MUTUMWA MAWERE LOOKS AT SUCCESSION POLITICS IN AFRICA!

Trust and succession politics in Africa


By Mutumwa D. Mawere

Last updated: 04/30/2007 10:19:26

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THE planning for succession of the Chief Executive Officer or the President of a country has become a very important issue in the governance of many societies.

Ensuring that in the event of a problem with a sitting President, a country will continue to function efficiently and effectively creates tremendous value for citizens.

To the extent that succession is a widely debated issue in Africa, it is important that our conversations are enriched by a better understanding of the interplay between trust and succession and between succession and progress.

In the context of property, succession of property at law covers two distinct concepts of inheritance (a gift made by will or other testamentary document on death) and heirship, which applies to property passed to one or more dependants according to a formula set out in law, religion, custom or under the terms of a trust.

Succession may also apply to artificial persons usually through reorganisations or corporate mergers. With respect to family succession, it is the passing of one person’s assets and role in the family to an heir.

Succession is essentially the action of one party, person or product being replaced by another that has become obsolete, incapacitated, retired or deceased. Ideally, one would expect that a political leader who has finished his constitutional term, or whose policies are undermining the interests they purport to represent, or whose age is beyond the normal retirement age would step down voluntarily to allow a successor to bring new energy and leadership.

However, the experience of post-colonial Africa would suggest that the attitude to succession that citizens ordinarily hold to in respect of their personal affairs is not different from the attitude of the political leaders.

Even in the context of failing businesses, it is rare for a corporate leader in such circumstances to voluntarily relinquish power. The attitude is not only limited to the failing institutions but is equally applicable to successful institutions where corporate leaders are found wanting in the area of succession planning. Their hereditary successors are often ill-prepared or groomed to take over.

For the progress of any society, succession is important not only because each product or individual has its own life span and no one can defy the laws of nature. Ordinarily, new products should replace old and mature ones in order to ensure that there is no interruption of service. Succession, therefore, should provide a way in which things follow each other in space or time: consecution, order, procession, sequence, progression etc.

The lack of economic progress and dynamism in the political space of Africa can be attributed to the attitude that most of the continent’s leaders have on the question of power. In fact, the experience is that when a country elects even a well meaning leader as a President, the pattern is invariably the same i.e. they start as democratic and with increasing speed end up believing in their infallibility and indispensability. They start believing that no-one else can step into their shoes and more often than not, acquire the status of super citizens who know better than the citizens who create them. But the tragedy is that the attitude is not a preserve of politicians.

The silliness of this attitude is best exemplified by the manner in which Deputy Presidents in Africa are treated by their Presidents. While in the political parties where such leaders acquire their initial legitimacy they are both elected into office, when they form governments at the national level something fundamentally wrong takes place in the state houses of Africa. You find the ridiculous situations where the President begins to believe that the source of his power and legitimacy is actually above the people who elected him and invariably like a small God, he begins to lose confidence in the capacity of his deputy to step into his shoes.

The pre-independence attitude of colonial administrations was no different and in those cases, the political leadership had no problems assimilating cultured natives and allowing them to vote. What they had a problem with was universal suffrage where citizens, despite their standing in society, would be allowed to determine who should govern them. The problem that confronts Africa today even after the completion of the decolonisation process is that the raw materials of political power are the ordinary poor people whose interests are never at the centre of the political establishment that they infrequently have an opportunity through elections to create. Many governments pursue policies in the name of the majority but with little or detrimental impact on the target beneficiaries.

Many African leaders do not trust even the people they purport to represent. In many cases, succession is often discussed while openly disregarding the power structures that are clearly set out in the Constitutions of the political organisations that the leaders originate from. This makes the post of Deputy President the most dangerous position in Africa. If you have any inclination of ever becoming a President in Africa, the message is that you should never allow yourself to be elected a Deputy. Yes, we have a few exceptions in Africa but the pattern is well established to suggest that any rational person should be concerned if they are elected to the number two position.

Like their white predecessors, many African Presidents genuinely believe that the continent has no capacity to produce leaders like them. In fact, they are encouraged everyday to believe that they are the messiahs of the continent and any change will interrupt progress.

When it comes to trust, many Africans are found wanting. Trust indicates a depth and sense of assurance that is based in strong but not logically-conclusive evidence, or based on the character, ability, or truth that someone or something has shown over time and across situations. Trust, therefore, makes for a sense of being safe or of being free of fear, enough so that one’s focus can be on other matters because the subject matter is taken of already.

The leaders of Africa have failed to build trust among and between citizens. For us in Southern Africa, we easily trust institutions like Old Mutual instead of creating our own New Mutuals. When one considers Africa’s leading brands in business even after 50 years of Uhuru, one would arrive at the inescapable conclusion that Africans have more Eurocentric values and are more prone to trust foreign solutions than their own.

Some adopt the Look East policies while others adopt the Look West policies and never apply their minds to what the implications are when a President pins his own country’s development on wise men and women from the East and West. Ideally, any President who looks East or West for salvation should be given a red card by the citizens for openly displaying a lack of confidence in their ability to solve their problems. Perhaps one defining area in which the lack of trust is evident in Africa is in banking.

How many of us trust African banking institutions? Why is it that after 50 years of Uhuru, Africans have not been able to create their own pan-African banking institutions? Even in the case of mining, African governments would trust wise men and women from the East and West with their mineral rights than their own nationals. How many of our African governments would be courageous enough to sign joint venture agreements with African businessman without being accused of cronyism?

It is not unusual for some of us who have ventured into big business to be labelled cronies and agents of other people’s agendas in as much as anyone who tries to succeed a sitting President is easily labelled a puppet, surrogate or stooge of other people’s agenda. This kind of simplistic analysis is more prevalent among our intellectuals.

Many Presidents in Africa, therefore, take comfort from the messages that we generate daily about the motives and interests that inform their competitors to the extent that they end up believing that it is treasonous for anyone to dream of being their successor. For those who are forced to relinquish their offices by constitutional impediments, they then go out of their way to manipulate elections so that they end up reproducing themselves through their chosen successors.

To what extent are African leaders solely responsible for creating the succession confusion is an issue that needs debate. It may emerge from the debate that intellectuals and seemingly informed Africans and their partners in the West and East are culpable for creating the leadership mess in the continent by increasing expecting bad leaders to choose their successors. If a leader is bad, then surely why would any rational person expect him to choose a successor? Equally if a party is capable of producing a bad leader and sustaining him in power to the detriment of the majority, how can any rational person expect a progressive leader to emerge from the clutches of such a party?

When we encourage incumbent Presidents to believe that they are super citizens we should not cry foul if they go on to behave accordingly. We all may be guilty of telling the Presidents of what they want to hear. How many of us genuinely believe that Presidents have more wisdom than the ordinary African? How many of us have accepted that incumbents have a prerogative to inflict pain and suffering on citizens with impunity? How many of us would even in the face of tyranny choose to be indifferent and become silent while expecting more from neighbours than ourselves? How many of us would sacrifice a good meal to finance change in Africa? Do we really trust each other as Africans on issues of governance and economic power?


Mutumwa Mawere's weekly column appears on New Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You can contact him at: mmawere@ahccouncil.com
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