New government (Again!)

I am feeling quite depressed today. It seems that a new government is in the making. I am not feeling blue because Badran is leaving, although some good things may be said about him. And it is not because Khalaf hasn't been called. I make sure that my phone is always with me and well charged, though. What is bothering me is that I feel that these changes don't seem to serve any purpose, except to keep people amused, while the fundamental policies stay the same. Just an elaborate game of musical chairs, and people are waiting to see who will not get a chair when the music stops.

There is a lot of speculation about who will form the new government. Most of the names thrown around are the ones which have been published by Elaph. Now, not wanting to spoil anybody's fun, but what difference does it make? Presumably, whoever will be chosen will implicitly or explicitly have to adopt the national agenda as a framework for the government program. So, the policy has already been decided.

The question becomes, how successful will the new government be? Will I have to write about waiting for a new government in a few months? The thought is immensely depressing, I have to admit. It seems that there are no clear metrics as to define what successful is. Is it how quickly the political class will become bored with the new government, or how intimidated they will be by the personality of the new PM? What about actually achieving something? Doesn't that take time?

The problem seems to be that few of the recent PM's were of obvious leadership material, and have the charisma needed to stave off attacks by the parliament and the political salons. Another problem is the way in which individual cabinet members are chosen. The general impression is that these are largely chosen to please various power bases within the state. Thus, they are chosen based on who they know and who is supporting them, with little meritocracy involved. The laughable thing is that after they are chosen based on these crooked criteria, these cabinet members have the audacity to lecture everybody else about reform. Of course, the mess starts to smell in a few months, and the music starts again. In the end, the taxpayers end up paying life-long salaries for all the incompetents who only served for a few months. There are hundreds of them on the payroll already. I don't know what the purpose of paying them is.

This is why I am depressed.