There are few professional classes more reviled today than politicians. In Western popular culture — particularly in the US — the most biting contempt was previously reserved for those in a different profession: lawyers.
A combination of elevated status, ethical ambiguity and the perception that they profit massively from their clients’ trauma is undoubtedly what made lawyers easy targets for social derision. But the global surge in democracy after World War 2 and the corresponding growth in the number of elected political leaders means this slot is now firmly occupied by the world’s political class.
Like attorneys, politicians are perceived as high-status, morally ambiguous individuals, made more loathsome by the fact that they are paid public servants who too often abuse their power over the public purse. In a report published by Pew last month, adult citizens in 25 countries — including the UK, South Korea, Turkey, Kenya, South Africa and Mexico — were asked to rate the honesty, empathy, ethics and competency of elected officials in their countries. Almost half of the adults (47%) said that “few or none” of their politicians were honest, and 40% believed that few or none were ethical.
Working in such a meaningful but hated profession has a two-pronged effect on the quality of our democracies: many great leaders steer clear of what is viewed as a toxic environment that risks their reputation and wellbeing. Those who do enter elected political office become so demoralised by their working environment and public perceptions that their ability to lead is negatively impacted.
A 2023 report by the Apolitical Foundation, which evaluated the mental health of more than 100 elected political leaders, concluded that they had a higher rate of low mental wellbeing than medical professionals working during the Covid pandemic.
South Africa has a total of about 9,250 elected politicians. They preside over the estimated R650bn in annual municipal revenues and a national budget of R2.59-trillion for the 2025/26 financial year alone. Most have profoundly abnormal personal and professional lives as a consequence of their roles and responsibilities.
In a country like ours, trauma often plays a big part in people’s decisions to run for office, yet much of it remains unresolved because of the stigma around seeking mental health care
In South Africa, many have come to politics from trauma — both before and after apartheid. We have senior political leaders who were incarcerated, tortured and violated during their time in the liberation struggle. Others were traumatised by their experiences in apartheid-era conscription, the mandatory military service for all white men who had completed their education, which was established in 1967 and abolished only in 1994.
As the Harvard professor, author and leading democratic political organiser Marshall Ganz once wrote: We all have stories of pain, or we wouldn’t think the world needs changing. We all have stories of hope, or we wouldn’t think we could change it.”
In a country like ours, trauma often plays a big part in people’s decisions to run for office, yet much of it remains unresolved because of the stigma around seeking mental health care.
Politicians are also too often traumatised or retraumatised while in elected office. A 2022 report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) exposed the endemic nature of violence against women parliamentarians around the world. The numbers are horrific: 66% reported having experienced psychological violence, including “threats of death, rape, beatings or abduction”.
A devastating percentage of women MPs have also experienced sexual violence perpetrated by fellow parliamentarians. According to the IPU, “this is staggeringly prevalent in Africa, where 40% of those surveyed in our member parliaments revealed they had been sexually harassed at some point during their mandate, with 25% of European respondents and 20% worldwide confirming the same”.
Many turn to alcohol, illicit sexual relationships, and even drugs and other forms of self-harm and high-risk behaviour to alleviate the psychological anguish. Suicidal ideation is not uncommon. The alleged manner of the South African ambassador and former minister Nathi Mthethwa’s tragic death in Paris last month highlights the unspoken reality of the mental health struggles of people in political office.
When people ask me when I am going back to politics, I sometimes joke that I am much too busy sleeping all night, drinking water and minding my own business. The sleeping bit is untrue: I have chronic insomnia, exacerbated by recurring anxiety. I’ve been in therapy since 2010 — the year after I was first elected to parliament, aged 29. The two things are not unrelated.
Given the parlous reputation of politicians — and the harm visited upon citizens around the world by the corrupt, incompetent and mendacious among them — it is understandable that few concern themselves with their wellbeing. But the relationship between the quality of democratic governance and the quality of politicians’ mental wellbeing is closer than we realise, and we should reflect on what we need to transform about a political system that causes trauma in people who wield extraordinary power and whose decisions influence the socioeconomic outcomes of the countries they lead.
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