Try this idea on for size, Umair.

All over the world, political leaders are exactly as bad as they're allowed to be.

The kind of people who run for office in modern democracies everywhere are usually narcissistic, greedy and dishonest. That just seems to be the kind of person who's willing to go through the hell of an election campaign. In authoritarian countries, of course, you get the same with added arrogance and stupidity because they don't even have to campaign.

Your material is pretty defective, in other words. However you can persuade them to behave better than they are.

The way you do it goes like this.

Firstly, you pay your politicians really well. You pay them from state funding, in other words from the tax take.

Secondly, you outlaw all kinds of graft. Everybody gets a government campaign grant and any spare money is carefully checked. Nobody is allowed to exceed the campaign grant even if it's their money.

There are no lobbyists. That is just a slightly more polite way of saying bribery and corruption. They all have to go home.

Thirdly, you arrest politicians who have cheated on their campaign grant or taken a bribe for anything ever. And if they are found guilty, they go to jail. For a long time.

You have to start with the judges because they police the rest; you can't execute anybody because that makes it too easy to get rid of political rivals.

Fourthly, you need a long-running campaign to establish exactly why the above rules are necessary and how this makes them both honest and special.

It's possible to have (fairly) honest politicians but it's really needs enforcement.

In other words, it's hard. Britain did it in the 19th century when every single office (including in the Army) had a price. Difficult examinations for civil servants help.

Eternal vigilance is the price of having working power centres.