Essay
BY MIKE Ozekhome, SAN
Nepotism as a form of government
Introduction
NEPOTISM means favoritism that is granted to relatives in various fields, including business, politics, entertainment, sports, religion, and other activities. The term originated with the assignment of nephews to important positions by Catholic popes and bishops.
Origin of Nepotism
The term comes from the Italian word nepotism, which is based on the Latin root nepos meaning nephew. Since the Middle Ages and until the late 17th century, some Catholic popes and bishops – who had taken vows of chastity and, therefore, usually had no legitimate offspring of their own, gave their nephews such positions of preference as were often accorded by fathers to sons.
Several popes elevated nephews and other relatives to the cardinalate. Often, such appointments were a means of continuing a papal dynasty. For instance, Pope Callixtus III, Head of the Borgia family, made two of his nephew’s cardinals; one of them, Rodrigo, later used his position as a Cardinal as a stepping stone to the papacy, becoming Pope Alexander VI. Alexander then elevated Alessandro Farnese, his mistress’s brother, to cardinal; Farnese would later go on to become Pope Paul III.
Political
Nepotism is a common accusation in politics when the relative of a powerful figure ascends to similar power seemingly without appropriate qualifications.
Examples of Nepotic countries
Australia
Anna Bligh, who won the 2009 Queensland State election, has been accused of nepotism by giving her husband Greg Withers a position as the Office of Climate Change head.
Shortly after his appointment as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney in 2001, Peter Jensen was accused, in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview, of nepotism after nominating his brother Phillip Jensen as Dean of Sydney and appointing his wife Christine Jensen to an official position in the Sydney diocese.
Greece
In Greece, it is common practice for family members of current or former party leaders to be party members and get appointed as Ministers when the party is in government. In addition, there have been 3 Prime Ministers from the Papandreou family, 2 from the Mitsotakis family (1 currently serving), 2 from the Karamanlis family (a 3rd one is currently serving as Minister of transportation).
Azerbaijan
On 21 February 2017, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev appointed his wife Mehriban Aliyeva to be Vice President of Azerbaijan.
Belgium
Over the past decade, criticism has been growing over the creation of political dynasties in Belgium, in which all of the traditional political parties have been involved. This phenomenon has been explained by the fact that prominent party members control the ranking of candidates on party lists for elections and a candidate’s place on a list determines whether or not he or she is elected.
Cambodia
Prime Minister Hun Sen and senior members of Parliament are also known for their hand in getting family members into government positions. In the 2013, in Cambodian parliamentary elections, at least eight candidates standing in the July election were sons of high-ranking Cambodian People’s Party officials. All ruling party sons lost but were appointed into high government positions.
China
For the past 3,000 years, nepotism has been common in China’s clan and extended family-based culture. Confucius wrote about the importance of balancing filial piety with merit. The clan-based feudal system collapsed during Confucius’s lifetime, yet nepotism has continued through the modern age.
France
In October 2009, Jean Sarkozy, the second son of the President of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy, was poised to become the director of the major EPAD authority despite lacking any higher education degree and professional experience. In 2008, he was voted regional Councilor of Neuilly-Sur-Seine, the town of which his father had previously been mayor.
India
Corruption goes hand in hand with nepotism in India. It goes on in government and private jobs both. Nepotism is common in politics, judiciary, business, and in the film industry. It goes on even in religious circles, arts, industry, and other types of organizations. Many members of Parliament and various Legislative Assemblies have a generations-long legacy of nepotic allocation of constituencies to their relatives. Many judges and advocates of the High courts and the Supreme Court are alleged to be appointed by exercising casteism, nepotism, and favoritism, primarily because the Supreme Court and the High Courts use a non-transparent undemocratic appointment process called Collegium which recommends to the President, in a legally binding manner, the names of judges to be appointed or promoted to the higher judiciary.
Mauritius
Since the first democratic elections of 1948 and subsequent elections, the field of politics has been marked by a handful of families who have controlled the four major political parties which exist to this day.
Following the electoral defeat of the Labour Party in 2014 ex-Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam was arrested on suspicions of money laundering and conspiracy. A police raid of his house exposed several safes containing brand new banknotes to the value of Rs 220 Million rupees, exclusive credit cards, and prescription medication tablets. His girlfriend Nandanee Oogarah-Soornack, accompanied by the ex-Prime Minister’s daughter Xara had escaped Mauritius to her castle in Parmes, Italy a day before the proclamation of election results with an estimated Rs 800 Million rupees.
Romania
Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s family members dominated the country for decades. Elena Băsescu, the daughter of President Traian Băsescu, was elected in 2009, to the European Parliament, despite the fact that she had no significant professional or political experience.
Singapore
Singapore’s government has been the target of numerous charges of nepotism, with several members of the Prime Minister’s family holding high posts. The family members dispute the charges as they arise.
Spain
Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs, son of Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1980 to 2001, has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2001, and his daughter, Maria Teresa Samaranch Salisachs, has been president of the Spanish Federation of Sports on Ice since 2005.
Nepotism occurred in Spanish Colonial America when offices were given to family members.
Sri Lanka
Former President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and giving out other political positions to relatives, regardless of their merit. During his presidency, the Rajapaksa family held the Ministries of Finance, Defence, Ports and Aviation, and highways and road development. The president’s brother, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, was given the post of Defence Secretary.
He also controlled the Armed Forces, the Police, and the Coast Guard, and was responsible for immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brother Basil Rajapaksa as Minister of Economic Development. Together, the Rajapaksa brothers controlled over 70% of Sri Lanka’s public budget.
Mahinda Rajapaksa’s eldest brother, Chamal Rajapaksa, was appointed as the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka and has held many other posts before, while his eldest son, Namal Rajapaksa, is also a member of the parliament and holds undisclosed portfolios.
United Kingdom
The Marquess of Salisbury, who was Prime Minister for three separate occasions from 1885-1902 for a total of approximately 14 years, appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887 and later as Prime Minister in 1902. This is supposedly the origin of the phrase Bob’s Your Uncle.
In February 2010, Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life said that more than 200 MPs used Parliamentary allowances to employ their own relatives in a variety of office roles. He suggested that the practice should be banned.
In 2005, Councillor Ann Reid of York arranged for all nine sets of traffic lights on her daughter Hannah’s wedding route through York to be switched to green for the five-car convoy. As a result, the wedding party took only 10 minutes to pass through the city.
North Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell was disciplined by the IPCC in 2011, but refused to resign, after admitting that he assisted a relative through the first stages of a recruitment process.
Many Northern Irish politicians employ family members. In 2008, 19 elected politicians of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) directly employed family members and relatives constituted 27 of its 136 staff.
United States of America
Palm Beach County, Florida schools reinforced nepotism rules as of 2012 to ensure an equitable work environment.
In December 2012, a report from the Washington Post indicated various nepotism practices from the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), including one family with five members working for the MWAA. One of the reasons given by the associate General Counsel to defend the alleged nepotism was if the employees are qualified and competed for the positions on their own, I don’t see a problem with relatives working in the same organization.
The Inspector-General of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Congress pressured the MWAA to resolve practices of nepotism. Authority employees are no longer allowed to directly or indirectly influence the hiring or promotion of relatives, as documented in their ethics policy. John F. Kennedy made his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps, and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General.
In 1979, Bill Clinton, within weeks of being newly elected as Governor of Arkansas, appointed his wife Hillary to the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee. In 1993, newly elected as President of the United States, he again appointed his wife to chair a Task Force on National Health Care Reform. In 2013, Bill appointed his daughter Chelsea a member of the governing board of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative.
In 2017, President Donald Trump appointed both his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka (married to Kushner) into advisory roles to the President. Neither Jared nor Ivanka take a salary, and advisor is not an official tax-paid government employee position. In 2020, President Donald Trump appointed his son Eric Trump’s brother-in-law, 35-year-old Kyle Yunaska, to the position of NASA Deputy Chief of Staff. Yunaska holds an MBA (2009) and a 2007 Bachelor of Science in Management and Physics, both from East Carolina University, where he was a cross-country competitor.
Yunaska is a paid government employee. Current (since 1995) US court rulings have held that the White House itself does not constitute an agency for the purposes of adhering to existing anti-nepotism laws on the books.
Venezuela
Nepotism is known to be practiced by the President of the Venezuela National Assembly, Cilia Flores. Nine positions in the National Assembly were filled by Flores family members, including a mother-in-law, aunt, 3 siblings, a cousin, and her mother, and 2 nephews.
Zimbabwe
The late Robert Mugabe was reported to be preparing his wife Grace Mugabe to be the next president of Zimbabwe while he was president. Vice President Joice Mujuru was previously considered to be the favored successor to Mugabe.
Thought for the week
“Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don’t mean just the inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the middle and upper classes, which is nepotism, the old-boy network”. (Toni Morrison).
Last line
Fellow Nigerians, synergise with me every week, to put our heads together on how to retool Nigeria. Right here on “The Nigerian Project”, by Chief
Mike A. A. Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb, LL.M, Ph.D, LL.D.
– May 10, 2021 @ 11:45 GM
Tags: Different people different forms of government (part 20)
