Third term: Why the good presidents must leave, and the bad ones may stay

IN SUMMARY

Leaving power when you are in your best form does good - it raises the bar. Therefore, the president who should not have a third term, is the one who has done well

Africa is full of clever people, but we really let ourselves down, especially when it comes to politics. Right now, as happened in Uganda in 2005, it has all to do with presidential term limits.

Though I am a great believer in term limits, I would be quite happy with an African big man who came forward and said, as our own Godfrey Binaisa said memorably 35 years ago, that “’the presidential chair is sweet’, let me continue for more years because I like power”.

But that kind of honesty is rare, and a lot of effort goes into trying to justifying lifting term limits or perpetuating presidencies-for-life on the basis of some grand design or higher purpose.

Our good President Yoweri Museveni justified his on the basis of wanting to “modernise” and “industrialise” Uganda, and there have been times when he even said he wanted to make the Pearl a nuclear power. Many otherwise intelligent people accepted that, and argued that Museveni was indeed the only Ugandan who could deliver on those goals.

However, to modernise, industrialise, or become a nuclear power, if you can’t create a world-class education system, at least establish some world-class technology institutions (as Pakistan and India did).

However, that wonderful Uweza study that tracks the state of education in East Africa in its latest report, makes for very depressing reading. It found that 20 per cent of the kids in your average school in Primary Seven in Uganda were not able to comprehend a standard story from a Primary Two book!

If the term limits had been lifted to allow Museveni continue in power for power’s sake, we would not be judging him on the higher standard of how far he has gone in creating an industrialised African superpower. He would be getting 100 per cent for staying in power.

Burundi is in turmoil, and some hapless general even tried – and failed – to topple President Pierre Nkurunziza over this third term thing. Nkurunziza has been in power for two terms, as the constitution and the Arusha agreements that ended that country’s civil war over 10 years provide. On that, everyone agrees.

The disagreement is over when the two terms begin. For his first term, Nkurunziza was elected by Parliament. For his second, he was elected directly by the voters. He says the first term doesn’t count, because the people didn’t directly elect him.

Nkurunziza is the kind of guy who will look at the sky through a window, and then look at the same sky from out in the open, and say it is different. If Nkurunziza had said he was still young, his children hadn’t finished school, and he still wanted to enjoy power, he would have disarmed his opponents. Instead, he has got himself caught in his current absurdities.

However, the supporters of extending presidential terms would seem to have what at first looks like a good argument. Indeed, in Museveni’s case, some of his supporters invoked it – a good record (of course many thought he didn’t have one).

We are seeing it currently in Rwanda, as the country debates whether or not to amend the constitution, and allow President Paul Kagame run again in 2017 when his current term ends. 
Basically, they ask, as sports fans do, “why change a winning team?”

“Why send home a president with a good record?”
There are two real problems with this argument. The first, again, comes from sports. It says that the best time to quit is when you are at the top of your game.

Nelson Mandela did it in politics, after just one term. He would have been re-elected with 70 per cent of the vote for his party even if he hadn’t campaigned for a single day. But he walked away, and became a saint.

Since that fraud of a boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao is still fresh in our minds, the sport actually gives us one of the best examples. Rocky Marciano became immortalised partly because he is the only heavyweight champion to retire unbeaten.

The bigger problem then is that this argument suggests that a president should only leave after he has failed. It’s insanity.

Leaving power when you are in your best form does good - it raises the bar. Therefore, the president who should not have a third term, is the one who has done well.
The lousy one can continue, because he needs to find redemption.

Well, yes, Mandela left, but South Africa is losing its way. Yet, recently during the xenophobic attacks on African immigrants, one of the most powerful arguments against the violence was that “this is not the South Africa Mandela went to prison for. He must be turning in his grave”.
You see. That is how it works.

Mr Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian AFRICA (mgafrica.com). Twitter:@cobbo3

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