At the relatively young age of 57 Ethiopian Prime minister
Meles Zenawi passed away leaving behind a somewhat mixed legacy for his
supporters and critics to chew over.
Along with President Yoweri Museveni, Eritrea’s Isaias Afewerki and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Zenawi was described as one of a new generation of African leader by former US President Bill Clinton in the mid-nineties.
The sheen has come off this “elite” group of African leaders
in subsequent years as they have come under attack for human rights abuses,
less than perfect election wins and for sliding back into the big man politics
blamed for the continent’s current woes.
If the eighties were Africa’s lost decade then one can understands
the appeal for the “New Generation” of leader, men of action who were quick to
embrace the changing reality of the post-cold war era by allying with western
donors to jumpstart their economies, while demanding to retain the right to
determine their own development paths.
Zenawi oversaw an economy that averaged 7.7% growth in
recent years, diversified the economy away from coffee and beef to now include
floriculture, beverages and car manufacturing and is now in the process of
building the largest power dam on the continent that will generate 6000 MW of
power on completion in four years’ time.
He proved a useful ally in the fight against terror sending
troops into Somalia to root out Al Shabab.
Zenawi would never be mistaken for a liberal democratic. He
tolerated no dissent, his government jailed the political opposition and
harassed the press.
Nothing is black and white. You find not only that are there
grey areas but that even those come in many shades of grey.
So this is the challenge of leadership particularly in our part
of the world.
In an environment where there is little or no institutional
capacity the incentive for one man to fill the void and become the alpha and
omega is probably irresistible.
Driven by the ambition to do well by your people the
temptation to paper over institutional failure with presidential edict in order
to get things done, becomes the normal order of business, centralizing the
final say in one man’s hands.
The net effect of this is that institutions are stifled
while a powerful personality cult emerges.
In the development of the societies institutions became
necessary as faceless, impartial arbiters of disputes.
So whereas previously it was just a group of families hunting and gathering and therefore
disputes could be settled face to face, settled on the strength of the mutual
respect for an elder or recognized authority figure, in larger societies where
kinship is not widely shared an independent arbiter whose authority is
respected by the general society was required.
Zenawi was not blind to the issues of governance and maybe
to the inadequacies of his own style of leadership —even if only on an
intellectual level,
“We believe that democracy, good governance and transparency
and fighting corruption are good objectives for every country, particularly for
developing countries. Where we had our differences with the so-called
neoliberal paradigm is first on the perception that this can be imposed from
outside. We do not believe that is possible. Internalization of accountability
is central to democratisation. The state has to be accountable to the citizens,
and not some embassy or foreign actor,” he once told Peter Gil, author of the
book “Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia since Live Aid”
The
challenge then is how does one build institutions? The experience even here in
Uganda is that effective institutions cannot be written into existence. To be
effective institutions have to backed by the potential to censure offending
parties.
In a situation like Ethiopia where Zenawi straddled the political scene like a colossus institutions were unlikely to flourish. Even the best intentioned of leaders faces this dilemma.
And
this where the tension lies. Human nature is such that we cannot and should not
allow power to be centralized in a single individual however much they act in
our best interests, the challenge is how do you prevent this from happening?
Those
waiting for a quick and ready solution will be sorely disappointed.
The
history of the world shows that the process of evolution from the rule of the
personality cult to more inclusive government is a long one taking generations
even centuries of contestation between various often evenly matched power
centers, to materialize into the form we are now familiar with in western
democracies.
Zenawi’s
legacy shows that the days of pigeonholing African leaders into ogres or saints
are long gone and in judging their achievements be prepared for brain wracking
ambiguity.
