Political Dynasties to the Fore

April 20, 2011 (6.50 am, Paris)

by W.Scott Thompson @www.nst.com.my

IF you think about it, the wonder is that there are so few dynasties rather than so many, though maybe the idea is coming back into its own.

China hasn’t had any in over a century. But India has been governed since independence almost entirely by Nehru and his heirs, with the young Rahul Gandhi maturing in the wings while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finishes his reforms and keeps the seat warm for the family.

Saddam Hussein had to bury his own would-be heirs and, by the looks of it, Muammar Gaddafi’s son Seif is about as popular as his father.

There have been three American presidential father-son dynasties, and I doubt another Bush can break the record and add a third family member to their museum of stuffed stags. The Kennedys failed on their second try, and the money and numbers are so much more dispersed that no one fears a Kennedy dynasty.

Right now in the Philippines, the Marcos family is making a genuine comeback, puzzling to rational people. There are three of them in national positions, and they’ve been testing the waters by pushing to have the body of the old man moved from its museum in Ilocano-land to the national cemetery for heroes.

The new Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, is making all the sounds of a presidential run in 2016 to finish redeeming the family honour, and the Aquino palace — and there’s an actually good dynasty — is now beginning its counterattack.

It’s not easy to find presidential qualities in the senator, but there’s unlimited wealth behind him. Estimates of the family’s current boodle are usually put at about US$30 billion (RM90.85 billion). But they have to move it in-country cautiously. After all, they’ve never apologised for what they did, stole, and killed.

The idea of a dynasty isn’t a bad one. In medieval Europe, so much blood was shed among the would-be rulers fighting for primacy that, once the major countries had settled into incipient nationhood, the notion of legitimacy came to predominate.

It was better just to accept the eldest son as the next ruler, taking the bad with the good, than to have Wars of the Roses, 30 years of war, or assassination French-style.

This is why, though, the first night of marriage for the successor or ruler had to be witnessed. The elders had to be certain that whoever was conceived in the royal bed was, so to speak, the true issue. You didn’t want to start those wars all over again.

The late William F. Buckley Jr, who liked royalty, once said that he’d rather be ruled by an arbitrary and random selection of people from the New York phone book than by elected leaders. He just knew too much about what bad ingredients went into the political soup of elections and governance.

It’s natural to want our children’s success. On Wednesday mornings at about 8.40, I get to see my son Nick on CNN translating information technology obscuranta into laymen’s terms. I even try to pay attention to what he’s saying, though that’s secondary. But in politics, succession within families has come to be something quite different from pride or legitimacy. It’s about protecting the money and hiding the skeletons.

Bashir Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, who created about the most efficient dictatorship in the world during his 29-year rule of Syria, was so busy ensuring the succession to his son in his last weeks that he missed a sure peace deal with Israel (Camp David 2000) that probably would have worked for both parties.

The reason wealth protection has moved up so high in motive is globalisation. The first thing that began to move around in milliseconds was money. In the 18th century, the Holy Roman Emperor couldn’t send a franc to his sister, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. He also had sound military reasons for not sending an army from Vienna to save her from the guillotine.

The late Duke of Leuchtenberg, a poor Romanov trying to run a ski slope in Canada, told me that his cousin, the last tsar, had too much faith in Russia and was too generous, to have kept billions, say, in London, in case the mobs took over. Some relatives eventually got a lot of jewellery out, but there’s a book detailing just how little there really was beyond Leninist control.

And look at the later 20th century. Poor Svetlana — Stalin’s daughter — lives on meagre pensions in Wisconsin in her mid-80s. Her father hadn’t a cent outside Russia. Why should he? He owned the Soviet Union and he was interested in power, not money. But had he been able to wire a few billion out quietly in half a second, no doubt he would have done so. She made some money on memoirs in America but got scammed by devious husbands. Incredible ironies there.

In the Philippines, the Marcos moves are scary. Dad was smart and he learned as early as the 1960s how to move money around (and, say some, Japanese World War 2 gold).

They — especially Congresswoman Imelda — are tired of hiding their wealth. She would love to be high on the Forbes billionaire list and she would be but for the revelations such would entail of where all the money came from and where it is hidden.

The Marcos name is still golden in Ilocos Norte, the northernmost Filipino province. Ilocanos everywhere in the Philippines tend to vote for any and all of them. They are known for loyalty to clan, even when they know the clan leader bankrupted his country.

Money talks in the Philippines, more than in most places. That’s why the new president, heir to one of the best dynasties I know of anywhere, is eager to go after his predecessor, Gloria Arroyo, believed to have stolen billions.

President Benigno “Noy” Aquino nosedived in the polls recently because he bought a second-hand Porsche; he’s from a rich family, named Cojuangco, but they are not dot.com or modern-day billionaire tycoons. Once he has succeeded in hitting Arroyo, it’ll be easier to go after the Marcos wealth.

So many Marcos and Arroyo allies were enriched as to sustain factions in and out of government obstructing any search for real justice. But I think “Noy” knows how to set his priorities.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue last week went after Arroyo’s son Mikey for millions in unpaid tax dollars. Of all the world’s ironies, he gave up his congressional seat to his presidential mum, and managed to get a “party list” seat representing security guards, of all people. I’m not sure when the fox has been more menacingly put in the chicken coop, but my confidence in “Noy” is growing. And he’s from a dynasty that has earned its position.

The writer is emeritus professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, the United States

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