Why I’m not a politician…

Skrevet - Thursday, August 18th, 2005 kl. 18:04 | Kategori - * Politik

Many people have asked me why I don’t enter politics, when I think so much is wrong with the politics in Denmark. I have several reasons for this – and I’ll try to outline them below.

First off, I hate the way people are elected through their political party. If I were to decide – people would have to be elected through personal votes only. It goes without saying, that different persons even within a political party have differing oppinions on certain areas – and I can end up supporting one with differing views even if I voted for another person – let me illustrate:

I vote for politician A in the election – this person gets so many votes that he cannot ‘use’ all these votes – and these votes then go into the ‘pool’ from which the political party then decides who they should be used for. So, say one person ends up getting enough votes for 3-4 persons… (and this has happened a number of times in previous years) – this means that persons, I maybe didn’t even think competent enough may enter politics without having enough backing.

I think this is a democratic problem – instead of having the 179 best qualified (most votes) voted in – we get maybe 160 that are in the top 179 – and then 19 that by the outmost of their fingertips got through the hoop even if some had more votes than they did through the help of their political party. Next problem is that you can vote for a party if you can’t decide who you want to represent you further adding to this problem.

Second – I have a lot of oppinions on almost everything (just ask my friends…) – and I can’t find a party that would fit over half of these. This would mean that if I wanted to run for prime minister, I would have to run by myself – which is costly and I probably wouldn’t get in because a) I’m not an actor, b) I don’t read polls and c) … I’m in the top-10% intelligence-wise. No, but really – it would be a futile effort. I hate popularity contests – and that is what elections in Denmark are.

Oh – and a final reason that I don’t want to be a politician – I would hate for my family to be dragged through the tabloids – not that we have a lot to hide or are particularly freakish (aside from the green colour…), but it is a lot of pressure that I don’t really want to apply to anyone I hold dear. If a politician does his/her job well – I really don’t care what a) he/she dooes in their spare time, b) her/his family does and c) what he/she has done in their past. But guess what? The press is very much interested in that – because it sells newspapers – maybe not to me, but still a lot of newspapers.