Horny Politician, Shock!

But is she just a passing hairstyle?

I remember the first time I saw Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader, since the elections two weeks ago, of the second party in the Ukraine parliament and probable head of the next government.

It was back in the heady (but empty?) days of the Orange Revolution. There, standing on a stage in front of thousands of people in Independence Square, Kiev, was the leader of the ‘People Power’, Chief Orange himself, Viktor Yushchenko, his face horribly scarred by the effects of a poison that he consumed during a dinner with ‘friends’ a year before. He was a good looking guy, was Our Viktor, but not anymore…

Standing to his right on the stage, was her…Yulia. She is that very, very rare and almost precious thing: a good-looking politician.

Nice!

The hair is the trade mark. Plats of blond (though the colour changes) hair wound round her head like a tiara, a crown, framing dark chocolate brown eyes.

Swoon!

Tymoshenko is now in a position to form a government with either of the two other parties and has emerged as the real winner of the people power, orange revolution.

She has all the things a modern politician needs: friends in the right places, brains, and glamour.

Politician as sex bomb

Politicians, until comparatively recently, didn’t have to be good looking. Who cared as long as they seemed to be a competent and/or driven person with a vision of the Good Society.

But these days, being good looking is a real plus for the image conscious, 24-hour news media, public-relations driven politician – especially as these people don’t seem to have much of a vision about anything at all – except what they can see in the mirror, that is.

In fact I think there must be an identikit politician being churned out in some factory somewhere.

These days all politicians have to look like JFK. Even the women!

With white teeth and lots of hair. politicians should be in their late forties to early fifties (which is euphemistically called by political journalists ‘still young’), have lots of hair (a la Bill Clinton or the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi), and its essential that they smile a lot. In fact they should spend more time smiling than ruling the country.

For the female, model, politician, on the other hand, if they don’t look like JFK then they should look like …Yulia Tymoshenko.

She’s got the same mouth as Julia Roberts!

Oooh!

But she didn’t get to where she is today by being good looking – in fact, it might even have been a hindrance. Lots of men in this part of the world still have trouble taking blond, attractive women seriously – which is their loss, of course, not hers. And she’s tough as old boots

Polish political heart throbs? …snigger….

The most attractive leader of a political party here – say female friends – is the leader of the ex-communist SLD, Wojciech Olejniczak (check out Mr. Commie hunk here).

The SLD decided, a couple of years ago, that it badly needed to change its image and try and get rid of the associations with its communist past. So they elected 32 year old Wojciech – a mere baby in political terms - in an attempt to woo the young and the female.

The tactic is not working just yet, as, in the last poll I saw, SLD only had 9% of the electorate behind them.

Voted Poland’s Sexiest Politician last year was the leader of the free-market, Thatcherite, Civic Platform, Donald Tusk. Some say he’s good looking, but his slightly pointed face and ginger-ish hair is not to everyone’s taste – say round faced, red hair-phobic critics.

Others leaders – all male - are not so handsome (except, I imagine, to some of their wives).

We have the leader of the radical, agrarian populist Selfdefense party, Andrzej Lepper. He has an extraordinary appearance. He looks a bit like a boxer – he was – and has a face that is a very strange orange colour, which gets more orange every time I see him. He obviously likes the way he looks, but it does remind some of a kind of reverse Michael Jackson formula – he seems to get darker and more orange, by the day.

Perhaps he is planning an orange revolution of his own, sometime soon.

Then we have the leader of the far-right, populist League of Polish Families, Roman 'Pretty Boy' Giertych (above). Again, he has an extraordinary appearance, this time on account of his enormous height – he must be two meters tall. He also has a slightly mad monk appearance that could scare small children, the elderly and horses.

And finally, we have the two twins who dominate Polish politics at the moment, President Lech Kaczynski and his brother, head of the Law and Justice party, Jarolsaw.

Both are a little old for the identikit politician as they are 56. They also do not have big white teeth or lots of hair. And when they smile it looks more like a kind of a grimace.

The image consultants are desperately trying to do something with these two old war horses of the Solidarity movement, but it’s not having that much affect.

Jarolsaw remains unmarried.

And I am sure that even Lech’s wife, Maria, wouldn’t mind me saying that her husband is no sex bomb.