What’s wrong with politics? Or, perhaps, more appropriately, what’s right with it? Everything and very little would be the answer of most people to these two questions. The obvious follow-up query is, why then has politics plummeted so low in public esteem? The answers to this are too numerous to enumerate here, but there are some structural issues that help make politicians even more ineffective than the sum of their limitations. So what are these? Well, democracy, to begin with. As we’re all too aware in Mauritius, parties are continuously stuck in campaign mode, to the point where vying in elections is all they’re really good at. The trouble is, of course, that the real challenges of the day aren’t waiting idling by for them to get their game together.

So far, so obvious. But there’s perhaps more to this conundrum than meets the eye. This was explicated in some detail last Thursday at the National Assembly’s lunch room, of all places. Courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mauritius London School of Economics Society Trust Fund, the audience, composed mainly of civil servants, had the opportunity of listening to the husband-and-wife team of Dr Robert Falkner and Baroness Falkner of Magravine. The former is an associated professor in international relations at the LSE, whereas the latter is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson at the House of Lords. In other words, an academic and a politician, both of whom gave their perspectives on the topic of “Climate change as a public policy challenge”.

Other than being an incredibly complex issue requiring “global collective action”, climate change diplomacy is hampered by what Dr Falkner described as the “time horizon problem”. What this basically means is that politicians and, indeed, society just aren’t interested in long-term solutions, whereas climate change is a long-term challenge “par excellence”. In fact, one could even go so far as to say that politicians are simply a reflection of society. Transposed to the Mauritian context, what does such a mediocre Cabinet say about us?

Speaking as a politician, the baroness reached similar conclusions, albeit using a different track. The “democratic imperative”, she said, means that politicians have to “think short-term, bread and circuses”. “You can’t get elected on long-term visions”, she affirmed. After having aimed a couple sideswipes against Wikileaks and, even, transparency (she’s not a politician for nothing), the LibDem peer cited two preconditions for long-term thinking: nonpartisanship (“deny voters the choice”) and the setting up of commissions of inquiry to “set and review targets and report to Parliament”.

This doesn’t however solve the problem of the lack of public trust in politicians. And if we think they’re awful, what does this say about us? In a nutshell, that we don’t think we deserve any better. A self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.