The proposed ban, first presented in discussions on the "nationalization of the elite," has been framed primarily as a way to guarantee officials' loyalty to Russia, and also as a check on corruption, a topic on which the Kremlin knows it is politically vulnerable.
The idea that the Gulenists have sat on cases of corruption while AK was their ally, only to target the party now, raises suspicions that some officials' loyalty is not to the constitution, but to something else most probably Mr Gulen.The legal system is the only check on Mr Erdogan's power.
A group of five Republican House members, led by Michele Bachmann, groundlessly accused two prominent Muslim federal officials of loyalty to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
But his subjects have no avenues to express dissatisfaction; and, for many, the Kim family mythology with all its fascistic xenophobia is all they have to believe in.What is more, the clique of Kim family members, generals and senior government officials whose loyalty has stood the test of purges may have as much to lose as their young protégé from the collapse of the regime.
Ahmadinejad has also moved against officials suspected of loyalty towards the opposition.
But when votes are treated as a measurement of loyalty, officials up and down the bureaucratic structure go to great lengths to outperform each other.
Top Palestinian officials insist that loyalty to Mr. Arafat has not wavered, and even the Israeli official marveled at the Palestinian leader's survival skills.
In the hierarchy of corruption, those senior officials secured the loyalty of junior functionaries by allowing them to shake down their own subordinates — and to steal from the local populace — with impunity.
Maybe it's Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, allied himself with that view, saying, "It is our responsibility to counterbalance the natural temptation for future Department of Defense officials to reward loyalty over quality of performance and provide pay and promotions to those who tell senior officials what they want to hear".
For this kind of thing to happen you have to have politicians who have no qualms about playing Big Brother; officials whose partisan loyalty trumps their professional scruples; and a press corps that, with some honorable exceptions, lets the people in power get away with it.
