Former Presidents Shouldn’t Keep Cattle Only
The Nation (Nairobi)
ANALYSIS
10 August 2007
Posted to the web 9 August 2007
By Patrick Mutahi
Nairobi
The men who used to live in the big houses on the hill shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste as long as their past is acceptable and experience are needed to solve the continent’s problemsThe era of sit-tight or life presidents in Africa may be over, but hewing new roles for the continent’s expanding army of retired executives is proving an uphill task. Although Africa’s former despots are embracing democracy, their role as agents of peace is been vehemently contested in some circles.
The din that has attended the appointment of Kenya’s former President Daniel Moi as envoy to Sudan has thrown into the spotlight the serious dilemma facing Africa governments in carving out a life-after-power for retired heads of states. President Mwai Kibaki has hailed his predecessor’s vast experience, knowledge of African Affairs and as an elder statesman. These credentials, he avers, would help the people of Sudan in their quest for lasting peace.
In this new role, Kenya’s only living former president joins an elite club of retired leaders who have become peace envoys for the continent. Preceding him, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, who died in 1999, and ex-South African President Nelson Mandela steered the Burundi peace process.
Eminent persons
Botswana’s Ketumile Masire chaired the international panel of eminent personalities of Organisation of African Unity that investigated the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and also facilitated the inter-Congolese dialogue. Mozambique’s Joachim Chissano is currently mediating the Juba talks to end the 20-year civil-war win Northern Uganda that pits Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army against President Yoweri Museveni’s government.
Marking his 89th birthday in July, Mandela formed a new international “council of elders” to find new ways to resolve some of the world’s longest-running crises. This is a novel experiment in forming an alliance of Nobel peace laureates, former international civil servants, development experts and ex-presidents to address humanitarian issues globally.
The “old generation of African leaders” through Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Sekou Toure and Robert Mugabe ushered Africa to independence, but also introduced the one-party political systems that were essentially dictatorships.
Larger-than-life stature
Due to their role in the anti-colonial struggles, these founding fathers gained a larger-than-life stature. Many, like Malawi’s Kamuzu Banda and Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, even changed constitutions to become ‘life Presidents’, blurring the line between the presidency and the President and introducing personality cults. Life after tenancy in the big houses on the hill and other trappings of power became unimaginable.
With few exceptions like Senegal’s Leopold Sengor, Kenya’s Moi, Cameroon’s Ahijo or Tanzania’s Nyerere who voluntarily retired, the bullet became the only mode of changing governments and of deposing despotic leaders. It is hardly surprising that, between 1957 and 2007 the continent experienced a total of 107 coups and attempted coups, over sixty of them in the lost decades between 1970 and 1990. Six Presidents were assassinated while only 12 died out of natural causes or accidents.
Until the 1990s, African leaders were reluctant to step down. Many feared the prospects of prosecution for gross abuse of state power and privileges. Without state protection, life after the presidency was likely to be payback time as many countries neither had constitutional (or bargained) immunity against prosecution for former presidents nor retirement packages.
Casualties of the ballot box
Now, Africa’s pool of former heads of states has expanded to more than 30 ex-leaders, and their number is still growing. Some of them are casualties of the ballot. The wave of democracy from the early 1990s swept from power old-guard like Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and, between 1990 and 2007 some 20 African leaders have vacated office either voluntarily or after losing elections.
The widening pool of ex-leaders is a result of several forces. A combined internal and international pressure for democracy from the 1990s forced many to conduct multiparty elections. External donors came into play with withheld assistance partially forcing presidents, such as Kenya’s Moi, to capitulate to multiparty democracy.
The saving grace has been in the form of new constitutions that are providing for a fixed term of presidency and which have forced many leaders to retire after the expiry of their terms.
At the continental level, the introduction of the African Union-led Peer Review Mechanism in 2002 has also pressurised African presidents to stand down. The Constitutive Act of the African Union has also ruled against unconstitutional take-over of governments, and stressed democracy as the only means of changing presidents.
Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui has pushed the idea of honouring and treating with respect leaders who leave power peacefully.
Globally, the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which starts in November 2007, seeks to honour former African leaders who have demonstrated excellence in leadership.
Laudably formulated to encourage African Presidents to govern justly and voluntarily leave power peacefully, this initiative features an irresistible incentive. The prize consists of $5m (Sh350m) spread over 10 years and $200,000 (Sh14m) annually for life thereafter. A further $200,000 per year for good causes espoused by the winner may be granted by the Foundation during the first 10 years.
Despite these pressures and lures, African leaders have been reluctant to leave power. From the outset, some employed militias to intimidate their opponents and prolong their stay in power.
Nonetheless, many leaders have sought to repeal the two-limit on the presidency to secure an extra term. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni secured a third presidential term in 2006, busting the myth of the new generation of African leaders and their commitment to democracy.
In 2005, Chad’s Idris Deby changed the constitution and ran for a third term, but has survived two coups and the country remains plagued by political turmoil.
Former Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo successfully lobbied the Americans and the British to lower their guns against his attempt to remove the constitutional curbs on the presidency and secure a third term. But he was forced out by a united force of Nigerian opposition and civil society.
Other African leaders have stayed put. Having ruled Libya since 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is not showing signs of retiring. Barred by constitutions and other factors from being presidents for life, some African leads have taken to handpicking their successors in an attempt to perpetuate their power and to run the country by “remote control.”
In a country which has seen several ex-presidents, Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo hand-picked Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as his successor probably hoping to influence every decision Yar’Adua makes.
But past experiments on this track have floundered. In Malawi, Bakili Muluzi handpicked Bingu wa Mutharika as a proxy, but the plan backfired when Mutharika embarked on an anti-corruption crusade that hurt his mentor. This led to hostility between the two with Mutharika forming and defecting to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Similarly, in Zambia former President Frederick Chiluba remained leader of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) after Levy Mwanawasa took office in July 2002. Things came to ahead when Mwanawasa attempted to neutralise Chiluba by getting parliament to lift his immunity from prosecution for corruption charges.
In the run up to the 2006 general elections, Chiluba campaigned for the opposition’s Michael Sata, who had promised to drop the corruption charges. Chiluba argued that the charges against him were politically-motivated and Mwanawasa was using the case to bolster his political campaign. The war turned ugly, with Mwanawasa warning voters against electing Sata because they would be supporting “plunderers.”
Other former presidents have retained ruling party chairmanships thus creating two centres of power. This also happens when the former presidents still want to influence executive decision making.
Currently, South Africa’s Thambo Mbeki is being urged by his supporters to remain as ANC President when he leaves power in 2009. If Mbeki decides to vie for ANC Presidency, it is feared that he might usurp the powers and clout of the new president.
In Namibia, former President Sam Nujoma retained the Presidency of the ruling party Swapo when his hand-picked successor, Hifekepunye Pohamba, assumed power. Due to this arrangement, the contradictions, infighting and power struggle within the Namibian Government are too evident.
The jury is still out on how to craft the laws that will govern the conduct of retired former heads of states. It is significant that the former presidents are treated according to how they kept electoral promises and went about in the business of leadership.
Mandela is an icon to not only in his country but also to the entire world for his statesmanship when handling the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa.
Things get more delicate when the political transition is a negotiated one as was the case with Liberia’s Charles Taylor.
In such scenarios, there is need to balance between the need for justice and political stability. Due to the regional instability that the Sierra Leone war had on the entire region, Taylor was edged out by peer pressure from the presidents of Nigeria, South Africa and Ivory Coast who also negotiated his exile package in Nigeria. Part of the deal was that he would not be prosecuted for human rights abuses committed during his regime. However, when President Ellen Johnson was elected Taylor was thereafter arrested and taken to Hague for prosecution for war crime charges.
This has implications for other African presidents who might be forced to negotiate their giving up power. In Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Change are debating the future of President Robert Mugabe, who would most likely face charges of gross human rights violations once out of power.
At the same time, African leaders are not shying away from prosecuting autocratic former rulers who seek refuge in their countries. In January 2006, the AU established a committee of seven eminent African jurists to review the case of former Chadian President Hissène Habré. Habré who was overthrown in 1990 and fled into exile in Senegal, where he evaded prosecution for torture and murder of suspected political opponents during his eight years in power.
Due to pressure from victims of his regime, the AU in January 2006 established a committee of seven eminent African jurists to review his case. In its report, the panel declared that in Habré’s case “there is urgency in sending strong signals throughout Africa that impunity is no longer an option.”
Prosecuting Hissène Habré
Following these recommendations, on July 2, 2006 the AU mandated Senegal to “prosecute and ensure that Hissène Habré is tried, on behalf of Africa, by a competent Senegalese court with guarantees for a fair trial.”
The pan-African body also pledged to assist Senegalese authorities and urged African countries and the international community to support the effort.
Definitely, there is a very important shift in the way African people conceive power and place of their former heads of states. And, certainly, there are also positive developments in the continent that cannot be ignored.
The formation, in June 2005, of African Statesmen Initiative in Bamako was a ground-breaking gesture. The 15 former presidents who graced the occasion swore to abide by the “Bamako Declaration of the African Statesmen Initiative” which, among other things, “welcome(s) the future participation of outgoing heads of states and governments in efforts to promote democratic principles affirm(ing) that changes of power and political succession should always be based on constitutional rule and democratic principles.”
The concept of giving up power voluntarily is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Most of the former Presidents have formed foundations to help in tackling HIV and Aids and conflicts in the continent.
Some of the former presidents have and are joining the New Partnership For African Development (Nepad) Council of Elders to render their experience on the continent. In this regard, Mali’s former President Alpha Konare is Chairman of African Union Commission.
In April 2007, former two-term President António Mascarenhas Monteiro of Cape Verde became the newest African President-in-Residence at Boston University’s African Presidential Archives and Research Centre.
Funded by a $1m (Sh70m) grant from the Lloyd G. Balfour Foundation, the residency enables democratically elected former African leaders to spend up to two years at the University sharing insights on contemporary trends in Africa. Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda was named the first Balfour President-in-Residence in 2002. Since then, Ruth Sando Perry of Liberia, Karl Auguste Offmann of Mauritius, and Ketumile Masire of Botswana have been resident guests.
At least Africa’s team of retired presidents is growing, signalling a life-after- presidency. But finding out what these men and women of power should do with the life remains a major challenge for their successors.
Patrick Mutahi is the Director of the Eastern and Horn of Africa Programme of the Africa Policy Institute, Nairobi/Pretoria.
Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Network Project
