Rule till you drop man! That is Gaddafi's trusted friend advice to his homologue Museveni. I find it ok if you ask me. Gaddafi has a maxim that if you are popular with your people why leave them hanging? Why not give it to 'em all the way to the end?
I support Muamar from this end. We have institutions in almost all African countries meant to safeguard democracy which inturn is meant to assure fairness and good leadership; all with its accountability and transparency strings.
There is nothing wrong with democracy. Nah. The problem is with the people. They do not respect this institutions and they thus abuse them at will for their own ends. And these people are the leaders.
Reigning till kingdom come would thus be better but if. Only if the ruler is accountable enough. Kagame and Museveni are resplendent in the cloak of democracy but they don't practise it. They jump in whenever it is convinient to sort things out regardless of some funny laws that are only there to be obeyed without serving the public.
Museveni and Kagame are not the perfect guys here but they are the closest I get to my support for the idea of putting democracy in books but bending it when a good reason comes over.
Gaddafi has a point here.
4 comments:
if you are popular with your people why leave them hanging?
How does one know if he's popular if he never asks ?
The problem is finding this leader who can be trusted.
How does that one squares with:
They jump in whenever it is convinient to sort things out regardless of some funny laws
and
Museveni and Kagame are not the perfect guys here but they are the closest I get to my support for the idea of putting democracy in books but bending it when a good reason comes over.
I have a hard time understanding the wishful thinking about leaders behaving right when they're allowed to behave wrong.
Take Kagame and Rwanda. He banned any mention of tutsi and hutu for obvious reasons. But very soon, he started using that ban to exclude anybody who disagrees with any part of his actions/program/system from participating in the public debate.
And he has good reasons to do so: self-interest.
Nobody should feed the ego of politicians by implying that they're driven by anything else but self-interest.
Accountability is not an issue of character but an issue of enforcement.
And democratic institutions are the only reason why Sarkozy or Bush can only fo so much (at home).
And if this post is about term limits, well, they are overratted but at the same time, especially in weak democracies, it's easy to use power to generate more power and sometimes there's no other way to make sure that the people can have a voice.
@ Random african.
Thank you for your comment. I share your sentiments that in Africa we have a leadership crisis.
Democracy has been on everyone's lips as the remedy but see what we have got. numerous loopholes.
So do we embrace another evil? No. We need to strengthen our institutions and make them above anyone else.
For instance the constitutional ammendments that allow a President to add another term are in most cases passed by a small majority in an ambush way of working in parliament.
If not so, politicians are bribed even from the opposition. So how do we expect these institutions to perform. Aren't they some kind of blinders that restict our vision, and give as a feel good atitude that we are democratic?
I agree that I am walking a tight rope here, but why not tak ethe risk?
Mugabe is about to be elected. Being elected is meant to allow him to behave right but he will do it wrong of course.
I would prefer Thomas Sankara, or Kagame style. If whatever you are doing for your country is reasonable and all rational men and women judge it thus, go ahead.
Democracy is good but African leaders are more cunning.
nice post sir!!! am impressed!
Another man into the boat. Lets discover an island and maybe try some things out.
Thank you Kip!
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