Scandals are a part of politics simply because politics is shrouded in secrecy, often not entirely impenetrable.
Scandals are apparently symptomatic of a healthy democracy and indicative of good moral substance in a people.
They seem to happen in the presence of two conditions of normality: firstly the fact that there exist judges, journalists or independent officials who are able to operate freely and are able to investigate and uncover any unlawful activity. Secondly that there exists a public opinion that can itself become scandalised, and that it is imbued with a sense of moral ethics and constitutional rigour which in turn leads to feelings of indignation and anger.
The reality is however more complicated.
In Anglo Saxon countries the reaction to scandals favours less tiresome and gossipy variants, essentially those that involve sex. This leads one to doubt the moral ethics and constitutional rigour desc...
_OMISSIS_ ...n those countries, the career of a politician is affected much more by a detective discovering the existence of a past lover, rather than the fact that he may have been a CEO of a company that is receiving favours from the public body now under his control.
This seems to be the result of the influence of religion in Anglo Saxon culture, added to an obsession with sex (if one thinks that the vast majority of world pornography is produced in puritan United States), however it must also be said that even in different societies and cultures, such as in China, sex scandals are given prominent coverage.
In Latin countries, sex scandals have much less prominence in public opinion compared to other types abuses of power. In these countries, the sexual proclivities of politicians are considered to be matters pertaining to their personal affairs and are considered scandalous or rather are exposed only when it involves the same sex, or it starts to ca...
_OMISSIS_ ...n the behaviour is careless, because only then is it considered incompatible with the status of public office and in particular a factor that will interfere with and delay the politician from dedicating the time and energy necessary which it is presumed they must dedicate to their office.
Another similarly strange idiosyncrasy of the Anglo Saxons compared to everyone else - probably originating from religion - is the weight attached to perjury which attracts its own criminal charges and is given greater severity by the weight of public opinion, than those crimes that the mendacious politician had committed and had tried to hide by committing perjury, such as for example perverting the course of justice or having received bribes. In the rest of the world, however, it is taken for granted that those who have perverted the course of justice or received bribes won't have any qualms about committing perjury in their denial and therefore it's hard to understand...
_OMISSIS_ ...n insistence on this particular issue.
But aside from these differences and excepting a few cases, scandals usually involve secondary issues and involve secondary characters. In these cases, scandals are instrumental to the wielding of power, which, from time to time must bow to the wishes of the populace and sacrifice some small fish to give the impression of cleaning up the inside, but which in reality simply serve to perpetuate the status quo.
These scandals are expertly set up and managed, particularly when it is necessary to distract public opinion whilst delicate operations are taking place, which require the creation of a diversion: it's like throwing a dog a bone when one wants to pass by.
The advent of the internet and social networks has given the masses a formidable (albeit hated and feared by all totalitarian regimes, and not only) instrument of freedom and of expression of knowledge and for furthering relations. ...
_OMISSIS_ ... less and less dependent on the communications systems controlled by the powers that be (which however still remain critical, by virtue of their powerful and professional communications network).
Although there are moves afoot by governments to control information in the hands of the elite club of giant controllers of this internet human-related traffic (Google, Facebook and Twitter the front runners).
The internet has undoubtedly raised the social scrutiny of politicians and the number of "real" scandals, not linked to the exercise of power, have increased.
Many countries with few democratic principles are exempt from scandals, however this is the big limitation with such systems of governance, because the lack of democratic principles encourages the difficulties and frustrations of the people who, with no outlet for their frustration due to corruption and excesses, will sooner or later explode into uncontrollable s...
_OMISSIS_ ...RLF|
Politicians are well aware of the practice of controlled scandals, which are useful both to settle internecine scores and to close the party ranks, thus ensuring obedience to the leaders. If it is necessary to sacrifice someone, you always start with those on the margins.
If the predetermined victim is to be given a chance of redemption or a simple warning, it will start with a few compromising messages appearing in friendly newspapers or an anonymous compromising post on a blog, or an unpleasant interview will be published.
If on the other hand the victim has to be eliminated, nothing compromising is leaked before the completion of the file in order not to alarm the victim and give them the chance to raise a defence and when the time is right, the scandal is unleashed with the maximum impact.
Those politicians who end up in the fire however, are not all doomed: we all remember the crocodile tears of Bill Clinto...
_OMISSIS_ ...d him to be saved from impeachment (thanks to the farcical and ubiquitous sin > repentance > pardon).
In fact experience has shown that when scandals involve people of importance, often one way or another they manage to survive.
However, pawns involved in other's games must be vigilant because colleagues that are caught up in scandals are losers and the careers of the majority of them are doomed to end.