Bachelor PM
Picture this: a bachelor as Prime Minister. It doesn’t sit well as we’re in the throws of an election campaign, does it? Would we vote for John Howard sans Janette? Would Kevin Rudd get a look in if Therese had a liaison with, say, a dashing foreign executive? They’re having to swallow exactly that in France where no sooner was Nicolas Sarkozy installed as the nation’s 23rd president has he declared he’s no longer a package deal. His knockout ex-model wife, Cecilia, who professed politics ‘bores’ her and confessed to falling in love with another man and absconding briefly to New York, has left the Elysee Palace. For good.
Aside from Napoleon divorcing Jospehine for failing to produce an heir, France has never seen anything like it. Affairs are one thing, a petit presidential tryst accepted as part of the political landscape; Jacques Chirac kept many lovers ‘as discreetly as possible’. Francois Mitterand had a secret family which was barely mentioned. But to go it alone is another matter altogether. No matter what’s going on, first ladies the world over usually sustain the façade of normality (think Jackie Kennedy, Hilary Clinton), which is more than can be said of this latest scandale.
Cecilia has changed the rules. She was absent during her husband’s election campaign, snapped by Paris Match with her lover in NYC, and didn’t even vote, not even for her husband. By his inauguration she was back, on the red carpet in a Prada frock kissing her husband on the lips on the lips. But now she’s out – a statement issued from the Presidential office declaring divorce ‘by mutual consent’ like Hollywood movie stars. It’s tres unsettling.
They can behave how they like over there but we mustn’t let such behaviour sweep across borders.
Politicians are the last bastion of lasting marriage role models without whom we’d have no one to aspire to. How comforting that John Howard still holds hands with Janette and, as portrayed in the recent book, ‘Stand By Your Man’, simply couldn’t get by without her. How touching watching Kevin Rudd defend Therese to the death when her business came under scrutiny, and he’s happy for her to keep her surname. They can undercut tax cuts all they like but it’d mean nothing without their other halves. David Speers would’ve been forced to put it to them in the Great Debate, ‘Can you explain to the voters how on earth you expect to keep the nation on track when you can’t even keep a grip on your own marriage?’
Thankfully we don’t have to go there. Our leaders have had the decency to wait until after they’ve left office – if at all – to divorce. We wouldn’t have trusted Hawke without Hazel or Keating without Anita. We as a nation aren’t ready. We remain suspicious of the unmarried. Julia Gillard has been lambasted for it, Tony Abbott saying she lacks ‘life experience’ to be deputy leader, a euphemism for never married. Her committed relationship doesn’t count, nor her extensive credentials. Be wed, and then we’ll talk.
We’re not the only ones. The rest of the world’s not up for it either – single people running countries. Just as we prefer our religious leaders to be celibate to free them up to focus on God and good, so we don’t want our politicians to be distracted by playing the field.
The French claim indifference to their presidential cuckold; 93% say their opinion of Sarkozy remains unchanged post split. He insists he was elected for nothing other than to ‘work, work and work more.’ But his love life has knocked a national transport strike off the front pages and there’s already been speculation over who’ll be the next ‘premiere dame’ as he’s photographed in a tête-à-tête with a former Bond girl.
We simply don’t have time for such shenanigans. But, gee it’d liven things up a bit.