Charles Onyango-Obbo
29 June 2009
column
Nairobi — Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is a tough hammer-and-tongs kind of leader, so it must have come as a surprise to many when he hinted that he wanted to step down.
Ethiopia has no presidential term limits.
Also, African presidents, even when their constitutions have term limits, always leave it late to walk away. Otherwise, in recent years, most of them have tried to remove restrictions that bar them from running for more terms.
For those reasons, Zenawi's actions contrast sharply with those of a fellow Eastern African "revolutionary", Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, who in 2005 scrapped term limits, and is already working on standing for a sixth term (two of them unelected) in 2011.
I wouldn't put my money on Zenawi stepping down until he does so, but I sense that in the years to come, Africa will see a few more leaders playing the reluctant ruler.
We are seeing two main types of reluctant African leaders.
There are those who, like the iconic South African statesman Nelson Mandela, walk away from the presidency after just one term when they could have stood and handily won a second one.
In 2005, Mozambique's Joachim Chissano too did a Mandela, and retired when he could have stood for another term.
Then there is a second type of African leader emerging on the scene, the low-lying president. A good example is Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki. Another is Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua.
Either because of a scorn for political drama (a strong Kibaki trait), poor health, age, or as their critics argue, apathy and laziness, these leaders can go for weeks without appearing on state television, and will spend months without addressing a public rally.
There is an in-between third type of African leader who doesn't leave voluntarily, but whom when the curtain comes down forcibly on his rule, don't try to burst through on the stage through a side door. One such person is South Africa's Thabo Mbeki.
When the recently-elected President Jacob Zuma led a ruling party revolt against him last year, the combative Mbeki was expected to fight back hard. He didn't. He packed his cherished books and laptop and went home.
An out-of-sight president shouldn't be a big deal, but is in a continent with a history of editors at state broadcasters being jailed or, if they are lucky, sacked for dutifully leading the evening TV news with an item on the president for 360 days, and fatefully forgetting to do it on the 361st.
In Uganda, First Lady Janet Museveni doesn't take kindly to unflattering photos of her husband being used in the newspapers, and it's alleged she occasionally calls the part state-owned New Vision daily to offer the editors' helpful tips on presidential photo selection.
It's early days, so one can only speculate about what accounts for these new developments.
First, they are happening in countries that the departing presidents are leaving in an indisputably better shape than they found them. Ethiopia still suffers a huge democracy deficit, but Zenawi has improved the place considerably.
Chissano inherited a Mozambique that was a war wreckage. He left it a peaceful nation with an economy notching 20 per cent annual growth. In other words, they have chips to cash in. Leaders who have no chips, are unlikely to deal.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is executive editor for the Nation Media Group's Africa Media Division
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