Democracy works, sometimes. Other times, you get somebody like Bush. If your voters forsake all moral virtue, then they must be shamed into condeming the greatest failures of their leaders.
Of course, the greatest advantage of democracy is not the ability to elect particularly good leaders, but to remove particularly bad ones from power.
So continue your good work, educating people about the failings of their MPs. Over time, you can slowly improve the quality of your politicians. If you’re lucky, you’ll achieve a mix of decent leaders and corrupt fools, and the system will (somehow) work.
It’s a strange paradox: Democracy can work even with corrupt MPs, but if you ever cease to be outraged by corrupt MPs, democracy will fail. I hope I make some sense. 🙂
The best of wishes.
Re: Speaking as an American…
Actually, Bush was in fact elected democratically. He won the vote in Florida which gave him the electoral votes to win the election. The fact that you don’t like the outcome doesn’t make the election undemocratic.
And my guess is that you won’t like the outcome of the next election either.
Steve
Re(1): Speaking as an American…
I dont think the poster ever implied that Bush was elected undemocratically. I think the point was that even in a democratic process, you might not get the most ‘able’ leader. Bush as a recent example of ‘bad’ leadership as perceived by the pevious poster. Hitler as an older example of ‘bad’ leadership as perceived by the majority of the world today. Both men were democratically and legally elected.
The main point being – even if there is an idiot in power for a certain amount of time, in a system of checks and balances, the downside is much more contained than when there is no system in place. e.g. Saddam and Hitler.
When being an MP is just another job…
First of all I would like to state that I’m the typical 18 year old American that has been taught in recent years to care little of the Middle East. After saying so, I have disagreed greatly with this school of thought, and though many may say that this isn’t the general opinion of Americans, tragically it is. The worst part of our culture seems to be content; Americans are content with our freedoms and thus care little about the rest of the world. I admit that I knew little of the injustices of the middle east and still have much to learn yet reading your comments have more than opened my eyes. I was wondering what someone is to do, if anything can be done, by an 18 year old. I know my powers are limited as are the powers of any 18 year old…yet movements have to start somewhere. I would greatly appreciate your correspondance. Like I said I know I have much to learn about the injustices and terror that reside within the Arab world, but I want to know, and I’m compelled to do something. If you have any time at all to e-mail me at Soca_stunna19@yahoo.com I would more than greatly appreciate it. Any correspondance from anyone, especially Mahmood Al-Yousif, is welcome and I thank any persons who reads this and takes me seriously.
-Jared