77. Integrity is a deadly weapon
Integrity is deadly because insufficient integrity is a reason for SPs having to quit their positions. If they are unfit to serve, the basis on which they gained their positions expires. Integrity is a deadly weapon because it can be used to trap SPs and trip them up. For that reason SPs should not hand it over to others on a plate, but should use it as a weapon, at the same time ensuring that is not turned against them. Integrity can also be disarming.
In addition to its beauty, integrity also has a dangerous side. Integrity is a deadly weapon. Why?
Firstly, a lack of integrity can be deadly. When it emerges that SPs have insufficient integrity, that is a reason for dismissing them. Integrity is the basis of an SP’s trustworthiness. Without this people cannot be trusted, so there is no reason to allow them to take office. For that reason, as stated in chapter 8, casting doubt on a person’s integrity can be seen as a serious, even the most serious injury, as it means claiming that the person is unfit for office, and the basis on which they held office no longer holds. Many SPs have had to clear the way due to a lack of integrity or even just the suspicion of such a shortcoming. It is also deadly because the chance of taking a different SP position is reduced or disappears altogether. As a politician who resigned because of suspected fraud said, “I am a man without a future.”425 According to his fellow party members he had become controversial and a risk to his party. Without integrity SPs’ careers are effectively condemned to death.
Integrity is not only deadly, it is also a weapon, in the sense that it can be consciously used and timed to cause SPs to fall, be that with good intentions or bad. Exposing incriminating information about an SP, publicly condemning an SP as dishonest and untrustworthy, or taking legal action against an SP, for example, can be fatal. Simply spreading rumors can damage
SPs’ reputations so as to make their positions untenable. SPs can also use integrity as a weapon themselves. This can even be done inappropriately, as in the case of a governor who used his executive power to remove a public official, claiming a conflict of interest, when the real reason was that this public official would vote against a controversial new pipeline (which was to run through state protected land, potentially harming residents nearby and threatening protected plants and wildlife), a project in the interest of a contributor to the governor’s campaign (the company that might finance the pipeline).426
The deadly weapon of integrity can also be used to trip up SPs, either by opening them up to blackmail, or by testing their integrity. Three members of the European Parliament were dismissed because it emerged that they were willing to accept bribes from journalists who presented themselves as lobbyists. The journalists asked for changes to bills that would be advantageous to financial institutions.They also asked the three for a less critical attitude to the human rights situation in Russia. According to the journalists, the three members of parliament asked for sums around €100,000.427 Similarly, the treasurer of the British conservative party resigned after camera images emerged showing him telling the journalists acting as lobbyists that he could arrange a dinner with Prime Minister Cameron, where everything would be confidential and anything could be asked, in exchange for a donation to the party of £200,000 to £250,000.428 A member of parliament also had to resign when it emerged that he had responded very seriously to made-up examples on a radio program. “In this interview I allowed myself to be led into statements that not only damaged my credibility, but also that of parliament as a whole and my own party,” the politician said on resigning.429 Prime minister of Serbia Ivica Dačić, however, withstood the test when a young TV interviewer wearing a short dress uncrossed her legs during an interview to reveal that she was not wearing any underwear. The president’s eyes and facial expression were followed closely by the cameras, showing only a brief smile and twinkle in his eye; he did not lose his thread.430
It is not only journalists who can put SPs’ integrity to the test: others around them are also able to do this. This can be done maliciously, for example by giving out confidential or false information in the hope that the SP will pass on the information and trip up, or with good intentions, by telling a fabricated secret to see if the SP can be trusted. A