What does Merkel have? The health of world leaders, a secret danger

Germany,

Angela Merkel

She was known, among others, for her tireless and persevering physical strength, so much so that this week a columnist of the prestigious newspaper
Suddeutsche Zeitung He said that its construction would make "the envy of even an Arab horse".

It was up to a month or less ago. Now
The disconcerted Germans do not know if the tremors of their Foreign Minister – public and too frequent – are the symptoms of a serious and dangerous illness, or only signs of minor discomfort. In short, they do not know if the state of health of their head of government is deteriorating or not and if it will affect their ability to lead the Chancellery and support a full-fledged coalition already on the verge of partition.

Its leaders have no obligation to disclose their medical history or state of health, a silence the German government does not want to break despite growing concerns about Merkel. Constitutionally, German leaders – and a large majority of the presidents of the world – have the right to preserve their privacy on health issues.

Politically, this may not be convenient: the lack of transparency fuels rumors, suspicions and mistrust and leads to a lack of credibility that can weaken any government. The dilemma of each leader is not only to reveal whether or not the state of health, but also to know how much detail to disseminate.

What is the problem with Merkel?

The Chancellor keeps her medical history confidential and does not even have an official doctor. But her health quickly became the agenda of the Germans, who saw her tremble in three different acts of June 18 today.

His explanation was that he was dehydrated. Specialists, eagerly consulted by the German media, speculate about stomach problems, orthostatic tremor or symptoms of something very typical in the life of a government leader, exorbitant stress.

None of the three options seems to threaten the image of strength that a head of government needs. After all, president or not, you can be sick and lead a normal life.

What begins to become a problem is the indifference of the Chancellor and her government to a question that worries the Germans.

Another health incident of a leader might indicate that the lack of transparency is as dangerous, if not more so, than the disease itself.

The lesson of Algeria

Abdelaziz Buteflika led Algeria for 20 years; He came to power in 1999 and ended a bloody civil war that devastated power. A little more than 10 years later, he survived – through the force of oil and subsidies – to Arab sources, who controlled the presidents of their neighbors, Libya and Tunisia. But in 2013, he suffered a stroke and his health began to deteriorate, forcing him to make repeated and mysterious trips to Switzerland and France.

However, in February of this year, Bouteflika, 81, who has not spoken in public since 2014, announced that he would run for a fifth presidential election. it's the spark that has inflamed the anger and mobilization of Algerians.

Fed up with an authoritarian and secretive government and doubting the real capacity of its president's government, the Algerians began to suspect that Algeria's real engines were Said, the president's younger brother, and Gaid Salah, Chief of the Joint Staff. The mobilizations continued and at the beginning of April, satiety with the secrecy on the health of the "invisible president" made it possible to realize what the Arab Spring had not done: to put an end to the Bouteflika era.

Chavez and secrecy as state policy

All diseases can not lead to the end of a term, but they surely condition the affected president and that of his successors. In mid-2011,

Hugo Chavez

He reappeared after a month of absence to tell Venezuelans that he had cancer. The transparency of Chávez is over there. In the next 20 months, the Venezuelan president was elected four times, but neither he nor his government agreed to specify what type of cancer it was.

According to what was reported after Chávez's death, it was a sarcoma, a very aggressive cancer that makes the daily life of those who suffer from it very difficult. To fight him, he appealed to the most secret country possible, endowed with a hermetic medical system, Cuba.

Despite Venezuelans' requests for more information, Chávez even won the presidential elections of October 2012. But in December, he finally had to warn the Venezuelans that he was leaving for Havana again to a fourth operation and that he left in his place.

Nicolás Maduro.

The next three months, the secret was state policy aimed at protecting power and ensuring Chavez's transition. Despite initial optimistic reports on December 30, Maduro announced that Chávez's situation had worsened. There was not much more information than that and the rumors began to fly.

Critics warned that Chavez was dead or incapable. In either of these cases, the local Constitution states that elections must be called within 30 days of "the absolute absence of the president" and that the opposition has requested informations. It never happened and Maduro directed these three months until March 5th, he announced the death of Chávez. A little more than a month later, elections were held. Maduro triumphed, but was marked and sheltered in this opacity that surrounded his first months of internship.

The trauma of the death of Tancredo Neves

The impact of the death of an acting president can go beyond the conditioning of successors or the definition of an election. It can also leave its mark on the collective memory of a country.

In January 1985, Tancredo Neves was elected, at the end of an indirect poll, first president of the new democratic period in Brazil. Only 12 hours before taking office in March of the same year, he had to undergo emergency surgery, which was supposed to be appendicitis. From there, there were dozens of errors of malpractice (it was not an appendicitis, it was a tumor, which was mistaken for a diverticulum), covered with a thick coat of official secrecy and fueling hundreds of conspiracy theories that last until today. .

Nearly 40 days lasted the plight of Neves and Brazil, who was paralyzed in the expectation of recovery and was so traumatized by this experience of medical failures and faulty communications that still lives today with concern and distress. Episodes of health of its presidents, as during the last Bolsonaro operation in February, for wounds sustained in stabbings in September.

What is happening in other countries?

At that time, ambiguous and sometimes lying official communications were the only way for Brazilians to access information. With the rise of the viralization of everything through social networks, the physical and mental integrity of world leaders is increasingly exposed and affects not only the course of government, but also the result of the world. an election campaign.

That happened during the 2016 campaign in the United States, when

Hillary Clinton

he came across an act in New York, an incident that

Donald Trump

took the opportunity to question the physical ability of the former senator to be president.

USA is one of the few countries that has a protocol of action in case of presidential illness; at least four of its leaders died because of health problems in power. A constitutional amendment (25th) states that if the president is physically or mentally incapacitated, the Cabinet may decide to replace him.

This is why the White House has a powerful medical unit that constantly monitors the state of health of the President and, in case of any problem, must prepare reports for the benefit of the Cabinet members.

Few other countries have lines of action. George Pompidou died while he was French President in 1974 for a cancer that was only revealed after his death.

From there, all the French presidents are committed to periodically publishing reports on their health, a promise that few have fulfilled.

IN ADDITION