 My name is Sam Vaknin, and I'm the author of Malignan Selklav, Narcissism Revisited. Most politicians bend the laws of the land, and steal money or solicit bribes because they need the funds to support networks of patronage. Others do it in order to reward their nearest and dearest, or to maintain a lavish lifestyle when their political fortunes and lives are over. But these mundane reasons fail to explain why some office-folders go on a rampage and binge on endless quantities of looker. All rationales crumble in the face of a Mobutu Seseseco, or a Saddam Hussein, or a Ferdinand Marcos who have scondered with billions of U.S. dollars from the coffers of Zaire, Iraq and the Philippines, respectively. These inconceivable dollops of hard-cash valuables often remain stashed and untouched, moldering in bank accounts and vaults in Western banks. This money, these possessions, serve no purpose, either political or economic. But they do fulfill psychological need. These hordes are not the megalomaniacal equivalents of saving accounts, rather they are the nature of compulsive collections. erstwhile president of Sierra Leone, Momo, amassed hundreds of video players and other consumer goods in vast rooms in his mansion. His electricity supply was intermittent at best, his was a curious choice. He used to sit among these relics of his cupidity, fondling and counting them satiary. While Momo relished things with shiny buttons, people like Seseseco, Hussein and Marcos, drooled over money. The ever-hytening mountains of greenbacks in their safes soothed them, filled them with confidence, regulated their sense of self-worth, and served as love substitutes. The balances in their budging bank accounts were of no practical import or intent. They serve no purpose. They merely catered to their psychopathology. These politicos were not only crooks, but also kleptomaniacs. They could no more stop thieving than Hitler could stop murdering. Vanality was an integral part of their psychological makeup. Kleptomania is about acting out, it is a compensatory act. It makes us a drag, an inspiring, unintelligent and often humiliating business. It is also risky and rather arbitrary. It involves enormous stress and unseasing conflict. Politicians with mental health disorders, for instance narcissists or psychopaths, react by deep compensation. They rob the state and coerce businessmen to grease their palms because it makes them feel better. It helps them to repress their mounting fears and frustrations and to restore their psychodynamic equilibrium. These politicians and bureaucrats let off steam by looting. Kleptomania is afraid to resist or control the impulse to steal, even if they have no use for the budding. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th Edition Text Revision, published in 2000, which is the Bible of psychiatry, Kleptomania lets feel pleasure, gratification or relief when committing the theft. The good book proceeds to say that the individual may hoard the stolen objects. As most kleptomania politicians are also psychopaths, they rarely fear remorse or fear for the consequences of their misdeeds. But this only makes them more culpable and more dangerous. It is among the politicians that lead the dictator lives that interfere in every aspect of our existence. It is a frightening thought indeed.