Father knows best

Winning the dynasty derby.

It not only pays for politicians to have a posse of children to choose from, to run in the dynasty derby but also to have a couple of try-outs before picking the final successor.

Eeny-meeny-miney-moh may not be a very scientific way to decide on who should carry on the family business at the hustings, but it is a darn sight better than having only a couple of them to choose from, especially if the parent is canny about the exercise.

Especially when there is the salutary case of Britain staring them in the face.

There, the Miliband brothers David and Ed have had the unfortunate fate of being pitted against each other for the post of party leader — for lack of proper parental guidance, obviously.

Ideally, the brothers should have done a Blair-Brown type deal to obviate an early fizzling-out of the Miliband rocket.

They could have at least remembered the seminal role that Joseph Kennedy played in the US, carefully calibrating the political debuts of his charismatic sons, and perpetuating the family’s pre-eminence.
    
It all boils down to having a canny parent, who has the smarts to see who is the best son/daughter for the job; and it helps if there is a possibility of multiple choice.

The efficacy of this method is even more apparent now that, in quick succession, two leaders from two very different Asian countries with widely divergent political systems, have decided to take the eeny-meeny route.

The shadowy North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has elevated his youngest son to four-star general status, and the flamboyant Bihar leader Lalu Prasad has anointed his cricketing younger son Tejaswi as heir, somewhat unfairly skipping all his seven daughters.

Considering both supremos had reportedly banked on older progeny before, they have evidently realised that primogeniture may not be the answer in this era of multiple choice.