Do African presidents have a life after they leave office? asks Henning Melber. For many years in post-independence Africa, the image of African leaders was of ‘Big Men’ who could only be removed from office by their own death. But a recent shift shows an increasing number of leaders who hand over presidential powers voluntarily. In June this year the African Statesmen Initiative was launched in Mali’s capital Bamako with several elder statesmen committing to democratic ideals. The positive trend does not necessarily mean that anti-democratic tendencies have been banished, writes Melber.

Retired African Heads of State seem to emerge in ever-bigger numbers as a new species on the continent. Opting out of office more or less voluntarily, they are seeking an active role and requiring a defined task for their remaining years. “Is there life after presidency?” asked BBC Africa Live of its web site visitors in mid-2005. The numerous responses showed not only a strong interest in the issue but also offered the whole panorama of possible views, including the few selected ones below:

- “Presidents are people too. The life after presidency should be retirement.” (Ghana)
- “Former presidents should be respected because of what they did for a country. However at the same time, when Mugabe becomes a former president, my views will change.” (Zimbabwe)
- “There is always life and prosperity for presidents in Africa because most of them are thieves.” (UK)
- “Oh yes, there is life after the presidency. In fact a far better life … compared to the presidency. For example, you get to sleep peacefully at night (don’t have to worry about whether your army is plotting to oust you the next morning); you become a well respected statesman (provided you left office voluntarily … poor Charles Taylor), and the lot. Life after the presidency in Africa is like life after death – although no one has ever died (please, don’t count Jesus) and come back to give account of what it is like at the other end. However, the good news is that Africa is on the right path. At least we are beginning to count Africa’s former presidents who left office constitutionally. And it should send a very strong positive message to sitting-presidents that … yes, there is in fact very good life after the presidency, given you kept your promises to the best of your ability.” (Liberia)

By the end of the 20th century the notion of the ‘Big Men’ was still considered to be part of a neo-patrimonial system, in which ‘disorder’ was qualified as ‘political instrument’. Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz maintain in their provoking book ‘Africa Works’ that the “ultimate ambition of those who have power is most often to establish their standing as Big Men. Such standing is, by its very nature, subjective and can only be achieved within a context of personalized relations where clients, or dependants, will ensure its recognition. It is not, therefore, sufficient to be acknowledged as the supreme political ruler. It is also necessary to be recognized as the primus inter pares among all Big Men.”

African rulers, according to the dominant perception up until the early 1990s, do not vacate their office alive. The 1990 presidential address to the African Studies Association of the U.K., delivered by A.H. Kirk-Greene and published in ‘African Affairs’ (no. 359, 1991) presented some striking arithmetic to illustrate the point. By then, the mean duration in power of leadership in 17 African states (a third of the continent) was 25 years. The ‘for life’ image associated with African rulers contrasted however with the brevity of the rule of others, with no fewer than twenty in office for less than a year. At the end of 1988 the continental average duration of office for the 158 African leaders recorded as head of government in 50 states since 1960 was calculated at 3.1 years. But the assumption pertained that the shorter periods in office were attributed almost exclusively to the incumbents’ departure from this world. A.H. Kirk-Greene therefore concluded: “If my question of ‘What Happened to the President Afterwards’? has been overlooked in the literature, this may largely be due to the indisputable fact that, unless one is talking of a meta-physical after-life, in nine cases out of ten it is a rhetorical question; there was no Afterwards.”

But soon thereafter, this notion was challenged on the basis of the empirical reality. Instead, it was suggested that the question requires rephrasing, since the (former) heads of state were not as passive as the ‘what happened to’ formulation implied. The more apposite question for many may be ‘What did the President do Afterwards?’ rather than what happened to him. Indeed quite a number of them – in contrast to the widely held perception – did have a life after their term(s) in office. As a presentation by J.H. Polhemus to the 15th annual conference of the African Studies Association of Australia and the Pacific in 1992 concluded: “…a substantial number of individuals, … notwithstanding a wide variation in style, personality and psychology, had the unusual qualities required to become a head of state or government and … on leaving office, faced the questions of what to do with what remained of a life which had to that point been characterized by power, purpose, and not to put too fine a point on it, position and privilege.”

The recent shift in trends in presidential transitions on the continent is highlighted by the increasing number of those who more or less voluntarily hand over presidential powers while still being in rather good physical shape and mental health. A recently compiled overview for the book volume on ‘Presidential Transitions and the Role of Ex-Presidents’ (to be published by the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa before the end of 2005), registered a total of 204 African presidents in office between 1960 and 2004. More than half of them were overthrown, which confirms the earlier assumptions. Only 25 cases (or 12%) were classified as voluntary retirements. But significantly so, 17 (or three quarters) of these took place since 1990 alone, and since 2000 there were eight such cases, amounting in the last five years to one third of all voluntary departures from office in the 45-year period recorded.

In the light of such an emerging new trend, the question posed by Polhemus in his 1992 paper remains more valid than ever. He asked whether an increasing number of “African heads of state will follow the eminent person path upon their retirement from political office, rising above narrow national politics.” As he suggested: “For some it would seem to be an attractive way of putting their talents to good use and minimizing the pangs of withdrawal from a life of prominence and importance.”

The birth of an African Statesmen Initiative, launched in Mali’s capital Bamako in the presence of 15 former heads of state in June 2005, is an almost logical result of the needs to (re-)define the role of ex-presidents. With the support of several international institutions the elder statesmen (indeed still all men) agreed on a remarkable document with far reaching statements in terms of their political ideals. The ‘Bamako Declaration of the African Statesmen Initiative’ adopted on 8 June stated among others:

“We believe that democracy is the sole form of government that permits the development of the range of national institutions needed to ensure sustainable peace, security, economic growth and social well-being. We applaud the spread of democratic values and respect for the rights of citizens in a growing number of African countries. We commit ourselves to continuing to use our good offices to foster dialogue and the peaceful resolution of the continent's conflicts, and to promote human security and democratic models of government that offer citizens the opportunity to choose their leaders freely and participate fully in the political life of their countries.”

The document went further to say:

- “We welcome the future participation of outgoing heads of state and government in efforts to promote democratic principles, good governance, and human security and development through individual and collective action.”

- “We affirm that changes of power and political succession should always be based on constitutional rule and democratic principles.”

- “We affirm the special responsibility of former heads of state and government to support the development of strong, well functioning legislative and judicial bodies, as well as other public institutions to ensure public accountability.”

These are clearly new tones, though one is curious to see how big or small the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality this time turns out to be. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was often referred to as little more than a self-serving club for African presidents. Its existence was premised upon the mutual convenience of ‘non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states’, a doctrine that provided cover for authoritarian and despotic regimes throughout the continent.

In contrast, the launch of the African Union (AU) in 2002/2003 resulted in the subsequent institutionalisation of a visible (though not yet always consequently applied) political will to exercise more collective responsibility over the policy of member states, whose systems and their (lack of) delivery fail to respect the minimum standards as defined in the new AU Constitution. This includes sanctions against those who claim to represent their countries without a minimum of legitimacy. It is an indication that the present generation of African leaders – one which is more subject to pressures for democracy at home and for ‘good governance’ internationally – will be more prepared to police regimes which offend against international norms, rights and laws.

This also offers, as the African Statesmen Initiative signals, a more constructive role for retired presidents to make a continued positive contribution on the continent, including an active participation in conflict mediation and other forms of political negotiations and diplomatic brokerage. They might also pursue a variety of advocacy roles on other burning issues, such as further awareness creation concerning HIV/AIDS or lobby work to mobilize for meeting other challenges on the continent to achieve a more decent living and secure a better future for its people.

But notwithstanding the odd light at the end of the tunnel, progress is uneven. While recent interventions concerning political leadership issues in Togo and the Ivory Coast show the political will to collectively pursue the notion of ‘good governance’ in certain cases, the continued passivity with regard to Zimbabwe and the rampaging dictator Mugabe remains a scandal.

In Botswana, Ken Good, a Professor of Political Studies at the local university for 15 years, presented in March 2005 to a departmental seminar a critical analysis of the presidential succession in the country (drafted as a chapter to the book currently in print). He was served with an arbitrary notice from the authorities declaring him a prohibited immigrant on the grounds of being considered a risk to national security. Upon intervention and appeal, the Constitutional Court ruled that the President has the power vested in his office to do so without offering any further reasons. After this verdict, the 72-year old was handcuffed in court, prevented from talking to his lawyer and deported the very same day. He was denied the chance to say good-bye to his teenage daughter.

Only two weeks later, on 13 June 2005, five African Presidents met their fellow Head of State George W. Bush in Washington, DC. The US President welcomed the same Festus Mogae of Botswana, who had just abused his presidential authority to get rid of an unwanted academic, together with John Kufuor (Ghana), Armando Guebuza (Mozambique), Namibia’s President Hifikepunye Pohamba and Mamadou Tandja of Niger to the White House. According to the official announcement, this initiative was to “highlight the value that the United States places on supporting democracy across Africa. President Bush looks forward to recognize these countries’ successes at holding free and fair elections last year”.

The question still begs to be answered of whether this illustrates progress in democratic transition on the one side (of the invited guests), or a lack of democratic sensitivity on the side of the host. As so often, the answer might lie somewhere in between, if one considers the way elections were conducted not too long ago in the North American federal states of Florida and Ohio, which were to a large extent decisive in the ‘democratic’ process to a) bring the current president into office, and b) to keep him there. After all, political office bearers all over the world tend to be not as different or remote from each other as the geographical distance might suggest.

* Dr. Henning Melber is Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden. This essay is a revised part of an introduction to a book volume on Presidential Transitions and the Role of Ex-Presidents in Africa, co-edited with Roger Southall and to be published by the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa.

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