As politicians start shuffling — and often sleepwalking — towards their 80s or even 90s, now and then being gently shaken awake to pass legislation for a world that has changed radically since they started their careers in the 1960s, more and more people are asking: how old is too old for a politician?
Of course, it’s not a new question. In 1984, Ronald Reagan’s advanced age was a major talking point as he campaigned to become the oldest US president in history, clocking in at an incredibly ancient, almost mummy-like 73.
How times — and time — have changed. Next year, Americans will be asked to choose either 81-year-old house plant Joe Biden or, if he stays out of prison, 78-year-old fraudster and insurrectionist Donald Trump, respectively endorsed by 84-year-old Nancy Pelosi and 82-year-old Mitch McConnell, if both are still alive.
You didn’t join the ANCYL to be poor. You did it because it’s an escalator to accountability-free wealth in senior government
And they’re all spring chickens compared to current Cameroonian president, Paul Biya, who was born the year Hitler came to power in Germany and who was entering early middle age when Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
All of which makes the question more pertinent than ever. As humans live longer and longer, isn’t it time to start enforcing the HR version of the Viking ritual where old people were required to jump off a mountain for the good of the young ones back in the village?
On Thursday, TimesLIVE asked its readers what they thought about a sensible retirement age, and their response was emphatic: three-quarters of respondents said that our politicians should retire between 60 and 65.
As reported below the poll, such a cut-off would not only put Cyril Ramaphosa out to pasture but would also see the rustication of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (74), Pravin Gordhan (74), Patricia de Lille (72), Bheki Cele (71), Naledi Pandor (69), Gwede Mantashe (68), Angie Motshekga (68), Enoch Godongwana (66) and Joe Phaahla (66), a list whose achievements in government since 1994 could easily fill at least half a sheet of A4 paper.
I understand why young people feel that the 60-plus set doesn’t understand their needs or aspirations. In the West, particularly, it can be difficult for young people, carrying criminally exploitive student debt as they work two jobs in a collapsing middle class, to feel any connection to politicians who rode into cheap education and housing, and jobs for life, aboard the richest, most supercharged economic train in human history.
Still, it’s worth looking at who, exactly, is calling for mandatory retirement ages, and whether all they’re trying to do is replace rubbish old politicians with rubbish young ones.
Consider this week’s confrontation between Mantashe, surely the oldest 68-year-old this country has ever produced, and the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), which has once again demanded that half of all ANC positions in provincial legislatures and parliament should go to young people.
To be clear, I have great sympathy with the ANCYL. It must be very upsetting to still be squatting in the kiddie pool while you watch the Boomers load up on those ministerial salaries and pensions, knowing that many — or possibly even all — of those positions are going to evaporate when the ANC’s majority drops to near or below 50% in next year’s election.
After all, you didn’t join the ANCYL to be poor. You did it because it’s an escalator to accountability-free wealth in senior government. And now, after you’ve spent your 20s and 30s taking down rivals and curating cabals, you’ve reached the front of the queue only to find that the escalator is about to get much, much smaller and slower.
That, however, is where my sympathy ends, because this isn’t about how old politicians are. It’s about how good they are. And I hope the youth will forgive a middle-aged columnist for saying that I’ll take an honest, intelligent, hard-working, progressive and humane 70-year-old over literally any ambitious 30-year-old in the ANCYL today.
Now if only there were one of those in government ...
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