A MANDATE TO RULE?



Who gave this man a mandate
To rule with an iron fist?
Who could foresee the evil way
He’d lead this state amiss?
He sat in stony silence
Till we cast our fatal votes;
No word before election day
Of how he’d quash our hopes.

Who gave Kennett a mandate
To downgrade transport schedules?
Who voted for this tyrant
Who could be such a fool?
Who gave this man a mandate
For all his secret vices?
Was it the evil, creeping swinging voters
That this fiend entices?

Who voted for the evil things
He never warned us about?
If only we’d been forewarned
Would we have voted Joan out?
No word of how he planned
To tackle unemployment figures;
Sacking 35,000 public servants
So unemployment grows ever bigger.

Who gave this creep a mandate
Surely not you or me?
Who said he could do the evil
That we daily see?
Who gave this man the right
To veto all workers’ rights;
To govern like a maniac
Terrorising our lives?

Who said that Jerky Jeffy
Could shutdown all our schools;
Shutdown all our hospitals
Rampaging like a fool?
Who gave this man the right
To suck-up to the bosses;
Blaming only workers
For Victoria’s ongoing losses.

Who gave this monster authority
To treat his people like cattle?
To treat workers and unions both
Like the enemy in battle?
Who gave Kennett the power
To stamp on us like bugs?
Reflecting back to election day
We can see we acted like mugs.

Who gave this man the method
To stamp upon our future;
To act like a rabid dog
This most evil, grinning cur?
Who appointed him der Fuhrer
Of this new fascist state?
Must we wait till October ‘96
To rectify our mistake?

Who gave the king of faux pas
Authority to rule?
When prior to now he’d always been
A grinning, giggling fool!

THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

About this poem

Jeff Kennett, the stupidest man to ever be premier of Victoria, came to power after John Caine and Joan Kirner had all but bankrupted the entire state. The result was that for three state elections Kennett refused to mention any election policies during the run-up period to the election. So Kennett can honesty claim that he is the only Victorian Premier to not break a single election promise. Because he never made a single election promise, calling into question whether he ever truly had a true mandate to rule!

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Written on 1999

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on July 27, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:37 min read
2

Quick analysis:

Scheme Axbcxxbx axxdAefc xgxgxfxh aijiKxxx ixxdKxfe ijxjhlbl xhxhhahx xdxd xxx
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,710
Words 324
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 4, 3

Phil Roberts

I turn 65 on the 31st of January 2022. I love cats, rock music, and horror fiction and poetry more…

All Phil Roberts poems | Phil Roberts Books

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