Challenge of leadership in transiting African societies

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OPINION

By Kenneth David Mafabi

We continue with our conversation on strategic national challenges in the aftermath of the general election as we look to the future. Our central purpose today is to underline that a high quality of statecraft is an absolute requirement in ensuring continuity of ideologically focused leadership in transiting societies in Africa. A number of experiences are instructive.

In 1985 in Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere commended Ali Hassan Mwinyi to the organs and membership of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) for election as president of Tanzania. Nyerere clearly had continued stability of the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in mind, as well as that of CCM itself.

While there was to be a new team in management of the state, it had to be clear that there was a team leader, Mwinyi. Nyerere understood that he himself towered large over the Tanzanian political landscape, that the new leadership had to be assisted to build its authority. It is equally important to note that after stepping down from the leadership of the state, Nyerere remained the leader of CCM.

Nyerere understood his colleagues very well — understood the strengths and weaknesses of each, understood who the team players were, who the loners were, who was amenable to collective discipline and who was not. It fell on the shoulders of the founder-leader to guide the party and the country in the election of a new leadership — against the background of the exigencies of managing a transitioning society.

Two other points worth noting: in the 1977 constitution, while still under a single-party dispensation, Nyerere introduced presidential term limits. It was clearly obvious to him that a Tanzanian ethos and psyche were steadily coalescing. He knew that his successors might not have the same levels of restraint and sense of proportion with which he had wielded the great moral authority of a founder.

In 1992, Tanzania underwent more constitutional reform — this time restoration of multipartism being the lynchpin.

The legal and constitutional framework, as well as the unfolding national ethos, were deemed sufficiently strong and elastic enough to accommodate the contestations of more political organisations in the polity.

Nyerere’s hand was again very visible in both the internal CCM and national electoral processes. He strongly endorsed Benjamin William Mkapa to replace Mwinyi and advised that Jakaya Kikwete was “still young” and should wait! And that, precisely, is what happened.

Mandela’s ANC

We now turn to Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC).

The case of South Africa may appear different on the face of it. Mandela was not the founder of the ANC, which was established in 1912, before he was born.

But still, he was associated with the radicalisation of the struggle against apartheid. In 1961, an armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), was formed to prosecute an armed struggle.

Mandela was the first commander of MK. Captured in 1962 and sentenced to life at the Rivonia trial, Mandela became the symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle, and later, the leader of the new, democratic South Africa. For the purposes of our discussion today, it is critical to note that the ANC leadership was perhaps consciously more collegial in its workings than the example of the CCM cited above.

This is perfectly understandable, for the ANC had been around that much longer. The conditions of underground struggle also objectively demanded it, with part of the leadership serving life on Robben Island (Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, etc), and the other operating from abroad (Oliver Tambo, Alfred Nzo, etc).

The discipline and methods of collegian leadership were again reinforced by the tripartite alliance of the ANC with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

As South Africa moved into the new post-apartheid dispensation, the collegian leadership identified younger people, including Thabo Mbeki, Chris Hani and Cyril Ramaphosa, as leaders in their own right.

Yet, a public and private seal of approval on Mbeki to replace Mandela had to be provided by the latter. In the last two years of his term, Mandela publicly declared that Mbeki was the de facto president and ceded more of his duties to Mbeki. He publicly said he did not need to tell Mbeki what to do. For Mandela, Mbeki had all “the necessary wisdom”. The discussion on whether a Xhosa should immediately replace another Xhosa, was resolved with Mandela in the chair.

Weighing in

At this point, we can distil one important principle from the experience of the CCM and the ANC in ensuring continuity of ideologically focused leadership.

Within the legal and democratic framework of movements and organisations, founder-leaders and symbols of struggle provide vigorous and active guidance to the teams that replace them and who lead them.

As this conversation continues, we shall factor in examples and defining principles from elsewhere among the emergent peoples of the world.

The writer is a senior presidential advisor/political affairs (special duties) State House