Your country's leader

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A Canadian author once said something to the effect that being Canadian was like being a mouse living next door to an elephant -- you can be really good friends with the elephant and he might even like you, but you still have to stay awake long into the night worrying that he will roll over on you!

I've looked over the topics this particular section of the boards tends to generate and certainly the plurality of them are about the elephant. So I wanted to start a new topic where people from countries other than the U.S. could tell us about the leader of their country and their opinion of said leader. A little lesson on how your government is structured would also be educational.

I could do Canada, but I'll leave that to one of my fellow Canucks.

I'm sure this has been done in the past, but I don't see the harm in a refresher course for us all.

 

First I would have to pick which is the leader the president or the prime minister but since the president's powers are limited to foreign policy and war I'll go with the prime minister. I don't think Matti Vanhanen is too bad and has done a well enough job. He's certainly not my favorite for the place nor is he even from the party I'd prefer but there are quite a few worse options around too. The current coalition in charge is probably the best I could hope for given the current circumstances so overall I'm quite ok with it.

 

Helen Clark is our Prime Minister and she does a great job of showing up at charity events and school fairs and providing the voice for her own cartoon character in Bro'Town.

I have no idea whether or not she is running the country well or not, but I'm happy and healthy so she can't be doing too bad a job.

 

Well we currently have an unelected leader in the form of Mr. Brown. (There being no internal election run when Blair finally pissed off)

Still early days to decide how he's going to do. Definitely some things to be grateful for - i.e. he's not Tony. I actually agree with some of the policies he's been putting forward, but get the impression he's going to steam-roller things which won't prove popular.

The look on his face when he was taken for a spin in a golf-cart by Bushy was absolutely priceless, and probably did him a lot of good back here.

t

 

We have Angela Merkel.
I don't know about her. It pains me to admit: she's quite capable, for a conservative.*
Her foreign policy is good, she's obviously very effective in deliberations.
Sadly, domestic policies are quite chaotic, and several of the conservative state leaders are constantly throwing obstacles in her way.
Although they have been quiet for the last few months. Suspiciously quiet.


*This has nothing to do with conservatives in general, but with german conservatives. Believe me: there is no better alternative to 'Angie'. The best conservative politician we had in the last 20 years was president, who has next to no influence over politics in Germany.
Not that the social democrats are in a better position...

[ August 07, 2007, 22:21: Message edited by: Fabius Maximus ]

 

Imagine a guy who has never worked in his life and that his only qualification is that he has the same name with his uncle, who has been one of the most capable and important politicians of post-war Greece (several times minister, prime minister, founder of the post-junta conservative party, ended his political career as president of the republic). Imagine a guy whose speeches have almost the same content for the last ten years (we are the future, we will do reformations, we will fight corruption). Imagine a guy who hides during a crisis and let his ministers take all the flak, so that his public image remain undamaged. Imagine a guy, who is so active in the foreign policy, well known and respectable abroad that during his last visit to England the british journalists thought that he was the prime minister of Kazakstan coming to protest for Borat. If you can imagine a guy like that you know exaclty how our prime minister is.

 

Well, Matti Vanhanen, as Morgoroth said, isn't too bad a minister. Of course, I might be a little biased since I personally know him (lived practically next door for some five years), but I think he's fine anyways.
Sure, there was the thing with the woman, but nobody bothers to think too much of it, seeing that the whole thing was quite stupid. A woman though she would become the wife of a prime minister by spending an evening and a night with him (Vanhanen is a divorced man, and was looking for some company). When it turned out not to be so, she made up a mighty fine s**tstorm about how she now mystically knew all the secret infromation about the country and so on.

 

Our leader is old, decrepit, lying, and whores out to business, America, and whoever else is rich and powerful. He's quite happy to screw the ordinary person in the name of the economy, which is to him the most important thing about the country. If the opposition leader doesn't make the economy the centrepoint of his speeches and instead focuses on things such as education and worker's rights, good old Johnny will call him out on it. He's also managed to totally erode civil rights in Australia.

Fortunately, he is not likely to be our prime minister much longer.

 

Our PM is, well, bad. Not gut-wrenchingly terrible, just bad for the country. He heads a socialist-liberal coalition (for those in the UK/US: liberal as in small-state, free-market, not social liberal) that seems to want only one thing - more power, more money and more jobs for their relatives. Yes, technically three things, but when you get the power, the other two tend to follow. Imagine what principled government we're having... As a result we have a left-ish government carrying out a right-ish policy (would be right if it were not for the corruption etc), and mismanaging or misappopriating everything that isn't nailed down. Heck, GDP growth and foreign investment seem to be going down with our entry in the EU (btw, to the other people from EU states: sorry! I hope we'll rein things in soon...) Unfortunately, it does not look like there will be early elections soon: despite their internal problems, the coalition leaders are doing a good job keeping their parties together, the right-wing parties are either a complete joke or pseudonationalist bozos (or a little bit of both, as might be the case with the new right-wing movement), and no one sees any alternative. Unfortunately, the two parties with a guaranteed electorate are the two parties in the coalition I would least like to see in power.

 

Since LKD left it to another Canadian to cover Stephen Harper I guess I will step up to the plate.

Harper has pretty much been the invisible man since he became PM. Just about the only times I have seen him recently have been when he has been interviewed about hockey during the NHL playoffs. I was initially scoffing at his hockey appearances being just publicity stunts but he did seem to know what he was talking about so I guess he was just using his position to score some good seats.

Partially you can attribute this to his running a minority government and as such not having the power to make significant changes but still I don't remember ever hearing so little about what the PM is up to. However, given that I don't like his party's positions on most issues I am actually happy that he hasn't been messing everything up.

 

If he has any hope of a shot at a full majority, he HAS to keep quiet and not have any scandals. If he is seen as a quiet, "get the job done without wasting money on foreign strippers" kind of guy, he'll maybe get another shot at being PM.

I like the Conservatives and their positions, but I wish they'd roll back the GST a little more and take a harder line against vocal minorities.

 

@Aikanaro: Well said. Australia will be glad to be rid of him. Hope he loses the next election by a landslide.

 

Well, I will say this for Harper, he (like seemingly every Canadian politician in the past ten years or so) has enough humility and self-effacing humour to appear with Rick Mercer - had the guy over to 22 Sussex Drive initially for an interview, then for dinner, then for a sleepover. Rick was a riot playing with the kids.

I agree he's playing Mr. Low-key, but his administration has still been taking flak for some of the inevitable gaffes (muzzling of caucus members, etc).

I wouldn't necessarily agree with his party or his policies, but I would say a quiet run is EXACTLY what Canada needs for the next while!

 

I'm too ashamed to bring up anything that invloves our PM.