To Be or Not to Be a President!

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Orlando, Fla., Friday, Dec. 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Willie J. Allen Jr.)

In every continent, there was a certain time when one country – at least – was facing a presidential crisis. Actually, 2016 showed us that we need to redefine the process to elect a person for presidency, then ask him / or her, to step down.

Asia was not an exception.

To begin, look at Seoul that witnessed what was described in media as a “political scandal”. For foreign observers, like me, it was an astonishing scene to watch thousands of South Korean rushing into their capital’s streets, for weeks, demonstrating with written slogans and vocal calls, asking their President to leave her chair.

If you have a fortune teller friend, you must be aware of your own future. But, as our Egyptian proverb says: “The Carpenter’s Door is Broken!” I cannot judge whether this is a comic story or a tragic one, as that certain fortune teller was the reason behind impeaching the country’s leader, Park Geun-hye.

The first lady insisted in her apology letter that she did not issue any illegal statement, nor she did a wrong action. For a president, this was not enough, as South Korean lawmakers, including some from Park’s own party, voted overwhelmingly to impeach her, and to have Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn serving as interim president until the court rules.

First advice; get rid of your friends, to continue your presidency safely. This is true, especially when you have a cult person in the friendship ring, who utilized being a woman around the president.

In this file photo taken on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hand with Syrian President Bashar Assad as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, looks on in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Alexei Druzhinin, RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

In Syria, there is a tale of two presidents; Bashar Al-Assad, and his Russian friend; Vladimir Putin.

The war in Syria, fueled with US weapons, KSA oil money, and world fanatic Islamists fighters, started more than five years ago. It should have ended fast, but the situation continued as all were getting benefits, except the Syrians themselves; who faced death at battlefield, humiliation by ISIS troops, and refusal at European boarders.

All Syrian citizens are currently suffering, those who could escape, and the others who could not. Only there is one exception; the Syrian president, who always appears on TV screens with a smiling face. If a leader of any country must be fair with all of his country men and women, so Bashar was so justice to give his people the freedom to choose the place where they die; by bombs at home, sinking in the sea, while they run away seeking a refugee.

The second advice: to continue being a president, kill your people, but keep a strong friend to defend you; the Russian president.

The third advice comes from the States. Forget about your misbehavior with women. Do not consider the bad language about others, especially those in power in other countries. No need to have a long political career with deep thought and bright vision. These are all not needed when you have enough money to buy media, a lot of companies to build sky scrapers, and your own presidential plane…

Welcome the 45th president of the United States

Donald John Trump was elected with a surprise in “a stunning culmination of an explosive, populist and polarizing campaign that took relentless aim at the institutions and long-held ideals of American democracy”, as NY Times wrote on the eve of the  triumph for Mr. Trump, 70, a real estate developer-turned-reality television star with no government experience, was a powerful rejection of the establishment forces that had assembled against him, from the world of business to government, and the consensus they had forged on everything from trade to immigration.

If Asia got the North Korean leader’s show and stories, re-narrated as a symbol of funny political situations, now comes the time for US to have its funny man in the White House.

The telephone call, Mr. Trump made, with his counterpart in Taiwan, is an example of what kind of stories we are coming to hear from the other side of the ocean.

The fourth advice for presidents comes from Lebanon.

This tiny Arab country on the Asian Mediterranean had been without a head of state for 29 months after Michel Suleiman stepped down as president at the end of his term in May 2014.

Since then, 45 sessions to elect a new leader have failed due to political infighting that led to of a lack of quorum. The country’s complex power-sharing system stipulates that the president should always be a Maronite, Lebanon’s largest Christian denomination. The prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.

That has an end when more than 100 of the 128-member legislature gathered at the Lebanese to choose Michel Aoun, the former Lebanese army chief, for president when he won the support of 83 MPs, well above the absolute majority of 65 needed to get.

Mr. Aoun’s dream to rule Lebanon was very old. In 1988, Muslim leaders refused to his administration and backed the existing Sunni-led government. Mr Aoun subsequently declared a “war of liberation” against Syrian forces in Lebanon.

Although a new president was elected in November 1989, Mr Aoun did not step aside until Syrian-led forces drove him out of the presidential palace and into exile in France in October 1990.

He returned to Lebanon only after Syrian troops withdrew in 2005 under international pressure following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Saad Hariri’s father.

Despite his life-long opposition to Syria’s influence, Mr Aoun formed a surprise political alliance with its staunch ally, Hezbollah, in 2006.

It needed 26 years to go back to the presidential palace, as an elected president. So the clear fourth advice: “Keep your dram to a president alive, a quarter of a century will go fast”

In fact, going back to the presidential palace is not enough to continue in it. Ms. Park was raised in the Blue House when she was a child, with her father in power. But that was not an enough guarantee to keep her chair there.

To Be or Not to Be a President, that was the question!