Are politicians public servants?

If the electorate is a toss-up, dirty tricks often come into play: tearing down or smearing opponents' electoral signs, the worst-ever example occurring in the NSW election in March this year as reported by theSydney Morning Herald 29 March 2015.

Another example was the early morning super-gluing of the lock of an opponent's door on the morning of the election. As the candidate could not immediately access her electoral material stored in the office for the voting that day, she lost valuable time to gather votes.

In conclusion: if you were a Liberal backbencher with a vote for the leader in the recent Turnbull-Abbott coup, who would you vote for if your six-figure generous salary, plus your future superannuation, depended on your re-election, which in turn depended largely on the popularity of the party leader?

It is a political cliché that Self Interest is the only horse you can reliably back.

It looks as though we are their servants, grist to their mill, not the other way round. Their trick is to pretend this is not so.

Isn't this what representative democracy is all about?