Political Dynast: Anathema to Democracy

For decades, we often heard, in print and broadcast media, outcries banning political dynasty in local and national level political posts and calling for national legislators to enact an enabling law espousing the critical issue which many assert “detrimental to nation’s progress and a blight of democracy”. The term is also known as oligarchy, an equivalent term in political science and is coined to describe a practice, or even a tradition referring to family members or people within the same bloodline, next of kin, or lineage who run for public office or it simply means the succession of family members into elected or appointed political offices. Some have voiced out that oligarchy is the root cause of all corruption in varying degree in the government which transcends not only from past and present generations but to posterity as well. This radical issue arises or becomes the talk of the town every time there is a forthcoming election whether in local or national polls. One prominent senator openly remarked that the issues of culminating oligarchy often beseech by those aspiring to be voted for public office that have no track record of good public service within their family line or are neophyte aspiring candidates creating clamors just to be recognized and frequently bashing those names with known political affiliation in order to exalt their selves. Also, as one eminent professor asserts that “there are good and bad political dynasties”. He distinguishes: “bad political dynasties” is that which resort to illegal means to keep their rivals out of office, and “benevolent political dynasties” which do not trace their political supremacy to such negative factors. Nonetheless, with all due respect to opposite assertions, the very fact that its influence remains prevalence, the notion of political dynasties have long been present in democracies, raising concerns that disparity in the distribution of political power may reflect flaws in democratic representations