tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/jose-eduardo-dos-santos-26115/articlesJosé Eduardo Dos Santos – The Conversation2022-08-17T14:54:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1889152022-08-17T14:54:08Z2022-08-17T14:54:08ZAngola’s 2022 election: an unfair contest the ruling MPLA is sure to win<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479601/original/file-20220817-18-54dr38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests demanding better living in Angola have become common since 2011. This one was in November 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Luso</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Angolans go to the polls on 24 August to vote <a href="https://www.eisa.org/calendar.php">in parliamentary elections</a>. The leader of the party with the most seats in parliament automatically becomes the president, so this is also in effect a presidential election. </p>
<p>This will be the fourth election since the end of the Angolan civil war in 2002. The three previous post-war polls were marked by a steady decline in the number of people voting for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Popular-Movement-for-the-Liberation-of-Angola">MPLA</a>). In the last election, five years ago, the party’s share of the vote <a href="https://www.academia.edu/en/35640101/Angola_s_Elections_and_the_Politics_of_Presidential_Succession">was down to 61%</a> nationally, in contrast to 70% in the previous election according to the official tally. </p>
<p>Most worryingly for the ruling party, it came in with less than 50% of the vote in the capital, Luanda, a city that it <a href="https://www.academia.edu/en/35640101/Angola_s_Elections_and_the_Politics_of_Presidential_Succession">historically regarded as a heartland</a>.</p>
<p>The four main opposition parties issued a joint statement citing irregularities in the vote counting process and <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/09/angolan-opposition-unites-to-challenge-illegal-election-results/">rejecting the election results</a>. Days later, they decided instead to take up their seats and continue to participate in parliament. The sudden change earned criticism from civil society organisations that had also been angered by the irregularities in the vote tallying procedure.</p>
<p>The biggest concern, once again, is that the election will lack credibility.</p>
<p>A local polling service, <a href="https://www.angobarometro.com/">AngoBarómetro</a>, has <a href="https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/13916/Alarm_grows_over_vote-rigging_plans">predicted</a> that in a fair competition, there would be an outright win for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/UNITA">Unita</a>), the former armed movement that fought the MPLA in a 27-year war that ended <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">in 2002</a>. </p>
<p>Voter polling is a relatively new phenomenon in Angola so one cannot vouch for the reliability of the poll. However, it fits with the general downward trend in the MPLA’s electoral performance since 2008.</p>
<h2>Uneasy situation</h2>
<p>The 2017 election marked the resignation of President José Eduardo dos Santos, who had been in office <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180908-dos-santos-leader-angola-president-joao-lourenco-ruling-party">since 1979</a>. His lengthy tenure had become a focus of popular protest that had gathered pace in Angola since 2011, along with other issues such as <a href="https://democracyinafrica.org/the-struggle-for-democracy-in-angola/">unemployment, the high cost of living</a> and growing inequality amid an oil boom. The boom had produced, at least on paper, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/30/opinion/opinion-angola-development-elections/index.html">dizzying growth figures</a> between 2004 and 2014.</p>
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<p>President João Lourenço took office amid the post-boom recession. His first move was to distance himself from Dos Santos. He lost no time in prosecuting some high-profile beneficiaries of the Dos Santos regime and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angola-the-fall-of-the-dos-santos-clan/a-45646757">nationalising their assets</a>.</p>
<p>The goodwill generated by such measures, however, could not last long. Dos Santos’s electoral strategy had rested on associating himself with the arrival of peace in 2002, and blaming the country’s problems on the legacy of the war and more specifically on Unita. The MPLA’s <a href="https://www.academia.edu/en/35640101/Angola_s_Elections_and_the_Politics_of_Presidential_Succession">declining share of the vote from 2008</a> onwards showed how that strategy was becoming ever less effective as the war receded into the past.</p>
<p>What is more, in previous elections the MPLA could count on the support of an emerging middle class that got used to a consumer lifestyle during the boom. Lourenço took office in the midst of a deep economic crisis, which has only got worse since he was elected. </p>
<p>Poverty is once again visible on the streets of Luanda, the capital, in the form of people scrounging for food in rubbish containers. Abandoned construction sites are a visible reminder of the bubble that burst. Even the middle class, whose expectations were raised during the oil boom, now struggle to buy basic necessities. </p>
<p>The 2022 election is the first in which citizens born after the war are old enough to vote. To this generation, the old slurs against Unita are meaningless. Even in traditional MPLA strongholds such as Malanje in north-central Angola, the party has <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2022/08/angolan-elections-2022-indifferent-reception-for-president-lourenco-in-malanje/">battled to mobilise support at campaign rallies</a>.</p>
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<p>Lourenço has been more tolerant of criticism than his predecessor was, but the current regime still resorts to force when it feels challenged. In November 2020, a march in Luanda calling for the creation of jobs and the holding of long-delayed municipal elections was <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/12/angola-police-fire-peaceful-protesters">met by police with live ammunition</a>.</p>
<p>In 2021 police also used force against protesters <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/angola-unlawful-killings-arbitrary-arrests-and-hunger-set-election-tone/">in Cabinda and Lunda Norte provinces</a>.</p>
<p>The authorities have <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/05/angola-authorities-repress-civil-society-organizations-ahead-of-election/">prevented civil society organisations</a> from holding meetings in the run-up to the elections.</p>
<h2>Marshalling the opposition</h2>
<p>As the MPLA’s political capital has diminished, so the opposition has begun to look more credible. Unita, the main opposition party, began to broaden its social base during the 2010s, finding common cause with civil society and a growing protest movement particularly in Luanda – a city where for previous generations, voting for Unita would have been anathema.</p>
<p>The election to the party leadership of <a href="https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2019-11-16---angola--adalberto-costa-junior--new-leader-of-unita---rfi-.H1xiNIKasS.html">Adalberto Costa Júnior</a>, 60, in 2019 marked a change of generation and image, and an effort to build the party’s support beyond its traditional bases in the interior.</p>
<p>In an attempt to gather together divided opposition votes, Unita is including on its electoral list <a href="https://eco.sapo.pt/2022/07/23/unita-apresenta-manifesto-eleitoral-e-promete-governo-de-competentes-e-nao-de-partidarios/">candidates from outside the party</a>. They include Abel Chivukuvuku, a former Unita official who enjoys a strong personal following and whose new PRA-JA party was denied registration, and Justino Pinto de Andrade, a well-known academic and liberation struggle veteran from a prominent MPLA family.</p>
<p>The MPLA, which still has a strong hold over the civil service and judiciary, has done its best to make life difficult for the opposition. Last year the constitutional court annulled the election of Costa Júnior as Unita leader, on the grounds that at the time of the party congress, he held dual Angolan-Portuguese nationality, even though he subsequently <a href="https://www.novojornal.co.ao/politica/interior/tc-anula-xiii-congresso-da-unita---acordao-7002021-da-provimento-aos-requerentes-por-violacao-da-constituicao-da-lei-e-dos-estatutos-de-2015-em-actualizacao-104785.html">renounced the Portuguese citizenship</a> that he had inherited from his father. </p>
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<p>The composition of the electoral commission is dominated by government and MPLA appointees. As in previous years, state media during the campaign period have been giving disproportionate coverage to MPLA events and government projects associated with the MPLA. Unita has filed criminal complaints over <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202208080237.html">breaches of the electoral law</a>, of which the outcome remains uncertain.</p>
<h2>Discontentment</h2>
<p>Lourenço faces new challenges as he heads into his second term. The economy remains oil dependent and the country still depends heavily on imported food. So a recovery in global energy prices has been offset by an increase in food prices <a href="http://hub.ccouc.cuhk.edu.hk/news-and-info/angola-implications-ukraine-crisis-food-fuel-fertilisers-and-freight-prices-southern">brought about by the war in Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>Discontentment over the ongoing issues of inequality and unemployment is likely to be sharpened in the wake of an election result that lacks legitimacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Pearce has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>Angola’s 2022 election is the first in which citizens born after the war are old enough to vote.Justin Pearce, Senior lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880832022-08-08T08:51:55Z2022-08-08T08:51:55ZAngola’s Eduardo dos Santos: an unlikely leader known for his ‘judicious’ use of violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477758/original/file-20220804-19-9vb2ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The late former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%96%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B5_%D0%AD%D0%B4%D1%83%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B4%D1%83_%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%88_%D0%A1%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D1%83%D1%88.jpg">Agência Brasil, used under Creative Commons Licence </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">José Eduardo dos Santos</a>, the former Angolan president who died on 8 July 2022 five years after relinquishing power, was an unlikely leader. </p>
<p>His <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-dos-Santos">38-year tenure</a> didn’t stem from a talent for mobilising popular support. Instead, he held on to power through his ability to work behind the scenes and turn apparently adverse circumstances to his advantage.</p>
<p>He was born in Sambizanga, Luanda <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">in 1942</a>, the son of poor immigrants from São Tomé – a detail that was used by his detractors to claim that he was not really Angolan. He was educated at Luanda’s most prestigious state high school, the <a href="https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/955307/historico-liceu-salvador-correia-de-luanda-ganha-nova-vida">Liceu Salvador Correia</a>. At the time, Portuguese policy ensured that only a handful of black learners qualified for such institutions. In 1961, when the colonial order was shaken by a prison break in Luanda and uprisings on the plantations of the north, Dos Santos was in his late teens. Like many educated black Angolans of his generation <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/09/1110694356/angolas-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-once-one-of-africas-longest-serving-rulers-dies">he left the country</a>.</p>
<p>He studied in Baku in the then Soviet Union, where he met his first wife, Tatiana Kukanova, the mother of his eldest daughter Isabel. He served for a time in communications for the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola’s (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Popular-Movement-for-the-Liberation-of-Angola">MPLA)</a>) guerrillas in Cabinda, as well as in its diplomatic arm in various capital cities. This equipped him for his role as foreign minister in the first independent government from 1975. When a free Angola’s founding president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/09/12/angolan-leader-neto-dies-in-moscow/e6bc2716-b3cc-44f4-af32-4909d4648d05/">Agostinho Neto died in 1979</a>, the MPLA anointed Dos Santos, then 36, as party leader. This made him automatically the head of state.</p>
<h2>Dos Santos’s reign</h2>
<p>At the time Angola was fighting <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/12/02/the-angolan-civil-war-conflict-economics-or-the-divine-right-of-kings/">a civil war</a> (1975-2002) against Jonas Savimbi’s rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (<a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03515.htm">Unita</a>). This merged with a war of aggression <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-narrative-unfolds-about-south-africas-protracted-war-in-angola-54575">from apartheid South Africa</a>. </p>
<p>His party, too, was in crisis. Years of internal division had erupted in 1977 with an uprising led by a former government minister, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/03/nito-alves-teenage-resistance-angola">Nito Alves</a>, supported by many of Luanda’s poor residents and by <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2022/05/time-for-truth-and-reconciliation-in-angola/">radical intellectuals within the MPLA</a>.</p>
<p>The MPLA’s leadership responded by transforming the organisation into an instrument of control rather than political participation. It was an environment where an aptitude for mobilising people was less important than the ability to manage the intricacies of intra-party politics.</p>
<p>The state’s security depended on crucial relationships with Cuba and the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s, as the Soviet Union scaled back its international interests, the United States pushed for <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/angolan-namibian-peace-plan-accepted">a peace deal that linked the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola to the independence of Namibia from South Africa</a>, and eventual multiparty elections. The US assumed this plan would culminate in the MPLA losing power like other Soviet-backed regimes. It assumed wrongly.</p>
<p>Residents in Angola’s coastal cities distrusted Savimbi. This, alongside the MPLA’s control of state resources to fund its campaign, led the party to an <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/ang1992elect2.htm">outright National Assembly win</a> in the 1992 elections. Dos Santos came within 1% of an outright victory in the presidential vote. </p>
<p>The government largely complied with requirements to disarm its armed forces, but civilian militia remained loyal to the MPLA and were complemented by a new partisan special police force. Despite its own substantial army, <a href="https://www.c-r.org/accord/angola/why-did-bicesse-and-lusaka-fail-critical-analysis">Unita had no chance of seizing power while contesting the election result</a>.</p>
<h2>Consolidation</h2>
<p>The election results allowed Dos Santos to claim the moral high ground over Unita. And a return to war from 1993 provided cover for political repression. Dos Santos benefited from those aspects of the <a href="https://publicofficialsfinancialdisclosure.worldbank.org/sites/fdl/files/assets/law-library-files/Angola_Constitutional%20Law_1992_en.pdf">1992 constitution</a> that suited him, such as privileging the presidency over the party. He ignored those that didn’t – like civil liberties and parliamentary oversight. Family members were indulged. Army generals were kept onside by the award of military and civilian state contracts.</p>
<p>In 2001, as Dos Santos approached 60 after more than 20 years in power, he hinted that he might step down. The question of succession had always been taboo. When the party secretary-general <a href="https://www.angola.or.jp/2020/08/24/biography-pr-joao-lourenco-en/">João Lourenço</a> indicated his availability as the next leader, he was rapidly sidelined. When, in February 2002, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1839252.stm">Angolan Armed Forces tracked down and killed Savimbi</a>, and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/africa/04/04/angola.peace/">the surviving Unita leadership accepted peace</a> on the government’s terms, Dos Santos relaunched his presidential career under the soubriquet of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61426699">“The Architect of Peace”</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ipsnews.net/2009/09/angola-rich-and-poor-one-country-but-worlds-apart/">Exponential growth in oil revenue</a> and the opportunities for state spending in the name of reconstruction allowed the presidency to divert yet more funds to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/04/13/transparency-and-accountability-angola">Dos Santos relatives and allies</a>. The tide began to turn in 2011; <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15065103">Angolans protested publicly</a> about the president’s seemingly endless tenure. The regime responded by <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-angola-15">jailing 15 activists</a> without trial for a year in 2015-16.</p>
<h2>Succession</h2>
<p>By 2016 Dos Santos was <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/05/the-presidents-state-of-health-a-state-secret/">spending extended periods in Spain</a> and word was that he was being treated for cancer. This was probably what forced the issue of the succession. But whom to back? His political allies were securocrats with no ambitions for the top spot. The party would never have supported a Dos Santos relative as his presidential heir.</p>
<p>Dos Santos’s least bad option was to rehabilitate João Lourenço, hoping that both the party and the security establishment would trust the man – and, crucially, that Lourenço would not interfere with the Dos Santos corruption empire. </p>
<p>But when <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-09-26-daunting-challenges-facing-angolas-new-president/">Lourenço won the 2017 election</a> as the MPLA’s candidate and took office amid a gathering economic crisis, he realised his only path to public approval was to distance himself from his predecessor. He removed Dos Santos’s relatives from their executive positions <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/lourencos-first-year-angolas-transitional-politics/">and investigated their financial affairs</a>. Dos Santos himself returned to Spain. Apart from a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/angolas-ex-leader-dos-santos-back-home-after-30-month-exile-angop-2021-09-14/">visit home in 2021</a>, he remained there until his death.</p>
<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>Some obituaries have called for a more generous remembering of Dos Santos, emphasising Angola’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/10/jose-eduardo-dos-santos-obituary">support for the struggle against South African apartheid</a>. Yet it is doubtful how much of this legacy Dos Santos could justly have claimed as his own, other than by virtue of the political sleight-of-hand that secured his position as head of state.</p>
<p>For Angolan writer Sousa Jamba, Dos Santos’s aptitude was in his “judicious use of violence”, and <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-10-angolas-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-was-a-ruthless-manipulator-who-left-no-legacy/">he left “no vision or philosophy”</a>.</p>
<p>Luaty Beirão, who was jailed for his criticism of the regime, <a href="https://twitter.com/LuatyBeirao/status/1545388385031917568">greeted the ex-president’s passing with the words:</a> </p>
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<p>Zero pity, zero emotions, he is completely indifferent to me. Excuse me, I have the Wimbledon semi-final to watch.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Pearce received funding from The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>The political skill to turn situations to his advantage, rather than any ability to mobilise people, made Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.Justin Pearce, Senior lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1874622022-07-22T15:25:31Z2022-07-22T15:25:31ZAngola’s Eduardo dos Santos: a divisive figure in life - and in death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475634/original/file-20220722-228-ecstnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jose Eduardo dos Santos. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">epa-efe/Tiago</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is unlikely to be consensus on what <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">José Eduardo dos Santos</a>, Angola’s former longtime president who died earlier this month in Barcelona, Spain, will represent in the memory of Angolans.</p>
<p>While he has been credited for steering his country through a decades long <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war</a>, his rule was marred by authoritarianism, high levels of corruption, and the securitisation of the state.</p>
<p>Critics were not tolerated and inequality marred attempts at post-conflict reconstruction. The failure to significantly diversify the country’s economy beyond its heavy reliance on oil has continued to haunt his successor, <a href="https://www.angola.or.jp/2020/08/24/biography-pr-joao-lourenco-en/">João Lourenço</a>. </p>
<p>Dos Santos was not a man known for his speeches or for intense public engagement. The most common way that he was encountered was through his face being on the country’s banknotes, an ironic reminder of the <a href="https://www.plataformamedia.com/en/2020/06/26/jose-eduardo-dos-santos-is-still-the-richest-man-in-angola/">wealth he seemed to personally control</a>. </p>
<p>Outside election cycles, Dos Santos was a withdrawn president. He stayed in his presidential homes, trusting only a small group of advisers and preferring to give verbal instructions rather than written ones. Angolans generally only saw him in the media and occasionally at official events if they were allowed to be present. </p>
<p>His silence allowed people to project their beliefs onto him, rather than ever be sure of an insight into his own thoughts. It was precisely this distanced silence, therefore, which produced his aura of power and the cult of personality that surrounded him.</p>
<h2>Absent but omnipresent</h2>
<p>Dos Santos came to power in September 1979 <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">at the age of 37</a>. He quickly came to inhabit his presidential position, side-lining many of the original prominent leaders of the governing People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Popular-Movement-for-the-Liberation-of-Angola">MPLA</a>), while installing his own people in positions of power. </p>
<p>His understanding of the workings of state institutions, presidential power and financial flows became apparent as the MPLA found itself increasingly unable to counteract its own president, causing frictions between party and leader.</p>
<p>Oil funds were used to ensure the viability of the MPLA’s war effort against the rebel movement Unita through the purchase of weapons and food. They also became a means of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43664097#metadata_info_tab_contents">disbursing patronage and favours</a>, tying the elite to the president’s whims. The fear of losing access to financial support in a country where to be poor meant having almost nothing acted as the ultimate threat for the elites.</p>
<p>By the end of the country’s civil war <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">in 2002</a>, decisively won by the MPLA led by Dos Santos, the presidency had almost rendered other decision-making structures irrelevant. The new <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Angola_2010.pdf?lang=en">2010 constitution</a> further embedded presidential powers. These had been informally accumulated during the 1980s and strengthened in the 1990s. This included the elimination of the position of prime minister as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Angola/Government-and-society">head of the government</a>.</p>
<p>Dos Santos inspired loyalty and fear. A number of factors made this possible. These included his long stay in power <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/07/08/former-angolan-president-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-dies-at-79//">(1979 to 2017)</a> as well as the creation of a parallel security state answerable almost exclusively to him. People were wary of phones being tapped, of acquaintances working for intelligence services, and the internet being monitored.</p>
<p>This fear created a relationship to the presidency in which it was understood as socially remote from ordinary Angolans; but seemingly omnipresent due to the belief in the office’s capacity to collect information about the most banal of everyday actions and statements.</p>
<p>These beliefs often seemed to be realised in the late days of Dos Santos’s rule when activist circles were infiltrated. This led to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2015/11/angola-trial-of-15-activists-after-five-months-in-detention-a-travesty-of-justice/">arrests and show trials</a> of those questioning state policies and the political system.</p>
<p>One of the long-term legacies of his rule is a paranoid and authoritarian political system. It does little to serve the needs of the majority and centres too much power in the presidency.</p>
<p>Attempts at opening up the political space and producing an engaged civil society <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2017/09/26/profile-angolas-eduardo-dos-santos-guerilla-fighter-to-democratic-president//">were dampened if not openly crushed</a>. Despite leading the country into its most-prolonged period of peace since 1961, when the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-61792-3_13">insurrection against Portuguese colonial rule began</a>, Dos Santos’s style of rule was detrimental to the growth of a vibrant democracy. Criticism was treated as a threat. Security forces were readily used to harass critics and opposition.</p>
<h2>Oil dependence, corruption and inequality</h2>
<p>Dos Santos’s economic legacy, more than his political one, attracted the most attention abroad. During his final years and his retirement in 2017, the accumulation of wealth by his family, especially his eldest child, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59616316">Isabel dos Santos</a>, generated significant criticism from Angolans and foreigners.</p>
<p>His children’s actions were viewed by many as symbolic of the broader scourge of corruption that had come to characterise Angola’s political economy. This, under the pretence of building a “national bourgeoisie”.</p>
<p>At the heart of Dos Santos’s power and Angola’s wealth stood oil. While many understood the country’s continued reliance on oil during the civil war period (1975-2002), Dos Santos’ inability to encourage significant diversification of the economy during the decade long post-conflict oil boom was perhaps one of his greatest failures.</p>
<p>If poverty was already extreme for many Angolans, the failed promises of the oil boom only made the period that followed worse. With <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/what-triggered-oil-price-plunge-2014-2016-and-why-it-failed-deliver-economic-impetus-eight-charts">the crash of oil in 2015</a>, <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/angola/overview#:%7E:text=Since%202015%2C%20the%20oil%20sector,GDP%20decline%20of%209.9%20percent.">the country has experienced</a> austerity, rising unemployment and worsening social conditions. This situation could have been alleviated if more focus had been placed on building alternatives to the oil industry.</p>
<h2>Legacy unclear</h2>
<p>Dos Santos died five years after leaving office in self-imposed exile, abandoned by his previous political allies, especially those belonging to his own generation of the anti-colonial struggle.</p>
<p>His body is now <a href="https://www.expatica.com/es/general/spanish-court-refuses-to-hand-over-dos-santos-body-192519/">in litigation in a Spanish court</a> and is the subject of a close dispute between different wings of his family and the Angolan state. President João Lourenço <a href="https://nation.africa/africa/news/angola-declares-7-days-of-national-mourning-after-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-death-3874220">decreed seven days of national mourning</a> and insists on holding a state funeral. Dos Santos’s children have accepted to bury him in Angola, but only after the 2022 election as they seek to leverage the political significance that his body symbolises. </p>
<p>The dispute is evidence of the power Dos Santos’s wielded in life and now in death. On the eve of the Angola’s <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/06/04/angola-to-hold-general-elections-on-august-24//">August 24 elections</a>, his funeral would be a means for Lourenço to gain electoral advantage and redeem himself in the face of public criticism for the attacks carried out against Dos Santos and his children.</p>
<p>For Lourenço and the hard-core of the MPLA, Dos Santos’ body is a political asset with the potential to appease internal divisions, negotiate with his children, and calm popular dissatisfaction with Lourenço’s and the party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-president-has-little-to-show-for-his-promise-of-a-break-with-the-authoritarian-past-167933">performance since 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Amid the political dispute over the body and general elections, Dos Santos’s political legacy will continue to divide Angolans immensely for a long time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Gastrow has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Research Council of Norway, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilson Lázaro receives funding from the Norwegian Embassy programme for research.</span></em></p>Dos Santos was a withdrawn president. His silence produced an aura of power and the cult of personality that surrounded him.Claudia Gastrow, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of JohannesburgGilson Lázaro, Research associate, Catholic University of AngolaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1874482022-07-21T15:02:38Z2022-07-21T15:02:38ZAngola’s Dos Santos failed to provide a moral example and stop the plunder of the state<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475377/original/file-20220721-1369-hfxt6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Manuel de Almeida</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Silence is what comes to define the life and the death of the former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos (1942-2022), who died recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/angolas-former-president-dos-santos-dies-79-2022-07-08/">at a hospital in Barcelona</a>, Spain, at the age of 79. Putting it slightly differently, his control of what he said and what he left unsaid defined not only how he lived and governed, but also how he managed the last years of his solitary life.</p>
<p>I previously worked as a journalist in Angola and Portugal. My subsequent <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8HM5GFD">PhD in anthropology</a> focused on the interplay between politics, urbanism and kinship in Luanda. I have also published a <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/in-the-skin-of-the-city">monograph</a> on the urban transformation of Luanda, the capital city of Angola.</p>
<p>In my view, since its independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola has become for the most part a country known for its opacity or lack of transparency. </p>
<p>It might not be sound to attribute to one single man the making of a whole system of state operations. But if one can say so, Dos Santos’s personality was fundamental in the shaping of postcolonial Angola. Very few leaders in the world have achieved this. He loathed direct confrontation, abolished the death penalty and prevented the slaughter of the generals of the rebel movement <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv03445/04lv03446/05lv03515.htm">National Union for the Total Independence of Angola</a> (Unita) in the wake of the killing of its leader Jonas Savimbi, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61426699">in February of 2002</a>. </p>
<p>Yet Dos Santos failed to provide a moral example and did very little to prevent those around him, including his family, from unmercifully plundering the country’s resources.</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p>Born in Luanda in 1942, he joined the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Congo in 1961 when he was 19. Soon afterwards, he was sent to the Soviet Union, where he studied oil engineering. The MPLA was confronted with a lack of capable cadres at that time, enabling him to move up its highest echelons. </p>
<p>Angola achieved independence from Portugal in 1975.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-leader-is-changing-angola-but-the-end-destination-isnt-clear-131063">New leader is changing Angola. But the end destination isn't clear</a>
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<p>Dos Santos became Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1975 and First Deputy Prime Minister in December 1978, nine months before the death of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/09/12/angolan-leader-neto-dies-in-moscow/e6bc2716-b3cc-44f4-af32-4909d4648d05/">Agostinho Neto</a>, the first president of a free Angola.</p>
<p>Good looking, soft spoken, and at the tender age of 37, he was chosen to replace <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/agostinho-neto-1922-1979">Neto</a>. In his inauguration speech, he conceded that replacing Neto, to whom epithets such as <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/agostinho-neto-1922-1979/">Father of the Nation</a> and <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201409091501.html">Immortal Guide</a> were given, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YvajZ1kIRw">was not</a></p>
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<p>an easy substitution, let alone a possible substitution, but simply a necessary substitution.</p>
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<p>There are various versions of why he was nominated to succeed Neto. One is that it was because he was young, and therefore seen as easy to control. Another is that he became the president because the top structure of the party was dominated by whites and mixed-race militants. Most party members believed that only a black Angolan could govern the country.</p>
<h2>Oil and war</h2>
<p>But those who helped Dos Santos rise to the presidency and thought that they could use him as a puppet were soon disappointed. In the early 1980s, he started to push out Neto’s advisers and surround himself with younger ones who would be known as Futunguistas, in reference to the presidential headquarters he had transferred to Futungo de Belas, on the outskirts of the city.</p>
<p>In those years, he was concerned with two interrelated pressing issues that came to determine his presidency: oil and war. </p>
<p>On the oil front, he turned Angola into one of the largest producers on the continent, using oil to finance the war as well as to drive economic growth. Results became visible in the 2000s, when Angola become one of the countries with the highest economic growth in the world. The GDP growth rate of Angola <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/gdp-growth">reached an all time high of 23.2% in the fourth quarter of 2007</a>. </p>
<p>He furthered military cooperation with Cuba, and with its help attempted to crush Unita militarily. In 1985 he ordered the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592318.2018.1519312">Operation Second Congress</a>, with the goal of destroying Unita’s main logistical hub in Mavinga. </p>
<p>Unita survived thanks to support from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4005928#metadata_info_tab_contents">apartheid South Africa and America’s CIA</a>. But the offensive – which culminated in a peace deal – had other consequences for democracy in the region by contributing to South Africa’s increased isolation. </p>
<p>This change in sentiment opened the way for the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/namibia-gains-independence">1990</a> independence of Namibia, which was still governed by the apartheid regime. Other events that shaped the region included the democratisation of South Africa in 1991 and the peace agreement signed between the Angolan government and Jonas Savimbi’s rebels <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/angola/peace-agreements-case-angola">in the same year</a>.</p>
<p>As part of the agreement Cuban troops were withdrawn from Angola.</p>
<p>Dos Santos ran against Savimbi in the general election of 1992. Dos Santos was <a href="https://www.eisa.org/wep/ang1992elect2.htm">declared the winner</a> but Savimbi refused to accept the results. This precipitated an even more destructive phase of the civil war, which ensued for ten more years. </p>
<p>In the late 1990s, frustrated with the possibility of negotiating peace, Dos Santos became increasingly convinced that war in Angola would only end with either Savimbi’s death or capture. But to achieve this he needed unrestricted power.</p>
<p>In 1998 he dissolved the cabinet and embarked on the overhaul of the Angolan constitution to enable him to take quick and expedient decisions without the approval of the National Assembly.</p>
<p>This weakening of state institutions was certainly behind <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-luandas-residents-are-asking-where-did-all-the-oil-riches-go-49772">the plunder of public resources by private interests</a>. This state of affairs was cemented with the adoption of constitutional changes in <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Angola_2010.pdf?lang=en">2010</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-president-has-little-to-show-for-his-promise-of-a-break-with-the-authoritarian-past-167933">Angola's president has little to show for his promise of a break with the authoritarian past</a>
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<p>All of this Dos Santos did without, so to speak, opening his mouth. At least in public. He rarely sat with journalists. As far as I know he never granted an interview to an Angolan journalist, and only conceded three interviews to Portuguese channels. He rarely spoke off script, preferring to carefully read the speeches prepared by his collaborators. </p>
<p>For the duration of his presidency, people spent their time trying to interpret his silence. Many resorted to taking decisions in the anticipation of what they thought Dos Santos expected them to do.</p>
<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>Dos Santos didn’t break his silence even after being replaced by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-angolas-new-president-joao-lourenco/a-40218458">João Lourenço</a>, who won the general election in 2017. </p>
<p>Lourenço made the fight against corruption – deemed to be the main legacy of Dos Santos’s 38 years in power – the cornerstone of his presidency. He pursued Dos Santos’s main collaborators, including the former president’s family. </p>
<p>Dos Santos made only a single public attempt – and a timid one at that – to clear his record on the issue of corruption. For the rest he kept his silence, failing to intervene even when his children were pursued. His son <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-angola-dossantos-idUSKCN25A1T6">Zenu dos Santos</a> was jailed in Angola. His daughter <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/angola-dossantos-portugal-idUSL8N29S2IQ">Isabel dos Santos</a> remains abroad.</p>
<p>Dos Santos promised to give a tell-all interview. But it never happened. He died as he had lived and governed: in silence. His silence, and what he accomplished with it, is for me the most enduring legacy of José Eduardo dos Santos.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>António Tomás does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dos Santos died as he had lived and governed: in silence. His silence, and what he accomplished with it, is his most enduring legacy.António Tomás, Associate Professor, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1828052022-05-22T12:34:54Z2022-05-22T12:34:54ZAngola’s ruling party faces united opposition in upcoming poll. But it’s pushing back<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464961/original/file-20220524-15-oyg1s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by AMPE ROGERIO/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The election of Angolan President João Lourenço in 2017 <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-8322.12421">raised hopes</a> of a shift from the authoritarian and corrupt era of his predecessor. This was thanks to the new, more open and approachable style of governance he instituted in his first months in office. This included opening up the public media as well as symbolic gestures such as ending the practice of blocking off road traffic for the president’s motorcade to pass.</p>
<p>Yet ahead of the August 2022 elections, in which Lourenço is running for a second term, these hopes have largely been dashed. </p>
<p>Lourenço’s moves to ‘open up’ the Angolan economy have had little effect. Instead, an economic <a href="https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/angola">crisis</a> that has endured since late 2014 has led to popular dissatisfaction and anger among Angolans. This anger is behind the formation of a broad political opposition front against the ruling party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The new <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-05/angola-opposition-parties-unite-to-challenge-mpla-s-46-year-rule">United Patriotic Front</a> brings together key opposition leaders as well as civil society organisations.</p>
<p>This front could be the best hope for opposition and civil society activists to prevent yet another victory for the MPLA and João Lourenço. That’s because it brings together under one umbrella key opposition leaders and offers a credible alternative for those disaffected with Lourenço and his party.</p>
<p>That said, even though the ruling party’s voter share has been steadily declining, it is likely to win again with more than 50% of the vote due to electoral fraud and obstruction.</p>
<p>To quell potential threats to its continued dominance Lourenço’s party – which has <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Popular-Movement-for-the-Liberation-of-Angola">ruled</a> Angola since independence in 1975 —- is using all instruments at its disposal to hobble the opposition. </p>
<h2>Finished and unfinished business</h2>
<p>Former president <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">José Eduardo dos Santos</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/dos-santos-maintains-the-status-quo-while-suggesting-change-in-angola-56883">stepped back</a> ahead of the 2017 elections after 38 years in power. Lourenço, the MPLA’s new candidate for the presidency, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-unlikely-to-herald-the-change-angolans-have-been-clamouring-for-82851">widely panned</a> as an uninspiring party soldier and Dos Santos loyalist. Campaigning under the slogan, “<a href="https://www.voaportugues.com/a/joao-lourenco-melhorar-o-que-esta-bem-corrigir-mal/4017873.html">improve what is good, correct what is bad</a>”, Lourenço promised more of the same, just perhaps slightly better. </p>
<p>Yet he managed to surprise many by unleashing a <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2017/11/no-puppet-president-lourenco-stamps-his-authority-on-angola/">flurry of dismissals</a> of high-ranking government officials and civil servants. </p>
<p>The fight against corruption was his first major policy plank. This has been selectively successful. For example, he instituted high-profile corruption inquiries. These included several investigations into <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-leader-is-changing-angola-but-the-end-destination-isnt-clear-131063">the dealings of the dos Santos family itself</a>.</p>
<p>This earned him the praise of critics and citizens. And it was a crucial element towards his other main priority, which was to reposition Angola as a trustworthy partner on the global stage. The negotiation of an agreement with the <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/12/07/pr18463imf-executive-board-approves-extended-arrangement-under-the-extended-fund-facility-for-angola">International Monetary Fund</a> for a multibillion credit line to stabilise the ailing economy in 2018, was trumpeted as evidence of Angola’s openness to reform. </p>
<p>The change paved the way for new oil investments and some debt rescheduling.</p>
<p>Yet these ‘reforms’ have largely been geared towards <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972022000055">external audiences</a> – including regaining the trust of foreign investors.</p>
<p>Rather than improving socio-economic circumstances, self-inflicted austerity measures have hit the poorer parts of the population hardest. Debt <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3170020/angola-looks-refinancing-debt-it-faces-higher-repayments">servicing</a> stands at 60% of government expenditure. Health and education are languishing at <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS?locations=AO">levels</a> of spending that are among the continent’s lowest. And service standards are just as low. </p>
<p>The cost of living has skyrocketed, with the price of basic foodstuffs exploding. </p>
<h2>Opposition consolidates</h2>
<p>A newly invigorated opposition is promising to capitalise on rising <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-president-has-little-to-show-for-his-promise-of-a-break-with-the-authoritarian-past-167933">popular dissatisfaction</a>. This has resulted in frequent <a href="https://angolatelegraph.com/news/luanda-neighborhoods-without-water-on-the-day-a-new-strike-by-epal-workers-begins/">strikes</a> and protests across the country. </p>
<p>The opposition has never been in a better position to earn the vote of Angolans. In an initial phase (2017-19) the Angolan public was willing to <a href="https://www.infosplusgabon.com/actualites/submenu-8/8657-novo-presidente-angolano-resgatou-confianca-de-investidores-diz-empresario">trust</a> the new president’s willingness to <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/angola-under-lourenco-more-than-just-a-promising-start">reform</a>. Since then, the socio-economic situation has got <a href="https://www.heritage.org/index/country/angola">worse</a>. </p>
<p>Many citizens (including some within the MPLA) are dissatisfied with a selective fight against corruption that targets Dos Santos’ allies while promoting <a href="https://www.portaldeangola.com/2021/12/22/ate-onde-ira-a-ascensao-do-grupo-carrinho/">oligopolies</a> <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2020/08/os-donos-da-omatapalo/">associated</a> with Lourenço.</p>
<p>The end of the honeymoon coincided with change at the head of the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/UNITA">UNITA </a>), one of Angola’s three historic liberation movements turned rebel group turned opposition party, which elected <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/adalberto-costa-j%C3%BAnior/t-59759409">Adalberto Costa Júnior</a> in November 2019. He was, until his election to the party presidency, the head of the party’s parliamentary bench. He’s a fierce critic of the MPLA and its anti-corruption policies. </p>
<p>Costa Júnior (60) quickly gained in <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/186563/angola-2022-can-adalberto-costa-junior-wrest-power-from-president-laurenco/">popularity</a>, articulating clear positions and cutting a much more presidential figure than his predecessor, <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/isa%C3%ADas-samakuva/t-37979491">Isaías Samakuva</a>. </p>
<p>Costa Júnior’s ascendance also paved the way for the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angola-opposition-unites-against-the-government/a-57639683">creation</a> of the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-05/angola-opposition-parties-unite-to-challenge-mpla-s-46-year-rule">United Patriotic Front</a>.</p>
<p>The front includes large sectors of organised civil society opposed to the MPLA as well as political parties. These include UNITA, the <a href="https://www.portaldeangola.com/2022/02/01/bloco-democratico-preocupado-com-situacao-actual-do-pais-e-da-gestao-eleitoral/">Bloco Democrático</a> of <a href="https://observador.pt/2021/07/04/angola-filomeno-vieira-lopes-eleito-lider-do-bloco-democratico/">Filomeno Vieira Lopes</a> and the political project <a href="https://www.verangola.net/va/en/072020/Politics/21072/PRA-JA-Servir-Angola's-Installation-Commission-says-Constitutional-Court-justifications-are-fallacious.htm">Pra-Já servir Angola</a>, of <a href="https://www.verangola.net/va/en/012021/Politics/23666/Chivukuvuku-PRA-JA-is-the-pretty-girl-with-whom-everyone-wants-to-dance.htm">Abel Chivukuvuku</a> (ex-UNITA and ex-CASA-CE).</p>
<h2>The empire strikes back</h2>
<p>A politicised judiciary is playing a key role in Lourenço’s fight back.</p>
<p><a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202203100022.html">Rattled</a> by the threat posed by Costa Júnior, Lourenço has mobilised the Constitutional Court, where <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202108200634.html">most</a> of the judges are associated with the MPLA.</p>
<p>After a <a href="https://www.verangola.net/va/en/082021/Politics/26814/UNITA-accuses-MPLA-and-Government-of-subverting-the-law-to-perpetuate-power.htm">bogus claim</a> by some alleged UNITA member, the court in October 2021 <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/tribunal-constitucional-de-angola-anula-congresso-da-unita/a-59412324">annulled</a> the party’s 13th congress held in 2019 that had elected Costa Júnior as leader on spurious grounds. </p>
<p>This was a political rather than a legal decision, with a majority of <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/pt/angola/20210822-nova-presidente-do-tribunal-constitucional-de-angola-continua-a-gerar-pol%C3%A9mica">judges</a> following the wishes of the president. The ruling triggered angry <a href="https://www.verangola.net/va/en/102021/Society/27738/Thousands-marched-in-Luanda-shouting-%E2%80%9Cout-MPLA%E2%80%9D-and-defending-deposed-UNITA-leader.htm">protests</a> across the country. </p>
<p>An extraordinary UNITA party congress in December 2021 reelected Costa Júnior with an overwhelming majority. But a further six-month delay by the court in <a href="https://angolatelegraph.com/politics/annotation-dispatches-of-the-congresses-of-six-angolan-parties-published-in-the-diario-da-republica/">validating</a> that second congress (plus those of five other parties) tied UNITA up in exhausting legal challenges. This prolonged insecurity and impeded Costa Júnior from pre-election campaigning or signing any agreements in the name of the party.</p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>Three months ahead of elections, Angola presents a paradoxical picture. While foreign <a href="https://www.internationalinvestment.net/internationalinvestment/news-analysis/3501959/angola-unlikely-reformer">investors</a> hail Lourenço as a “courageous” <a href="https://www.fdiintelligence.com/content/Feature/angola-seeks-balance-between-hydrocarbons-and-economic-reform-80433">great</a> <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4652e15a-f7ba-4d21-9788-41db251c5a76">reformer</a>, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/2/23/angolas-climate-refugees-on-a-journey-with-no-end">hunger</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angolan-opposition-people-are-eating-animal-feed/a-57954006">poverty</a>, and popular <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/catholic-bishops-angola-emerge-fearless-critics-countrys-ruling-party">dissatisfaction</a> are on the rise.</p>
<p>The MPLA is reverting to old authoritarian <a href="https://bti-project.org/en/reports/country-report/AGO#pos5">reflexes</a> – legal-administrative obstacles, harassment and intimidation, physical violence, arbitrary detention, extra-legal killings, media manipulation, judicial bias and electoral fraud – to thwart any possible opposition threat to its dominance.</p>
<p>The United Patriotic Front faces <a href="https://www.club-k.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47444:tudo-que-sai-do-tribunal-constitucional-serve-para-desgastar-o-adversario-politico&catid=23&Itemid=641&lang=pt">likely</a> legal <a href="https://www.club-k.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47442:frente-patriotica-unida-rejeita-acusacao-de-que-podera-ser-ilegal&catid=23&Itemid=641&lang=pt">challenges</a>, voter registration is marred by obstacles, <a href="https://www.cmi.no/publications/7714-human-rights-in-angola">human rights</a> violations and the <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/pol%C3%ADcia-reprime-protesto-e-det%C3%A9m-manifestantes-em-benguela/av-60936946">repression</a> of <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/sedrick-de-carvalho-continuamos-com-as-mesmas-viola%C3%A7%C3%B5es-graves-em-angola/a-61475444">protests</a> are <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/julgamento-sum%C3%A1rio-em-luanda-de-mais-de-20-manifestantes/a-61443761">on the rise</a> again. State-controlled media give overwhelming airtime to the MPLA while <a href="https://rsf.org/en/country/angola">censoring</a> opposition voices.</p>
<p>As a result, the elections are likely to be marred by fraud, intimidation and violence, with a subservient judiciary again quashing any legal challenges to the MPLA.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182805/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Schubert receives funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilson Lázaro receives funding from Norwegian Embassy program of research. </span></em></p>The MPLA is using all instruments at its disposal to hobble a new united opposition front ahead of the Angola election.Jon Schubert, SNF Eccellenza Professor, University of BaselGilson Lázaro, Research associate, Catholic University of AngolaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1679332021-09-17T12:42:57Z2021-09-17T12:42:57ZAngola’s president has little to show for his promise of a break with the authoritarian past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421542/original/file-20210916-15-lrg5m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joao Lourenco, the President of Angola. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Clemens Bilan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/26/angola-swears-in-joao-lourenco-as-president">four years</a> since João Lourenço was sworn in as Angola’s third president. He succeeded former president José Eduardo dos Santos, who had governed the southern African nation <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">for 38 years</a>.</p>
<p>Lourenço promised to initiate a wide range of much-needed reforms. This included curbing corruption and diversifying Angola’s oil-dependent economy. Many Angolans saw his presidency as the beginning of a more open and accountable government.</p>
<p>He has taken <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/angola/freedom-world/2020">a number of steps in this direction</a>. He opened up the political space by meeting longtime critics of Dos Santos’ government, including the investigative journalist <a href="https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/case-of-rafael-marques-de-morais/">Rafael Marques de Morais</a>. Lourenço also criticised violent security responses to peaceful anti-government demonstrations and urged state owned media to report outside the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party line. Other steps he took included easing down on repression, and creating a freer environment for the press and civil society. </p>
<p>These gained him significant political support from opposition parties and society at large. </p>
<p>However, four years into his presidency and a year to the end of his first term, the optimism his election generated has dwindled as his electoral promises have not become reality. </p>
<p>His flagship policies, such as tackling corruption and diversify Angola’s economy away from oil dependence, have stalled. And some of his initial liberalising moves are being reversed. These include his openness to civil society, the call for an end to heavy-handed security responses against protesters and partisan reporting by public media outlets. This is leaving Angola’s authoritarian political system largely unchanged. </p>
<p>In addition, the economy has not grown under Lourenço and economic diversification is yet to happen. As <a href="https://novojornal.co.ao/economia/interior/se-o-sector-petrolifero-se-movimenta-contra-nos-toda-a-economia-entra-em-stress--vera-daves-de-sousa-104026.html">acknowledged</a> by Finance Minister Vera Daves de Sousa in late August:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if the oil sector moves against us, the whole economy goes into stress.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is important because, as was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-democracy-in-africa-changing-leaders-doesnt-change-politics-144292">case with Zimbabwe</a>, it shows that change in leadership does not necessarily engender political and economic change.</p>
<h2>What’s wrong in the state of Angola</h2>
<p>The power structure in Angola <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angola-the-fall-of-the-dos-santos-clan/a-45646757">was shaped</a> during the course of Dos Santos’ nearly four-decade long presidency. It gives extensive powers to the president, who is also the leader of the ruling party, the MPLA. It also ensures the dominance of the party in government and state institutions.</p>
<p>Following his inauguration in 2017, Lourenço <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-angola-politics-idUSKBN1CW10S">replaced</a> most of Dos Santos’ loyalists in government and in the governing party with close associates. He appointed allies to key positions in the army, police, intelligence services, government, state-owned companies and the party.</p>
<p>Recently, he initiated and enacted a <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-constitution-is-under-review-but-a-great-deal-has-been-left-undone-165544">Constitutional Revision Law</a> that effectively keeps the Angolan judiciary hostage to political power. It also retains the president’s prerogative to appoint key judicial officers. These include the attorney general and his deputies as well as the presiding judges and deputy presiding judges of the highest courts.</p>
<p>In addition, oversight institutions remain toothless as the president and the ruling party have the prerogative to appoint candidates to serve on them. They often dominate these institutions and their processes by virtue of their combined numbers. These include the Constitutional Court, the National Electoral Commission and the entity responsible for media regulation. </p>
<p>On top of this, there has been a progressive closure of the political space over the past two years. The security services have become <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/04/angola-security-forces-kill-protesters-lunda-norte-province">more repressive</a>. This has been especially so against young activists who have been protesting against the high cost of living and high unemployment. </p>
<h2>Same old authoritarian practices</h2>
<p>State-owned media (television, radio and press) have reverted to their old ways of partisan reporting. For instance, Adalberto Costa Junior, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/angolan-opposition-unita-elects-leader-191331499.html">the leader of Unita</a>, Angola’s main opposition party, has not been interviewed by public media outlets since his election two years ago. </p>
<p>The government has almost absolute control over television since it <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202107230385.html">suspended</a> some private television companies. Other TV channels were ordered <a href="https://cpj.org/2021/05/angola-suspends-3-tv-channels-for-alleged-improper-registration/">to close for allegedly operating illegally </a>.</p>
<p>There is a multiparty system in Angola. But opposition parties don’t have much say in parliament. The ruling party <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/africa/angola-election-dos-santos-president-lourenco.html">has the numbers</a> to approve or block any legislation or policy that does not advance its interests. </p>
<p>This has allowed the MPLA <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-covid-19-cant-be-blamed-for-angolas-failure-to-have-local-governance-144685">to consistently delay the implementation</a> of elected local government. Under the current system of centralised governance, the ruling party gets to appoint all state officials at subnational level (provincial governor, municipal and district administrators). </p>
<h2>Preparing for next year’s elections</h2>
<p>Lourenço’s popularity, and that of the ruling party, <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/pt/angola/20210220-sondagem-aponta-l%C3%ADder-da-unita-mais-popular-que-jo%C3%A3o-louren%C3%A7o">continues to decline</a>. This is due to the cumulative effects of a <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/countries/southern-africa/angola/angola-economic-outlook">severe economic crisis</a> which started in 2014, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. </p>
<p>The President and the MPLA seem to be devising strategies to ensure their continued stay in power. These include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>keeping a highly contested official at the helm of the National Electoral Commission, </p></li>
<li><p>the creation of new provinces, and</p></li>
<li><p>the approval of a controversial electoral law, which prevents votes from being counted at district, municipal and provincial levels. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>This raises serious concerns about the transparency of the general elections <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202108230386.html">due next year</a>. In the end, Lourenço sent the controversial electoral law back to parliament for further discussion following mounting criticism from opposition parties and civil society.</p>
<p>The main opposition forces have been capitalising on these and other failures to criticise Lourenço’s government while advancing strategies to challenge the hegemony of the ruling party. One such initiative is the political alliance being formed by Unita, the Democratic Bloc and PraJá Servir Angola to run in the upcoming elections as a United Patriotic Front. This should potentially make the general election <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202108230386.html">next year</a> more competitive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Albano Agostinho Troco does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The optimism Angolan president João Lourenço’s election generated four years ago has dwindled as electoral promise after another have failed to materialise.Albano Agostinho Troco, NRF/British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the SA-UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538922021-02-17T14:45:17Z2021-02-17T14:45:17ZWhy being endowed with oil is not always a boon: the case of Nigeria and Angola<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382714/original/file-20210205-13-ilajqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young Angolans protest for bettter living conditions in the capital Luanda in 2020.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In countries with weak governance institutions, natural resource wealth <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01045.x">tends</a> to be a curse instead of a blessing. Where citizens are relatively powerless to hold ruling elites to account, resource wealth undermines development prospects. On the contrary, where citizens are able to exert constraints on executive power, resource wealth can generate development that benefits ordinary citizens.</p>
<p>Development scholar <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0305750X94901651">Richard Auty</a> first coined the term ‘resource curse’ in the early 1990s. He used the phrase to describe the puzzling phenomenon of resource wealthy countries failing to industrialise. Manifestations of the ‘curse’ now range from widespread corruption to civil war to deepening authoritarian rule. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382436/original/file-20210204-22-iwxypj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Literature <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052213-040359">on the resource curse</a> has done an adequate job of describing the general nature of the relationship between resource dependence and underdevelopment. It now needs to focus on understanding specific manifestations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6076-5">In my latest book</a>, I detail what these are in relation to oil in Nigeria and Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s two largest oil producers.</p>
<p>My book shows that the resource curse manifests differently in different contexts. </p>
<p>Why does this matter?</p>
<p>If governance interventions are to be useful, it’s important to <a href="https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.27.2.173">understand the context</a>. Otherwise, policy interventions won’t gain traction. If political dynamics play a <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/700936?mobileUi=0&">determinative role</a> in long-run economic outcomes, we must understand them better. </p>
<h2>Two countries, two stories</h2>
<p>In 2018, Angola’s fuel exports constituted 92.4% of the country’s total exports. Oil rents – the <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/metadataglossary/adjusted-net-savings/series/NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.ZS">difference</a> between the price of oil and the average cost of producing – accounted for 25.6% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2019 the country ranked <a href="http://www.hdr.undp.org/">148th</a> out of 189 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s oil exports in 2018 were 94.1% of total exports, oil rents amounted to 9% of GDP. In 2019 it ranked <a href="http://www.hdr.undp.org/">161st on the human development index</a> . As is clear from the graph above, sub-Saharan Africa’s major oil producers are clustered around the lower end of the human development spectrum and are mostly autocratic.</p>
<p>Both Nigeria and Angola have been characterised by one form or another of autocratic rule for most of their post-independence histories. Autocracy invariably <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/700936?mobileUi=0&">undermines</a> a country’s development prospects.</p>
<p>Angola was plunged into a civil war shortly after independence in <a href="https://history.state.gov/countries/angola#:%7E:text=Portugal%20granted%20Angola%20independence%20on,over%20the%20newly%20liberated%20state.">November 1975</a>. It then suffered an unsuccessful coup attempt <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Angola-Birmingham-2015-12-17/dp/B01K91W048">in 1977</a>. </p>
<p>In Nigeria, the balance of power at independence in 1960 was just as precarious as Angola’s. Nigeria suffered two <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Max-Siollun-Politics-2009-03-30-Paperback/dp/B01GYOUQFY">military coups</a> in 1966, and a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-War-Biafra-Nigeria/dp/0571251919">civil war</a> from 1967-1970. </p>
<p>But why does oil fuel the consolidation of autocratic rule in one context, but not necessarily in another? </p>
<p>It all comes down to how the leader of the ruling coalition extracts and distributes the oil rents. In my book, I employ a game theory model <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/politics-of-authoritarian-rule/7F78A8828A5714F0BE74E44A90A44868">developed by Princeton political scientist Milan Svolik</a> to explain these divergent political outcomes.</p>
<h2>Angola</h2>
<p>Jose Eduardo dos Santos came to power in 1979 as served as president until 2017, grabbing power early and repeatedly. Svolik’s model predicts that rulers who can do this at the same time as limiting the probability of a coup being against them manage to entrench their rule. </p>
<p>Within six years, dos Santos had consolidated power. He eliminated internal threats by subverting power sharing institutions and purging key individuals. For instance, in 1984 the central committee of the ruling <em>Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola</em> (MPLA) – created a ‘defence and security council’, chaired by dos Santos. As I note in the <a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6076-5">book</a>, it became an inner cabinet, “effectively eclipsing the Political Bureau as the country’s top decision-making body”.</p>
<p>A year later, dos Santos dropped Lúcio Lara, the party’s stalwart intellectual, from the Political Bureau, thus removing the last potential threat to his rule. Simultaneously, he used the extensive oil rents at his disposal – and the cover of civil war – to either co-opt or eliminate opposition. </p>
<p>He did so by ensuring that the state oil firm, Sonangol, was proficiently run. It soon became Angola’s <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/magnificent-and-beggar-land/">shadow state</a> through its vast web of subsidiaries. After the civil war - 1975 to 2002 - Sonangol became the driver of (limited) development, but also the key distributor of patronage to cement dos Santos’s power. He not only bled it to enrich his family dynasty; he also used it to appease his inner circle. </p>
<p>Dos Santos ended up ruling for <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/26426/how-different-is-the-new-angola-under-lourenco">38 years</a>. But, his key strategic mistake was placing his children in plum Sonangol positions ahead of loyalists.</p>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-unlikely-to-herald-the-change-angolans-have-been-clamouring-for-82851">João Lourenço</a>, a former Defence Minister, became the new Angolan president. Dos Santos was to remain head of the MPLA until 2022. But, he was ousted through what was essentially a bloodless coup in 2018, engineered by his former loyalists like Manuel Vicente, the long-standing former head of Sonangol.</p>
<p>The Politburo appointed Lourenço president of the MPLA. He has since <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angola-the-fall-of-the-dos-santos-clan/a-45646757">purged the dos Santos children</a> from plum positions. Angola is still heavily dominated by the ruling MPLA, though. Prospects for a more competitive political settlement appear limited.</p>
<h2>The case of Nigeria</h2>
<p>Within six years of independence from Britain on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54241944">1 October 1960</a>, the military launched a coup. This initiated a long period of military rule. Seven coups <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_coups_in_Nigeria">occurred</a> between 1966 and 1993. Military rule was largely uninterrupted from 1966 to 1999. </p>
<p>But neither the coups nor the civil war were driven by oil.</p>
<p>Oil wealth only became a major factor in Nigeria’s political economy in the early 1970s, when the price rocketed as a result of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo">global supply crisis</a>. Windfall oil wealth exacerbated the preexisting fragility. The state run oil firm, the <a href="https://www.nnpcgroup.com/Pages/Home.aspx">Nigerian National Petroleum Company</a>, was inefficient compared to Sonangol. Nonetheless, it served as the country’s cash cow, milked to extend patronage. </p>
<p>But, unlike in Angola, no aspirant Nigerian autocrat was able to monopolise personal control over the national oil company. As I detail in <a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6076-5">the book</a>, oil exacerbated fragility in Nigeria. While Angola’s dos Santos maintained a stable bargain among elites, Nigeria’s balance of power remained precarious. </p>
<p>In 1975, another military coup toppled Yakubu Gowon who had ruled Nigeria through the civil war. Murtala Muhammed came to power but was assassinated in a coup attempt six months later, which brought <a href="https://www.thebrenthurstfoundation.org/people/olusegun-obasanjo/">Olusegun Obasanjo</a> to power in 1976. Obasanjo guided a transition to civilian rule in 1979 but this only lasted four years.</p>
<p>A 1983 coup brought current president Muhammadu Buhari to power and another ousted him two years later. Ibrahim Babangida then ruled until 1993. After a brief attempt at civilian rule, Sani Abacha came to power through yet another coup that same year. He died in office in 1998. His successor, Abdulsalami Abubakar, returned the country to civilian rule a year later. </p>
<p>Former military ruler Obasanjo – who had been imprisoned by Abacha – won the 1999 elections but attempted to grab a third term as president in 2006. Despite <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/world/africa/16iht-lagos.html">alleged oil-funded bribery</a> to lobby party members to support his cause, they held fast to the constitution’s term limits. </p>
<p>The importance of that moment cannot be overstated. It has resulted in a more open and competitive political settlement in Nigeria. Maintaining constitutional term limits can stop autocratic entrenchment in its tracks. Unfortunately, this has not guaranteed stability in Nigeria. Post-2015 fragility has deepened considerably. </p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>As my book shows, oil rents grease the wheels of political dynamics very differently in Angola and Nigeria. </p>
<p>Existing explanations for different manifestations range from ethnic fragmentation, inherited colonial structures, the role of foreign actors and how <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/129/619/1425/5334637?login=true">lootable</a> the oil is.</p>
<p>More attention now needs to be paid to how aspirant autocrats use natural resource rents to accumulate power for themselves. This can lead to policy practitioners developing an early warning system that may help citizens to nip power-grabs in the bud. </p>
<p>This may serve, in conjunction with other policy interventions, to ultimately reverse the curse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Harvey is the Director of Research and Programmes at Good Governance Africa, a non-profit organisation. </span></em></p>A new book explains the manifestations of the oil curse in Nigeria and Angola since independence.Ross Harvey, Senior Research Associate, Institute for the Future of Knowledge, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442922020-08-11T14:25:23Z2020-08-11T14:25:23ZState of democracy in Africa: changing leaders doesn’t change politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352212/original/file-20200811-14-16wenam.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>For the last few years the African political landscape has been dominated by high profile changes of leaders and governments. In Angola (2017), Ethiopia (2018), South Africa (2018), Sudan (2019) and Zimbabwe (2018), leadership change promised to bring about not only a new man at the top, but also a new political and economic direction. </p>
<p>But do changes of leaders and governments generate more democratic and responsive governments? The Bertelsmann Transformation Index Africa Report 2020 (BTI), <a href="https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publications/publication/did/changing-guards-change-systems">A Changing of the Guards or A Change of Systems?</a>, suggests that we should be cautious about the prospects for rapid political improvements.</p>
<p>Reviewing developments in 44 countries from 2017 to the start of 2019, the report finds that leadership change results in an initial wave of optimism. But ongoing political challenges and constraints mean that it is often a case of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289660924_Kenya_since_2002_The_more_things_change_the_more_they_stay_the_same">“the more things change the more they stay the same”</a>. </p>
<p>Political change occurs gradually in the vast majority of African countries. </p>
<h2>More continuity than change</h2>
<p>From 2015 to 2019, the general pattern has been for the continent’s more authoritarian states – such as Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea and Rwanda – to make little progress towards democracy. In some cases countries became incrementally more repressive. </p>
<p>At the same time, many of the continent’s more democratic states – including Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, Senegal and South Africa – have remained “consolidating” or “defective” democracies. Very few of these dropped out of these categories to become “authoritarian” regimes.</p>
<p>A number of countries have seen more significant changes. But in most cases this did not fundamentally change the character of the political system. For example, Cameroon, Chad, Kenya and Tanzania moved further away from lasting political and economic transformation. Meanwhile Angola, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe initially made progress towards it, but these gains were limited – and only lasted for a short period in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>As this brief summary suggests, at a continental level the trajectories of different states have by and large cancelled each other out. Positive trends in some cases were wiped out by negative trends in others.</p>
<p>Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole has thus seen no significant changes to the overall level of democracy, economic management and governance. For example, the index shows that between 2018 and 2020, the overall level of democracy declined by just 0.09, a small shift on a 1-10 scale. This suggests continuity not change. </p>
<h2>Leadership changes often disappoint</h2>
<p>In almost all cases, positive trends were recorded in countries where leadership change generated hope for political renewal and economic reform. This includes Angola, after President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/africa/angola-dos-santos.html">José Eduardo dos Santos</a> stepped down in 2017, and Ethiopia, following the rise to power of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/ethiopias-abiy-ahmed-wont-be-answering-any-questions-when-he-receives-his-nobel-prize/2019/12/09/5277fe12-1871-11ea-80d6-d0ca7007273f_story.html">Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed</a>. It also includes Zimbabwe, where the transfer of power from <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/118/472/580/5462513">Robert Mugabe to Emmerson Mnangagwa</a> was accompanied by promises that the Zanu-PF government would show greater respect for democratic norms and values in future.</p>
<p>Sierra Leone also recorded a significant improvement in performance following the victory of opposition candidate Julius Maada Bio in the presidential election of 2018. Nigeria has continued to make modest but significant gains in economic management since Muhammadu Buhari replaced Goodluck Jonathan as president in 2015. </p>
<p>The significance of leadership change in all of these processes is an important reminder of the extent to which power has been personalised. But it is important to note that events since the end of the period under review in 2019 have cast doubt on the significance of these transitions.</p>
<p>Most notably, continued and in some cases increasing human rights abuses in countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe suggest that we have seen “a changing of the guards” but not a change of political systems. </p>
<p>Nowhere is this more true than Zimbabwe, where the last few weeks have witnessed a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/zimbabwe-activists-decry-unprecedented-clampdown-arrests-200805144813725.html">brutal government crackdown</a>. Not only have journalists been arrested on flimsy charges, but the rule of law has been manipulated to keep them in jail. Following this sustained attack on democracy, it is now clear that the Mnangagwa government is no more committed to human rights and civil liberties than its predecessor was. </p>
<h2>There is no one ‘Africa’</h2>
<p>So what does the future hold? I often get asked what direction Africa is heading in. My answer is always the same: where democracy is concerned, there is no one “Africa”. The Bertelsmann Transformation Index report shows how true this is. </p>
<p>In addition to the well-known differences between leading lights like Botswana and entrenched laggards like Rwanda, there is also a profound regional variation that is less well recognised and understood. </p>
<p>From relatively similar starting points in the early 1990s, there has been a sharp divergence between West and Southern Africa – which have remained comparatively more open and democratic – and Central and Eastern Africa, which remained more closed and authoritarian. There is also some evidence that the average quality of democracy continued to decline in Eastern and Central Africa in the past few years. Because it continues to increase in West Africa, we have seen greater divergence between the two sets of regions.</p>
<p>Figure 1. Average Democracy scores for African regions, BTI 2006-2020*</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352175/original/file-20200811-23-1tvj99j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>These variations reflect the historical process through which governments came to power, the kinds of states over which they govern, and the disposition and influence of regional organisations. In particular, East Africa features a number of countries ruled by former rebel armies (Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda). Here political control is underpinned by coercion and a longstanding suspicion of opposition. </p>
<p>This is also a challenge in some Central African states. Here the added complication of long-running conflicts and political instability (Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo) has undermined government performance in many ways. </p>
<p>A number of former military leaders have also governed West African states, including Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. But the proportion has been lower and some countries, such as Senegal, have a long tradition of plural politics and civilian leadership. In a similar vein, southern Africa features a number of liberation movements. But in a number of cases these developed out of broad-based movements that valued political participation and civil liberties. Partly as a result, former military or rebel leaders have had a less damaging impact on the prospects for democracy in Southern and West Africa.</p>
<p>It is important not to exaggerate these regional differences. There is great variation within them as well as between them. But, this caveat notwithstanding, we should not expect to see any convergence around a common African democratic experience in the next few years. If anything, the gap between the continent’s most democratic and authoritarian regions is likely to become even wider.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Cheeseman was paid for his work writing this report for the BTI.</span></em></p>The gap between the continent’s most democratic and authoritarian regions is likely to continue to grow.Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1310632020-02-06T13:41:17Z2020-02-06T13:41:17ZNew leader is changing Angola. But the end destination isn’t clear<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313307/original/file-20200203-41481-1qgb7ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan President João Lourenço addressing a meeting of the governing party.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Ampe Rogerio</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>João Lourenço’s <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-angolas-new-president-joao-lourenco/a-40218458">presidency</a> has blown many previous truths about Angola out of the water. </p>
<p>Take predictions about his ability to tackle the hold on power of the former President <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13036738">Jose Eduardo dos Santos</a> who ran the country for 38 years. His children ran multiple businesses while also enjoying key appointments in the state. Despite numerous analyses claiming that he would continue to wield power (<a href="https://theconversation.com/dos-santos-maintains-the-status-quo-while-suggesting-change-in-angola-56883">myself included</a>), the fortunes of the family have in fact quickly fallen.</p>
<p>The former president is in unofficial exile in Spain, having controversially left on a commercial flight <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201904160809.html">rather than through state channels</a>. His second daughter <a href="https://www.friendsofangola.org/archives/tag/welwitschia-tchize-dos-santos">Welwitschia</a> lives abroad. She <a href="http://www.angop.ao/angola/en_us/noticias/politica/2019/9/44/Ruling-MPLA-Tchize-dos-Santos-loses-mandate,481012c4-5d9c-43da-981b-7594973cefd2.html">lost her parliamentary seat</a> after failing to return to Angola.</p>
<p>The son, Filomeno, is <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202001140368.html">on trial</a> for his role in allegedly funnelling US$500 million out of the country. But it is the first daughter Isabel, until recently the international community’s favourite African female entrepreneur, who is now on the defensive. In December her <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/world/africa/isabel-dos-santos-frozen-assets.html">Angolan assets were frozen</a>. This was only the beginning of an international shift in attitude towards her wealth.</p>
<p>Recently, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its partners released a slew of articles and documents titled <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/luanda-leaks/">“LuandaLeaks”</a> that detail Isabel dos Santos’s financial activities. </p>
<p>The reporting suggests she has been involved in extensive high-level corruption, allegedly using family connections and shell companies to gain business deals, and funnel millions of dollars out of the country. </p>
<p>The Angolan government has <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/luanda-leaks/isabel-dos-santos-charged-with-embezzlement-will-sell-portuguese-bank-stake/">formally charged</a> her with money laundering, among other things. She has vehemently denied the veracity of the reports, threatening <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-angola-dossantos-portugal/angolas-dos-santos-to-sue-reporters-consortium-behind-luanda-leaks-idUSKBN1ZQ1Y6">legal action</a>. </p>
<p>The Dos Santos family and their supporters claim they are the objects of political persecution. They point to the comparative lack of action, for instance, against Lourenço’s allies.</p>
<p>While there is no doubt that there is a strategic political element to the focus on Dos Santos’s family, all anti-corruption campaigns must begin somewhere. In a context in which the former presidential family was the most prominent face of regime impunity, it seems like an obvious and necessary move to investigate them.</p>
<h2>International complicity</h2>
<p>While Isabel dos Santos is the figure at the centre of LuandaLeaks, the story is more broadly about how corruption is a product of transnational collaboration and facilitation.</p>
<p>The documents show that the siphoning off of Angola’s money would not have been possible without some of the world’s largest management consulting companies. <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/luanda-leaks/western-advisers-helped-an-autocrats-daughter-amass-and-shield-a-fortune/">They ignored flags that banks had paid attention</a> to regarding Isabel dos Santos’s status as a “<a href="https://www.riskscreen.com/kyc360/article/the-reality-about-corrupt-peps-theyre-a-global-problem/">politically exposed person</a>”. In some cases they were involved in clear conflicts of interest. </p>
<p>Until late 2017, for instance, the global consulting firm PwC was the auditor and primary advisor to Angola’s state-owned Sonangol, the parastatal that oversees petroleum and natural gas production. The head of tax at PwC’s Portugal office has <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/luanda-leaks/pwc-head-shocked-and-disappointed-by-luanda-leak-revelations/">resigned</a> in the wake of LuandaLeaks.</p>
<p>The leaks have also highlighted the global community’s dismissive attitude towards African journalists and activists, whose concerns about the Dos Santos family went relatively unheeded. For example, companies and embassies systematically ignored ongoing reports by <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/about/">Rafael Marques de Morais</a>, one of Angola’s most prominent investigative journalists, about the Dos Santos family’s suspect business practices.</p>
<p>Famous universities such as <a href="https://www.voanews.com/usa/africas-richest-woman-speak-yale-student-event">Yale</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x17f-cHHP4Y">London School of Economics</a> invited Isabel dos Santos to speak about entrepreneurship and development, blatantly ignoring the controversy around her. </p>
<p>In 2015, the New York Times wrote a piece praising her husband <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/arts/international/collector-fights-for-african-art.html">Sindika Dokolo’s reclamation of stolen African art</a>, without raising any questions about the source of his income. </p>
<p>These actions tell Africans that despite feigning concern about corruption and human rights, institutions outside of the continent don’t walk the talk.</p>
<h2>How the new president has fared</h2>
<p>The LuandaLeaks lend support to Lourenço’s anti-corruption drive. But the direction in which is he is taking the country remains difficult to assess. Are his anti-corruption measures and other interventions merely a tool to remove his enemies? Or, are they a sincere attempt to change the way in which politics has worked in Angola?</p>
<p>There are some clear signs of political and economic change. </p>
<p>Under Lourenço, the country has opened up. Visa regimes have become easier, Angola has joined the <a href="https://www.tralac.org/resources/our-resources/6730-continental-free-trade-area-cfta.html">African Free Trade Zone</a>, requirements that foreign investors have Angolan partners have been dropped, and the government is moving ahead with the privatisation of state-owned enterprises.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/angolans-feel-let-down-two-years-into-new-presidency-127455">Angolans feel let down two years into new presidency</a>
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<p>Equally important, Sonangol’s monopoly has been chipped away at with the recent creation of <a href="https://africaoilandpower.com/2019/02/08/angolas-national-oil-and-gas-agency-is-now-official/">a new entity that</a> will take over the role of national concessionaire in the oil industry. </p>
<p>That being said, the last time a slew of privatisations occurred in Angola was in the 1990s. These only served to buttress Dos Santos’ power by benefiting his favourites. Questions remain about the transparency of the new round of privatisation, and who the actual beneficiaries will be. </p>
<h2>Lourenço problem</h2>
<p>A major problem facing Lourenço is that many Angolans are unhappy with the austerity measures his government has introduced. And, public frustration with unemployment is fuelling instability.</p>
<p>While he has made symbolic overtures to civil society by <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/angola-president-holds-unprecedented-talks-with-civic-groups-20181205">meeting activists</a> who were harassed by the Dos Santos regime, protests are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/angola">still being suppressed</a> by police. </p>
<p>Lourenço has also made no move to weaken the extremely centralised powers of the presidency. Such action, critics argue, would clearly show that he does not seek to replicate Dos Santos’s hold over the country.</p>
<p>Lourenço and others have cultivated a narrative that he faces significant opposition to change from entrenched interests within the governing party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). This is most likely true, but it remains unclear what it means for the country’s politics. </p>
<p>The MPLA has historically presented a united front to the outside, and open discussion of fragmentation and discord is new. These apparent splits indicate a need to better understand the party as a political player, something that many scholars and analysts have failed to do in a substantive way for decades.</p>
<h2>Looking to the future</h2>
<p>With Dos Santos gone, it remains unclear to analysts used to focusing on one central figure to explain the country’s direction just what the future portends as the country faces a new era of austerity and <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolans-feel-let-down-two-years-into-new-presidency-127455">growing economic challenges</a>.</p>
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<p>LuandaLeaks provides further support for Lourenço’s anti-corruption drive. The state’s firmness in pursuing suspects heralds a moment of change for Angola. But, it remains unclear what future the country is heading towards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Gastrow has previously received funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She is currently involved in research projects on African urbanism and politics supported by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies and the Norwegian Research Council. </span></em></p>The Dos Santos family and their supporters claim they are the objects of political persecution.Claudia Gastrow, Lecturer in Anthropology, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301362020-01-23T10:25:44Z2020-01-23T10:25:44ZCorruption in South Africa: echoes of leaders who plundered their countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311158/original/file-20200121-117921-1a946yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-corruption protesters march on Parliament in Cape Town in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock/Aqua Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the shameful achievements of the African National Congress (ANC) in its 25 years of governing post-apartheid South Africa is that it’s living up to the political stereotype of what is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060934439/in-the-footsteps-of-mr-kurtz/">wrong</a> with post-colonial Africa – unethical and corrupt African leaders who exercise power through patronage. </p>
<p>The widespread corruption in post-apartheid South Africa is epitomised by what is now referred to as <a href="https://beta.mg.co.za/article/2018-09-14-00-definition-of-state-capture/">“state capture”</a>. The effects of the entrenched corruption are exemplified by frequent power cuts <a href="https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/this-is-how-eskom-throttles-the-economy/">devastating the economy</a>. Another example is the government’s failure to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/watch-three-hour-train-delay-for-ramaphosa-during-anc-election-campaigning-20190318">keep the trains running</a>.</p>
<p>Democratic South Africa appears to have morphed into a fully fledged predatory state. The lobby group Corruption Watch <a href="https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/global-corruption-barometer-africa-2019/">reported last year</a> that more than half of all South Africans think corruption is getting worse. They also think the government is doing a bad job at tackling corruption.</p>
<p>Characteristics include using public office and resources to promote the private interests of ANC politicians and those connected to them. It also includes an entrenched culture of being <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-01-state-capture-wipes-out-third-of-sas-r4-9-trillion-gdp-never-mind-lost-trust-confidence-opportunity/">untouchable</a>.</p>
<p>Events in South Africa have echoes in countries across the continent. These range from the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51128950">Dos Santos family in Angola</a> to <a href="https://www.africanexponent.com/post/8617-mobutu-sese-seko-was-a-heartless-dictator">Mobutu Sese Seko’s</a> decades of thieving in Zaire. Mobutu is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060934439/in-the-footsteps-of-mr-kurtz/">credited</a> with the invention of modern African kleptocracy.</p>
<p>Of course, African leaders are not the only corrupt political leaders in the world. For example, Noah Bookbinder, a former trial attorney for the US Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-alleged-abuses-power-make-2019-one-most-corrupt-years-history-former-federal-1479715">recently argued </a> that US president Donald Trump’s </p>
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<p>increasingly egregious abuses made 2019 one of the most corrupt years in US history.</p>
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<p>But the fact of the matter is that sub-Saharan Africa is in a league of its own. In the <a href="https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018">2018 Corruption Perception Index</a>, published by Transparency International, it appears at the bottom. The report released with the index stated that <a href="https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pages/2018_CPI_Executive_Summary.pdf">the region had</a> “failed to translate its anti-corruption commitments into any real progress”. In 2019, the region again appears at the bottom. Transparency International <a href="https://www.transparency.org/files/content/pages/2019_CPI_Report_EN.pdf">remarked</a>: </p>
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<p>Sub-Saharan Africa’s performance paints a bleak picture of inaction against corruption.</p>
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<h2>Moral decay</h2>
<p>The ANC once represented a political tradition of opposition to apartheid <a href="http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/before/6105_nac.htm">rooted in altruism</a>. But the events that have unfolded since it took over running the government in 1994 suggest that it has become a corrupt machine. </p>
<p>It seems the party appears intent on following in the footsteps of the likes of the late Mobutu. </p>
<p>State corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda. For example, large-scale corruption is often framed around the liberation struggle rhetoric of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">empowering black people</a>.</p>
<p>The reality is that the black elite enrich themselves and their families through government tenders and other questionable and unethical means.</p>
<p>Former president Jacob Zuma is the “poster boy” for this black kleptocracy. He and his associates, the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/2017-07-22-how-to-be-a-gupta/">Gupta family</a>, captured the post-apartheid state with the sole purpose of exercising power <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240555">to shape</a> policy making, and to control political institutions to their own advantage.</p>
<p>Dishonest politics has become a defining feature of post-apartheid politics while the legitimate fight against corruption is being made <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/zondo-commission-targets-blacks-20190629">analogous to racism</a>. It is a politics that is characterised by lack of ethics, morals, and logic, and has no legitimate place in a democratic society. </p>
<p>Yet it continues to trickle down to other societal institutions. Transport minister Fikile Mbalula recently <a href="https://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2020-01-16-broken-organisation-prasa-lost-r1bn-in-two-years/">described</a> the Passenger Rail Agency of the country as a</p>
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<p>broken organisation, struggling to provide an efficient and committed passenger rail service.</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, South African Airways has been forced into a voluntary <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-airways-is-in-business-rescue-what-it-means-and-what-next-128409">business rescue</a> after its working capital dried up and the national treasury refused another bailout. </p>
<p>Of course, the private sector is not corruption free. Corporate businesses that have been associated with state capture <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-01-16-the-dirt-on-deloittes-consulting-deals-at-eskom-part-two/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5b0%5d=80895&tl_period_type=3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Business%20Maverick%20Thursday%2016%20January%202020&utm_content=Business%20Maverick%20Thursday%2016%20January%202020+CID_282a9da853386128d4e197c64e93802c&utm_source=TouchBasePro&utm_term=The%20dirt%20on%20Deloittes%20consulting%20deals%20at%20Eskom%20Part%20Two">include</a> Deloitte, McKinsey, KPMG, Bain & Company.</p>
<p>The breakdown in social order reveals a dysfunctional political system that rewards sycophants, con artists, thugs, greed, and antisocial attributes. The development of this patronage network is the product of the ANC’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">cadre deployment policy</a>. This values party membership over ability and probity.</p>
<h2>Lessons from history not learnt</h2>
<p>The history of democratic South Africa shows that the ANC has failed to learn from the experiences of post-colonial Africa, and thus avoid its unsavoury parts.</p>
<p>Instead, it has chosen to walk in the footsteps of other corrupt post-colonial African leaders. Small wonder that its frustrated citizens have turned to the courts to force the government to govern in their interests.</p>
<p>The latest example of this the Makhanda High Court ruling that the Makana Municipality be dissolved and placed under administration for failing to carry out its constitutional obligations to its citizens. The court <a href="https://theconversation.com/landmark-court-ruling-highlights-crisis-in-south-africas-cities-and-towns-130140">found that </a> the ANC-run municipality had failed to “promote a healthy and sustainable environment for the community”, as required by the country’s constitution.</p>
<p>More such political collisions between the country’s cherished democratic norms and the corrupt post-colonial political elites are needed to change the current political trajectory of corruption and incompetence. That is the only antidote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mandisi Majavu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In South Africa, state corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda.Mandisi Majavu, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1274552019-11-26T14:31:10Z2019-11-26T14:31:10ZAngolans feel let down two years into new presidency<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303168/original/file-20191122-74580-i9iprz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan President João Lourenço.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPAAlexei Druzhinin/Sputnik</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two years into his presidency, Angolan leader <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-angolas-new-president-joao-lourenco/a-40218458">João Lourenço</a> is treading a difficult course between continuity and radical reform. </p>
<p>Faced with a persistent economic crisis, the new president needs to take bold action to open up the economy to competition and renewed foreign investment, and reduce the country’s dependency on oil. </p>
<p>To do so, he has to loosen the stranglehold of the country’s elites on key sectors of the economy. These are competing networks of interests within the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the security forces that the previous president, <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/president-jos%C3%A9-eduardo-dos-santos-1942">José Eduardo dos Santos</a>, had carefully cultivated in his 38 years in power, by using the country’s vast oil revenues. This political dispensation resulted in, among other things, wasteful spending, inefficiency, the establishment of politically connected monopolies and large-scale embezzlement. </p>
<p>But to loosen that stranglehold, Lourenço relies on continued support from the MPLA, and so he cannot openly antagonise all these different interests at once but rather has to advance very cautiously. </p>
<p>The initial euphoria that accompanied Lourenço’s new presidency has ebbed away. Angolans are faced with the stark realities of a profoundly dysfunctional political economy that has proved more resistant to change than they had hoped for. </p>
<p>Yet things started out so well. Lourenço entered the 2017 electoral contest as the MPLA’s lead candidate to succeed dos Santos. He campaigned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/08/03/can-angolas-new-president-get-rid-of-corruption-and-revive-his-partys-reputation/">under the motto</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>improve what is good, change what is bad.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Seen as a dos Santos loyalist and a man of continuity, he at first failed to ignite much enthusiasm. The MPLA won the elections with 61% of the vote – a result that was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/24/angola-ruling-party-mpla-claims-election-victory-jose-eduardo-dos-santos">contested</a> by the opposition. Still, the outcome reflected a reduced dominance for the party, which has governed the country since it gained independence from Portugal <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/angola-becomes-independent-portuguese-colonial-rule">in 1975</a>. </p>
<p>But Lourenço stands accused of dithering and being indecisive. And the promises of change he made when he took over have yet to translate into improvements in the living conditions of a majority of Angolans. </p>
<h2>Promising start</h2>
<p>Shortly after his swearing in, Lourenço surprised everyone, <a href="https://www.ifri.org/en/debates/angola-under-lourenco-internal-and-international-prospects-0">including his critics</a>, when he started using the almost absolute constitutional powers of the president to unleash a dizzying <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2017/12/musical-chairs-in-angola">flurry of dismissals</a> that swept away many old dos Santos allies. Most prominently, he removed dos Santos’ children from most of their positions of economic influence. He even allowed <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/angola-the-fall-of-the-dos-santos-clan/a-45646757">criminal investigations</a> into their dealings to be launched. </p>
<p>Lourenço also <a href="https://www.plataformamedia.com/en-uk/news/politics/joao-lourencos-irreversible-reforms-in-angola-9895347.html">opened up</a> state media to more diverse and critical voices, and invited dissidents, jailed and persecuted under dos Santos, to the presidential palace. He even recently <a href="http://news-afrik.com/angola-two-human-rights-defenders-decorated-by-president-lourenco">decorated</a> two prominent human rights activists with a medal of national merit.</p>
<p>These actions were truly noteworthy in the context of a country in which open expression of political dissent had been curtailed by a pervasive <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501713705/working-the-system/#bookTabs=3">“culture of fear”</a> and active repression.</p>
<p>But it’s the failure to improve peoples’ lives that has led to disappointment.</p>
<h2>Disappointment</h2>
<p>When the price of crude oil on world markets dropped, in late 2014, from about $110 to under $50, the country was plunged into a deep economic crisis from which it has yet to recover. </p>
<p>The crisis revealed how fragile and unsustainable Angola’s miracle growth of the preceding decade had been. While oil prices have gradually recuperated this year, the <a href="https://macauhub.com.mo/2019/04/01/pt-fmi-preocupado-com-nivel-elevado-da-divida-publica-de-angola/">situation</a> continues to be dire. The cost of living has soared. And the national currency, the kwanza, continues to consistently <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-22/angola-s-central-bank-scraps-fx-trading-band-weakening-kwanza">lose</a> value.</p>
<p>Despite the spectacle of high-profile dismissals that followed immediately after Lourenço took power, it appears that entrenched economic interests are prevailing. Some even claim that rather than truly clearing out the stables, he is simply <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/05/05/is-angolas-new-president-serious-about-reform">replacing</a> one network of elites with a new one, albeit with some significant overlaps with the previous one.</p>
<p>Doubts about his commitment to rooting out corruption have been voiced in light of his handling of former vice-president Manuel Vicente, who faced corruption charges in Portugal. Lourenço negotiated with the Portuguese judicial authorities that he be tried in Angola, under his country’s laws. But, once the case was <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201805110831.html">transferred</a> to Angola, the country’s attorney general declared that as a former vice-president, Vicente enjoyed immunity from prosecution. Vicente went on to become Lourenço’s advisor for the oil sector, a low-profile but highly influential <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925005980/en/Political-Influence-Patronage-%E2%80%98New-Angola%E2%80%99">position</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, in a major corruption case involving the Sovereign Wealth Funds, the former president’s son, José Filomeno “Zénú” dos Santos, and his partner Jean-Claude Bastos were <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-25-former-angolan-presidents-son-freed-from-prison">set free</a>. This was after the alleged recovery of the embezzled assets, raising questions about impunity for the political elites.</p>
<p>Finally, while international attention is largely focused on the economy, the militarised <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190518-angolas-oil-region-separatists-accuse-president-crackdown">crackdown</a> on any demands for greater political and economic autonomy in the oil-rich province of Cabinda continues.</p>
<h2>Austerity the wrong remedy</h2>
<p>The approval of an extended fund facility from the <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/12/07/pr18463imf-executive-board-approves-extended-arrangement-under-the-extended-fund-facility-for-angola">International Monetary Fund</a> has been hailed as one of Lourenço’s great successes. But Angolan economists are <a href="https://www.dw.com/pt-002/fmi-em-angola-empr%C3%A9stimo-a-troco-de-qu%C3%AA/a-49251846">sceptical</a> about its impact. They say that orthodox economic recipes such as austerity measures and the introduction of value added tax would hit the population hard.</p>
<p>More importantly, the facility failed to address the structural problems of the economy, which are a consequence of years of corruption and inefficient, wasteful spending. </p>
<p>The real issue to Angolans remains why their former leaders have been allowed get away with stashing the country’s wealth offshore for so long.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Schubert receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust (ECF 2017-569) for his current research on infrastructures and crisis in Angola. </span></em></p>The euphoria that accompanied João Lourenço’s new presidency has ebbed away amid the stark realities of a profoundly dysfunctional political economy.Jon Schubert, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Brunel University London, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1011972018-08-12T06:59:43Z2018-08-12T06:59:43ZSouthern Africa’s liberation movements: can they abandon old bad habits?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231075/original/file-20180808-191038-1anoa8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Both South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Zimbabwean counterpart Emmerson Mnangagwa need to reform their parties.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Until recently, southern Africa’s political and economic outlook seemed to be moving in a promising direction. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/stability-in-southern-africa-hinges-on-how-leaders-gain-and-lose-power-89980">highlights</a> were provided by Zimbabwe and South Africa with the displacement of Robert Mugabe by Emmerson Mnangagwa in November 2017 and Jacob Zuma by Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year. Both were to pronounce the inauguration of new eras for their countries, and to promise political and economic reform. </p>
<p>Prior to this, there were presidential changes in the three other countries ruled by the region’s liberation movements. Hage Geingob succeeded Hifekepunye Pohamba in <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Namibian-president-wins-5m-Africa-leadership-prize-20150302">Namibia</a> in March 2015; Filipe Nyusi succeeded Armando Guebeza in <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/05/05/mozambique-is-back-says-its-president.-donors-are-less-sure">Mozambique</a> in January 2017; and Joao Lourenco succeeded Eduardo Dos Santos as <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/angolas-president-makes-unexpected-moves-to-rein-in-dos-santos-11740653">Angola’s</a> state President after legislative elections last year. </p>
<p>All five new leaders were younger than their predecessors, three of them (Ramaphosa, Nyusi and Lourenco) by ten years or more. This diluted – but far from dissipated – the tendency towards gerontocracy. </p>
<p>And there was more. While Mugabe was ousted by virtue of a “<a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/watch-jubilation-as-mugabe-falls-12102771">military assisted transition</a>” the other four incumbent presidents were constrained to stand down because their terms in office were expiring. </p>
<p>Taken together, the changes in leadership, combined with initiatives of economic reform, seemed to bode well for the region as a whole. And to bring new hope to the 100 million people who live in their countries.</p>
<p>These events may yet result in outcomes that are progressive politically and economically. But, for all the commitment to renewal, doubts are beginning to accumulate that the region’s liberation movements are capable of turning away from the bad habits and practices of the past. </p>
<p>This has been brought home in dramatic fashion by the controversies surrounding the <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-zimbabwes-messy-election-get-messier-or-will-a-new-path-be-taken-101196">Zimbabwean election</a>.</p>
<h2>Signs of renewal</h2>
<p>The region’s national liberation movements became increasingly aware that after decades in power they were losing popularity. They were confronting a crisis of legitimacy. Signs that commitments to reform and renewal were meaningful were most apparent in Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa. </p>
<p>In Angola, Lourenco was quick to move against the political and financial empire constructed by Dos Santos. He sacked <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42003016">Isabel Dos Santos</a>, daughter of the former president and widely known as the richest woman in Africa, as head of Sonangol, the state oil company. The large corporation is a fulcrum of the economy, responsible for about a third of GDP and 95% of exports. </p>
<p>Citing misappropriation of funds, he followed this up by dismissing <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/son-of-angolas-former-leader-dos-santos-accused-of-fraud-20180326">Jose Filemento</a>, Dos Santos’ son, as head of the nation’s $5 billion sovereign wealth fund. He also had brushed aside restrictions on his ability to appoint new chiefs of the <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/angolan-army-chief-sacked-in-latest-anti-graft-move-20180423">military</a>, police and intelligence services by appointing his own security chiefs. </p>
<p>In Zimbabwe, the popular enthusiasm which greeted Mugabe’s ousting and Mnangagwa’s elevation was to be somewhat dimmed by the choice of his cabinet. The mix of military coup-makers, Mugabe left-overs and ZANU-PF re-treads rather than reaching out to the opposition to form a transitional coalition government did not go down well. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Mnangagwa’s early initiatives offered promise of more rational economic policies. Above all, he indicated that he was bent on entering negotiations with the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-imf-zimbabwe/imfs-lagarde-welcomes-mnangagwas-promise-to-revive-zimbabwe-economy-idUSKBN1FE2M6">international financial agencies</a> and other creditors to re-schedule payments due on Zimbabwe’s massive debt. </p>
<p>This was combined with a three-month <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/bring-back-the-cash-only-250-million-returned-to-zim-in-post-mugabe-amnesty-20180304">amnesty</a> to allow individuals and companies who were reckoned to have illegally exported some US$1.8 billion to bring it back into the country. Third, Mnangagwa announced a series of <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/zim-white-farmer-mnangagwa-has-given-us-a-lot-of-encouragement-20180722">measures</a> to boost agriculture and mining. </p>
<p>All such measures were designed to encourage an inflow of foreign investment, that had slowed to a trickle because of the arbitrariness of Mugabe’s rule.</p>
<p>Opposition parties felt that Mnangagwa’s initiatives fell far short of what was required. Nonetheless, they were buoyed by his recognition that if Zimbabwe was to be restored to something approximating economic health, he would have to call an early election whose result would be accepted internationally as legitimate. </p>
<p>This, as it turns out, was too tall an order. </p>
<p>Round about the same time Ramaphosa was embarking upon his own programme of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosas-to-do-list-seven-economic-policy-areas-that-will-shift-the-dial-94352">reform</a> in South Africa. His triumph in the battle for the party leadership, achieved at the African National Congress’s (ANC) five yearly national congress in Johannesburg in December, had been narrowly won. </p>
<p>During his years in power, Zuma transformed the ANC, the state and state-owned companies into a massive <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-state-capture-is-a-regressive-step-for-any-society-56837">patronage machine</a> for looting the fiscus. This was to become known as “state capture”. Much of it was engineered by or in league with the immigrant Indian Gupta family. </p>
<p>Accordingly, Ramaphosa’s mission was to “re-capture” the state. War was declared on corruption, commitments made to cleaning up the state owned enterprises, to re-configuring state departments and restoring collaborative relations with business (which had been severely undermined under Zuma). </p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s efforts continue to be impressive. They have included appointing respected technocrats to key government positions as well as dismissing, prosecuting or sidelining a slew of Zuma acolytes. </p>
<p>He also cleared the way for an extensive judicial review of the state-capture project (which Zuma had done his best to obstruct). And he initiated extensive <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sars-tom-moyane-suspended-with-immediate-effect-20180319">re-structuring</a> of failing state owned enterprises and state agencies, notably the South African Revenue Service. </p>
<h2>Doubts are mounting</h2>
<p>However, it has not been plain sailing.</p>
<p>The Zimbabwean election went into meltdown with accusations of a rigged election. The military is seen as being in firm alliance with Zanu-PF, ready to step in if its rule is <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-zimbabwes-messy-election-get-messier-or-will-a-new-path-be-taken-101196">threatened</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile in South Africa Ramaphosa has increasingly run up against the constraints imposed by the continuing political weight of the Zuma faction in an ANC which has remained deeply factionalised. He has struggled to forge party unity to prepare for the 2019 election. And he is most particularly challenged by the strength of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-deal-with-provincial-strongmen-is-haunting-south-africas-ruling-party-96666">Zuma faction in KwaZulu-Natal</a>. </p>
<p>A poor election result for the ANC in 2019 will severely undermine his political authority, and hobble his attempts to restructure the state and economy.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, cynicism is gaining ground. Many doubt Lourenco’s capacity to systematically deconstruct the powerful network which has supported and defended the Dos Santos family for decades. The view among some is that it will only re-engineer the political dominance of the ruling MPLA. </p>
<p>In both Namibia and Mozambique, critics suggest that changes in the presidency have led to little more than business as usual – and that in both countries the ruling party elites remain deeply enmeshed in corruption.</p>
<h2>Parties of liberation no more?</h2>
<p>The rule of liberation movements in southern Africa rule has been increasingly challenged by economic failure, rising popular discontent, the alienation of young people and yawning internal divisions. This has led to multiple suggestions that their time span is limited, and that their rule will give way as a result of internal division, electoral defeat or other unforeseen events. </p>
<p>They have responded with promises that they will embark on “renewal”. </p>
<p>But, so far the evidence is mixed. They may well retain their capacity to hang on to state power. But their capacity for significant and far-reaching reform remains severely constrained.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>Southern Africa’s liberation movements have been losing popularity and confronting a crisis of legitimacy.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/941962018-04-16T13:56:19Z2018-04-16T13:56:19ZWeaning African leaders off addiction to power is an ongoing struggle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215044/original/file-20180416-540-1cwprob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni refuses to relinquish power.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some African countries have recorded democratic victories in the past 12 months. Ethiopia has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ethiopias-new-leader-could-be-a-game-changer-94424">new leader</a> whose ascent holds great promise for change, despite the country’s <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/ethiopia-100-election">problematic 2015 election</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/30/liberia-george-weah-salary-change-constitution-racism">Liberia</a> and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/sierra-leones-new-leader-bio-starts-work-as-president-20180405">Sierra Leone</a> have new leaders.</p>
<p>But elsewhere on the continent, leaders continue to disregard their countries’ own constitutions and laws governing presidential tenure. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila has been in power <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/07/joseph-kabila-will-not-stand-in-next-drc-elections-aide-says">since 2001</a>. He refuses to go even though he was meant to step down in December 2016. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has clung to power since <a href="http://www.africareview.com/news/UG-lawmakers-pave-the-way-for-Museveni-stay-in-power/979180-4093204-ug1sqi/index.html">1986</a>. Denis Sassou Nguesso has ruled Congo for <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14121193">almost 30 years</a>. </p>
<p>Their refusal to step down at the appointed time flies in the face of several governance blueprints adopted as African countries shifted away from liberation politics to the new post independence <a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-in-africa-the-ebbs-and-flows-over-six-decades-42011">struggle for democracy</a> in the early 2000s.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/organisation-african-unity-formed-and-africa-day-declared">Organisation of African Unity</a> was transformed into the <a href="https://au.int/">African Union</a> in 2001 with this shift in mind. The continent adopted progressive governance tools like the <a href="https://au.int/en/organs/aprm">African Peer Review Mechanism</a>. This was spearheaded by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki as a tool for African countries to review one another’s performance. </p>
<p>Numerous African countries adopted and agreed to uphold the terms of the African Union Charter on Democracy, <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/7790-treaty-0034_-_african_charter_on_democracy_elections_and_governance_e.pdf">Elections and Governance</a>. It came into force in 2012 and was designed to guard against undemocratic governance.</p>
<p>These plans promised a great deal. They were designed to usher in good governance, democracy and security. It was hoped Africa’s image as a continent of ignorance, poverty, disease, misrule and corruption could be erased.</p>
<p>The rhetoric pointed in the right direction. But not all African leaders were willing to be swept by this wave of democratic reforms. Some are quite simply addicted to power, as shown by their reluctance – if not outright resistance – to leave at the end of their legal terms.</p>
<p>Leaders continuing to overstay their welcome undermines Africa’s attempts at overhauling its leadership and negates the noble intentions of the AU’s founders.</p>
<h2>Term limits</h2>
<p>Term limits regulate leadership succession. They are meant to counteract leaders’ temptation to overstay their welcome. This helps to consolidate and legitimise democratically elected leadership. </p>
<p>Of course, they’re not enough. Regular transfer of power as seen in countries like Mauritius, Ghana, Botswana and Zambia, among others, cannot guarantee political and socio-economic stability. Other ingredients such as accountable, legitimate leadership are critical. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214725/original/file-20180413-540-1oiql55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Botswana president Ian Khama recently stepped down.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Felipe Trueba</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But regular transfers of power give citizens hope that new policies, programmes and approaches will be adopted by the new leadership. In turn, this could overturn numerous political, social, economic impacts of uninterrupted strangleholds on power in Africa. </p>
<p>The benefits of frequent power transfers are evident in African countries that have them, such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/electoral-commission-confirms-senegal-ruling-coalition-landslide-20170805-2">Senegal</a>; <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-botswana-politics/botswanas-khama-steps-down-as-president-after-a-decade-at-helm-idUSKBN1H70DO">Botswana</a> and <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/mauritius-gets-new-pm-opposition-demands-new-election/">Mauritius</a>. Incumbents are kept on their toes because there’s a real chance they can be removed from power if they fail to govern properly. </p>
<p>Term limits have recently become controversial and divisive. Some leaders have used dubious constitutional amendments to extend their stay in power. Usually, governing parties and their leaders almost exclusively pass such amendments with minimal or no opposition participation. That’s what happened in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Congo Republic. </p>
<p>Similarly, despite constitutional provisions and regular elections, countries such as Angola, Togo, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea are virtually de facto one party or one leader repressive states wherein resignation, retirement and term limits are meaningless.</p>
<p>Leaders have different reasons for refusing to leave office. In some countries, the answer lies in a lack of succession planning to transfer power. In others, leaders blatantly refuse to resign because of their despotic and kleptocratic tendencies. They abuse their states’ minerals, oil and money with their <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/african-leaders-take-the-blame-for-the-continents-resource-curse">families and friends</a>. Stepping aside would cost them these “benefits”.</p>
<p>For instance, the eventual departure of Angola’s Eduardo Dos Santos from office after decades in power has <a href="https://theconversation.com/stability-in-southern-africa-hinges-on-how-leaders-gain-and-lose-power-89980">left his family exposed</a>. His children stand accused of amassing billions during their father’s many terms. </p>
<p>Without strong constitutional safeguards and a democratic culture to counter the negative consequences of the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-04-13-anc-must-renew-itself-and-root-out-sins-of-incumbency">“sins of incumbency”</a> – as corruption associated with state power is often described by South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress – can be menacing. It breeds <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Men-Little-People-Leaders/dp/081477542X">“Big Men, Little People”</a>, to borrow a phrase from the title of a book by journalist Alec Russel.</p>
<h2>Weaning leaders off power addiction</h2>
<p>Perceptive leaders know when to leave office, whether through resignation or <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2018/03/31/botswana-president-ian-khama-steps-down-after-end-of-tenure//">retirement</a>. Botswana’s past and current presidents have established this practice despite the country’s continued <a href="http://www.thepatriot.co.bw/analysis-opinions/item/3585-single-party-dominance-not-good-for-democracy.html">one-party domination</a>.</p>
<p>With the emergence of a strong democratic culture, South Africa has experienced the opposite of such presidential power mongering. Two presidents were recalled by their political party the ANC, albeit for different reasons. Thabo Mbeki readily <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2008-09-21-mbeki-resigns-before-the-nation">accepted his fate</a> when he was told to pack up and go, although he was not accused of any specific wrong doing. Jacob Zuma remained defiant and only stepped aside when faced with the very real prospect of a vote of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-02-13-anc-want-motion-of-no-confidence-against-zuma">no-confidence</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/nana-akufo-addo-sworn-ghana-president-170107124239549.html">Ghana</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37086365">Zambia</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/namibia-grown-up-after-a-generation-into-independence-but-not-yet-mature-74571">Namibia</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/buharis-victory-in-nigerian-election-has-global-significance-39416">Nigeria</a>, <a href="https://www.constitutionnet.org/news/presidential-elections-malawi-towards-majoritarian-501-electoral-system">Malawi</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/magufuli-has-been-president-for-two-years-how-hes-changing-tanzania-86777">Tanzania</a> are other African states where regular transfer of power has occurred.</p>
<p>African voters are not blameless. They habitually relax their vigilance on leaders and fail to hold them to account after elections. This, coupled with winner-take-all election systems, renders some African countries vulnerable to autocratic, despotic and non-accountable leaders who would rather die in office than leave.</p>
<p>What, then, is the solution? It may be time for ordinary voters across the continent to begin to collaborate through non-governmental organisations and other cross-border institutional mechanisms to share experiences and begin to enforce durable continental democracy. Africa needs democracy from below.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kealeboga J Maphunye receives funding from National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, NIHSS, South Africa. </span></em></p>Not all African leaders are willing to be swept by the democratic reforms of the early 2000s.Kealeboga J Maphunye, Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA), University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/899802018-01-22T15:43:51Z2018-01-22T15:43:51ZStability in southern Africa hinges on how leaders gain and lose power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202402/original/file-20180118-29900-1tmlu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters demand Congolese President Joseph Kabila step down.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Thomas Mukoya</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While each country in Southern Africa has its own politics, recent developments involving presidents provide interesting contrasts across the region. Which presidents gain and lose power in 2018 – and how they do so – will have significance for the region as a whole, not least in helping determine its continued stability.</p>
<p>As 2018 begins, Joseph Kabila is clinging to the presidency of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), claiming that there is insufficient funding to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/16/delayed-drc-elections-could-be-put-back-further-by-cash-shortage">hold an election</a>, amid <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/53-protesters-killed-over-six-months-in-drc-report-20171121">growing protests</a> against him in Kinshasa and elsewhere. It remains to be seen if he will fulfil the undertaking he has made that elections will be held in <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/kabila-at-un-pledges-drc-elections-but-still-no-date-20170923">December this year</a>.</p>
<p>Other countries in the region start 2018 on a much more promising footing. In Botswana, President Ian Khama, approaching the end of his two presidential terms, is expected to step down in an <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2017/11/09/botswana-president-says-he-will-step-down-at-the-end-of-his-term-in-april//">orderly succession</a> in April and will be suceeded by the vice-president.</p>
<p>In both Zimbabwe and Angola autocratic presidents who had been in power for almost four decades lost power in 2017 in very different ways.</p>
<h2>Military intervention in Zimbabwe</h2>
<p>In the case of Zimbabwe the country’s army intervened in November 2017 to force Robert Mugabe to <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwe-beware-the-military-is-looking-after-its-own-interests-not-democracy-87712">give up power</a>. This came after he had, under the influence of his wife Grace, sacked Emmerson Mnangagwa <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/11/07/vp-mnangagwa-fired">as vice-president</a>. The Southern African Development Community did not need to intervene, and even the mediation mission it planned wasn’t required.</p>
<p>Instead, the Zimbabwe military acted, with the ruling party, Zanu-PF, to replace Mugabe with Mnangagwa. It did so peacefully, denying during the entire process that a coup was underway. The 93-year-old Mugabe, in office since 1980, initially refused to step down, but was finally removed both as president of the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2017-11-21-breaking--zimbabwes-president-robert-mugabe-has-resigned/">country and of the ruling party</a>.</p>
<p>The country will go to the polls in <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/05/earliest-election-date-july-23-2018/">mid-2018</a>, and Mnangagwa, who was confirmed in December 2017 as Zanu-PF’s presidential candidate, has said that the election will be credible, <a href="http://nehandaradio.com/2017/12/16/mnangagwa-promises-free-fair-elections/">free and fair</a>, but he has yet to confirm that he will allow international and other observers.</p>
<p>With the military more obviously involved in government than anywhere else in the region, Zimbabwe’s opposition parties divided, and with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/morgan-tsvangirai-seriously-ill-11532872">seriously ill</a>, there is little likelihood that Zanu-PF or Mnangagwa will lose power.</p>
<h2>Angola</h2>
<p>In Angola José Eduardo dos Santos, suffering from ill-health, agreed in early 2017 to step down as president of the country. He nominated a man he thought would be a trusted successor, hoping to continue to wield influence as president of the ruling MPLA.</p>
<p>After elections for the National Assembly in August, <a href="https://theconversation.com/angolas-ruling-party-regains-power-but-faces-legitimacy-questions-83983">João Lourenço duly succeeded Dos Santos</a> as president. To widespread surprise, he began sacking the heads of some of the country’s key institutions. These included Dos Santos’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, who was <a href="https://qz.com/1130420/africas-richest-woman-has-been-fired-from-angolas-state-oil-firm-by-the-new-president/">CEO of the state oil company Sonangol</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202404/original/file-20180118-29885-i4krt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, left, and his successor Joao Lourenco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Manuel de Almeida</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And in early 2018 her brother José Filomeno dos Santos, was removed as head of Angola’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42638761">sovereign wealth fund</a>. Their father’s influence was rapidly slipping away.</p>
<p>In Angola, as in Zimbabwe, a change of leader to one with a more reformist approach probably means that the ruling party has consolidated itself in power.</p>
<h2>South Africa</h2>
<p>In South Africa in December 2017 the leadership of the governing African National Congress (ANC) passed <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1762486/breaking-cyril-ramaphosa-is-the-new-anc-president/">from Jacob Zuma to Cyril Ramaphosa</a>, who thus became heir apparent to the presidency of the country. While there is no two-term limit for ANC presidents, Zuma had brought the ANC into discredit and Ramaphosa, despite having worked closely with Zuma as deputy president, was seen as the one who would curtail the corruption and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-threat-to-south-africas-democracy-runs-deeper-than-state-capture-78784">“state capture”</a>.</p>
<p>For now, Zuma remains president of the country until general elections due to be held by June 2019. The country waits to see whether, how and when Ramaphosa can <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosa-should-end-the-presidential-merry-go-round-in-south-africa-90116">arrange to take over</a> as president of the country as well as of the ruling party.</p>
<h2>A presidential challenge defeated</h2>
<p>In Namibia, <a href="http://links.org.au/node/4190">Hage Geingob</a> had to meet a challenge to his continuing as leader of Swapo, the governing party, in <a href="https://www.newera.com.na/2017/07/10/swapo-elders-endorse-geingob-as-swapo-presidential-candidate/">November last year</a>. He was, however, confirmed in his position and will therefore be Swapo’s presidential candidate for the election scheduled to take place in November 2019.</p>
<p>Geingob supporters now fill all the key posts in his government, enabling him to make policy as he wishes. This is very different from South Africa, where the new ANC leadership remains divided and where Ramaphosa, when he becomes president of the country, will find it difficult to <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/when-will-zuma-go-its-a-matter-of-time-20171224-3">adopt new policies</a>.</p>
<h2>Malawi and Zambia</h2>
<p>Malawi must hold elections <a href="http://www.mec.org.mw/category/Steps_towards_2019.html">in 2019</a> and the contest for the presidency then has already begun. It is not known whether Joyce Banda, the former president and leader of one of the country’s leading political parties, will <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2015/12/30/malawi-why-wont-joyce-banda-come-home-2/">return from self-imposed exile</a> abroad to stand again. In 2017 she was formally charged with having been involved in the massive <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/malawi-issues-warrant-of-arrest-for-former-president-banda-20170731">“Cashgate’ corruption scandal”</a> that was uncovered while she was president.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=722&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202406/original/file-20180118-29888-1qdqaf3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zambian President Edgar Lungu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters//Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Zambia, by contrast, where the next election is not due until 2021, the question is how Edgar Lungu, who took over the presidency after narrowly winning the presidential election in August 2016, will try to consolidate his power. </p>
<p>In 2017 Lungu became <a href="https://theconversation.com/lungu-tries-to-have-his-cake-and-eat-it-a-state-of-emergency-in-all-but-name-80628">more authoritarian</a>. Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of the main opposition United Party for National Development, was arrested on what were clearly trumped-up charges. These were only <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2017/08/16/knew-hhs-treason-charge-trumped-antonio-mwanza/">dropped in August</a> after interventions by the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and inside Zambia by the <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2017/09/20/real-reasons-hh-released-jail/">local Catholic Archbishop</a>.</p>
<p>Lungu wants to serve a <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2017/11/05/no-third-term-president-lungu-gbm/">third term as president</a>, and the country’s Constitutional Court has been asked to <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/features/africa/2017-11-10-is-zambia-headed-for-a-constitutional-crisis/">rule on the matter</a>.</p>
<h2>Regional perspective</h2>
<p>Too often developments in one country are seen in isolation from similar ones elsewhere. Given that South Africa is the most important country in the region, how the Ramaphosa-Zuma poser is resolved will be significant for the region. Elsewhere, how presidents gain and lose, and try to consolidate their power, will help shape the continued stability of the region. </p>
<p>Will political tensions be managed internally, as in Zimbabwe in late 2017? Or will they require some kind of intervention by the Southern Africa Development Community, in the DRC and perhaps elsewhere, to prevent them from escalating? Throughout the region, contests for presidential power are likely to keep political passions on the boil.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Too often developments in one country are seen in isolation. In southern Africa events in one affect others in the region.Chris Saunders, Emeritus Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/876892017-11-19T09:15:50Z2017-11-19T09:15:50ZMugabe and Dos Santos: Africa’s old men seem, finally, to be fading away<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195298/original/file-20171119-11467-i9mm17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mugabe tried to impose his wife on his party as his chosen successor.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Soon after Zimbabwe’s army confined President Robert Mugabe to his <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/mugabe-latest-leader-over-years-to-be-placed-under-house-arrest-20171115">palatial Harare home</a> this week – allegedly for his safety – it was announced in Luanda that Angola’s new President, João Lourenço, had relieved Isabel dos Santos of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/15/angolan-president-sacks-predecessors-daughter-as-state-oil-chief">her position</a> as head of the state-run oil company Sonangol. </p>
<p>While there may not be any direct connection between these two events, they suggest some intriguing comparisons. In both countries ruling families seem to have failed to secure themselves in power. </p>
<p>When Mugabe, as leader of the <a href="http://www.zanupf.org.zw/">Zimbabwean African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF)</a>, became ruler of Zimbabwe at independence in <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2017/11/15/as-he-turns-93-years-old-today-who-is-robert-mugabe/">April 1980</a>, José Eduardo dos Santos was already <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13036738">President of Angola</a>. He had succeeded to that position after the death of Agostinho Neto in <a href="https://afrolegends.com/2011/08/04/agostinho-neto-doctor-poet-president-and-father-of-angolan-independence/">September 1979</a>. </p>
<p>Dos Santos had to deal with <a href="http://www.africansunmedia.co.za/Sun-e-Shop/Product-Details/tabid/78/ProductID/429/Default.aspx">external intervention</a> and over two decades of <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war </a>, during which he ruled dictatorially. Mugabe, despite a facade of constitutionalism and regular elections, also became increasingly dictatorial. He abandoned adherence to the rule of law and his country’s <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2017-10-02-hopes-dim-for-zimbabwes-economy/">economy collapsed</a>. Angola became notorious for the scale of the corruption linked especially to its <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-luandas-residents-are-asking-where-did-all-the-oil-riches-go-49772">oil riches</a>. Zimbabwe went from bread-basket to basket-case. With the great majority of the people of both countries living in dire poverty, Dos Santos flew to Europe when he needed medical attention, while Mugabe <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/10/robert-mugabe-ruling-zimbabwe-from-hospital-bed-says-opposition">went to Singapore</a>. </p>
<p>Though Dos Santos was probably as reluctant as Mugabe to give up power, he decided to quit as president of the country and try to retain influence through the ruling party and members of his family. Mugabe tried to impose his wife on his party as his <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/mugabe-announces-appointment-of-controversial-wife-grace-to-a-key-post-20170915">chosen successor</a> and then to cling on to his positions even when the army took effective control of his country.</p>
<p>Given recent developments in Luanda and Harare, it would seem that neither of these two old men have succeeded in securing their family dynasties.</p>
<h2>Dos Santos’s succession plan</h2>
<p>By 2016, suffering health problems that took him to Spain <a href="https://www.enca.com/africa/angolan-president-back-home-after-treatment-in-spain">for treatment</a>, Dos Santos announced that he would step down as president of Angola and he <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-unlikely-to-herald-the-change-angolans-have-been-clamouring-for-82851">approved</a> his Minister of Defence, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço as his successor. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195184/original/file-20171117-7547-1lnoizb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, president of Angola.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Fernando Villar</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Following the victory of the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the general election held in August this year, Lourenço took over as <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/09/26/new-angolan-president-joao-lourenco-sworn-in">president</a> in September. But Dos Santos remained president of the MPLA, and clearly expected Lourenço to look after his interests and that of his family, who had become enormously wealthy. </p>
<p>From the action Lourenço has now taken against Dos Santos’ billionaire daughter Isabel, it would seem that he’s becoming his own man. It appears he wishes to distance himself from the Dos Santos family, which for many Angolans is associated with corruption on a vast scale. </p>
<p>The London-educated Isabel has proved herself to be a very capable businesswoman, and though the Angolan economy has been suffering because of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-prices/oils-bull-run-hides-a-deep-disconnect-crude-traders-warn-idUSKBN0NR1Q320150506">low oil-prices</a>, on top of <a href="https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/elections_in_angola_time_to_tackle_corruption">massive corruption</a>, it’s unlikely she was sacked to bring in a better chief executive to run the country’s most important state owned company. There is talk in Luanda that Isabel’s brother, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2012-11-02-00-angola-whos-who-in-the-palace">José Filomeno dos Santos</a>, will be relieved of his position as head of the country’s large <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-24/angolan-wealth-fund-plans-shift-away-from-external-managers">Sovereign Wealth Fund</a> and that his father, the former president of the country, will be replaced as president of the ruling party, though that may have to wait until a party congress is held.</p>
<h2>Mugabe’s succession plan</h2>
<p>In Zimbabwe Mugabe has sought to arrange that his wife will <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/fall-from-grace-mugabes-wife-was-his-weakness-20171116">succeed him</a>. But <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/news/gucci-grace-from-benoni-robert-mugabes-biggest-mistake-12024383">Gucci Grace</a> and Robert made the mistake of trying to ensure this by <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/11/07/vp-mnangagwa-fired">firing</a> Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa. </p>
<p>Though at the time of writing, the 93-year-old Mugabe remains president both of the country and of the ruling Zanu-PF party, it’s widely expected that he will soon be relieved of both positions, probably by Mnangagwa, with the assistance of the army.</p>
<h2>Changes for the better?</h2>
<p>New leadership in Angola and Zimbabwe will have an impact on the region as a whole. </p>
<p>Given Mnangagwa’s record as a long serving member of government in Zimbabwe, and his <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41995876">involvement</a> in the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&source=bl&ots=dWX2SIUj7r&sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&f=false">mass killing of Ndebele</a> in the early 1980s, it is hardly likely that he will emerge as a champion of democracy. </p>
<p>In Angola, Lourenço is still finding his feet as head of government. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195185/original/file-20171117-7529-16thsny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fired Zimbabwean Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Aaron Ufumeli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is therefore unrealistic to hope that either country will soon move from decades of repressive rule and lack of transparency to greater constitutionalism and closer adherence to the rule of law. </p>
<p>But if we are witnessing the end of an era in which dictators stayed <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-old-mens-club-out-of-touch-with-continents-suave-burgeoning-youth-48618">in power for decades</a> and tried to secure their continuing influence through their families, and if we are seeing the diminishing importance of liberation movements turned political party, this must be good not only for Angola and Zimbabwe but for the southern African region as a whole. </p>
<p>It should also hold lessons for those who rule in neighbouring countries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Saunders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Are we witnessing the end of an era in which dictators stayed in power for decades? If so this must be good not only for Angola and Zimbabwe but for southern Africa as a whole.Chris Saunders, Emeritus Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856172017-10-16T13:12:55Z2017-10-16T13:12:55ZElections in Africa: democratic rituals matter even though the outlook is bleak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189998/original/file-20171012-31381-thdt34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An elderly woman displays her inked finger after casting her vote during the 2016 presidential elections in Uganda. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/James Akena</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The multi-party systems established in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia in the early 1990s have endured despite electoral violence. But democratic hopes have been dashed or perverted throughout the rest of the region. The governments built on the ruins of the civil wars in Angola, Burundi, the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and Rwanda have all relied on armed political groups to stay in power. </p>
<p>From June 2015 to August 2017 an uninterrupted series of general elections took place in Central and East Africa. Those in <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/burundi-president-nkurunziza-wins-disputed-election-150724140417364.html">Burundi (2015)</a> and the DRC (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congodemocratic-election/congo-presidential-election-set-for-november-27-2016-commission-idUSKBN0LG28M20150212">initially set for 2016</a>) were expected to be the most problematic. In both the incumbent presidents were seeking to extend their mandates beyond a second term. In the <a href="http://time.com/4080835/africa-republic-of-congo-protest-sassou-nguesso-violence/">Congo</a>, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/uganda-opposition-leader-arrested-days-elections-160215132155444.html">Uganda</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-history-of-election-violence-is-threatening-to-repeat-itself-76220">Kenya</a>, the risk of violent clashes was palpable.</p>
<p>The ruling regimes were not only dated, but worse for wear. At the time of the elections, the presidents of Angola (José Eduardo Dos Santos), the Congo (Denis Sassou N'Guesso) and Uganda (Yoweri Museveni), all members of the revolutionary or progressive <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2016/02/02/bill-clintons-new-generation-of-african"><em>New Generation</em></a> of African leaders, were all in their seventies and had been in power for 30 or more years. The Presidents of Rwanda (Paul Kagamé), the DRC (Joseph Kabila) and Burundi (Pierre Nkurunziza), having served terms of 21, 14 and 10 years respectively, took steps to change their countries’ constitution to seek a third term.</p>
<p>Despite the bleak regional outlook and contagious scepticism among voters, these pious “democratic” rituals have become critical events over the past 20 years. This is true even in the most authoritarian countries where so much is predetermined. From the parties in the running to the authorised candidates and even the results.</p>
<p>As artificial as they may be, these rites still represent a risk for those in power. Rulers need expert skill to ensure both maximum control over their institutions and demonstrations of love from their people. Consequently, the outcome of the race – between increasingly artful electoral manipulation and limitless possible manifestations of democratic expression – is never entirely certain.</p>
<p>From Kinshasa to Kampala, from Brazzaville to Luanda and Bujumbura, courageous dissenters have organised numerous protests, usually with the approval – and sometimes active support – of the general population. These protests express the frustrations and expectations of a generation fed up with regimes clinging to power and responding to growing disillusion with increasing authoritarianism.</p>
<p>The ruling parties have, on the whole, proved themselves highly resourceful and resilient against the desire for change. Their victory has been comprehensive. Only Kenya is the exception: a second vote is set for October 26 following the Supreme Court’s surprise <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-election-court/kenya-supreme-court-criticizes-election-board-in-verdict-on-polls-idUSKCN1BV0QB">decision</a> to invalidate the election results. In the DRC, Joseph Kabila’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-election/no-congo-election-until-mid-2019-vote-commission-says-angering-opposition-idUSKBN1CG1KW">delaying tactics</a> have so far allowed him to remain in power. And while Dos Santos eventually withdrew his candidature due to illness, the election of his chosen successor has ensured power in Angola <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-unlikely-to-herald-the-change-angolans-have-been-clamouring-for-82851">remains in his faction’s hands</a>.</p>
<h2>In power until 2034</h2>
<p>The string of Central and East African elections got off to a bad start. In April 2015, the president of Burundi <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32588658">controversially</a> sought a third term in office. Although devastated by 10 years of internal strife, Burundi had become a <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2003/sc7748.doc.htm">symbol of peaceful transition</a> in the region. Three months of tactical manoeuvring and brutal repression were required to bring victory to the incumbent president. This pushed the country back to the brink of civil war and further plunged it down the ranks of the world’s poorest countries. </p>
<p>The resulting crisis and the violent response by this relatively inexperienced president threw discredit on other outgoing presidents in the region, all flagrant repeat offenders. They were forced to up their game.</p>
<p>In February 2016, Museveni took office for the fifth time in Uganda amid relative calm. In March, in a tenser national atmosphere, Congolese president Denis Sassou-Nguesso started on the first of the three extra terms allowed by the recent constitutional reform. He could still be in power in 2031, at nearly 90 years of age.</p>
<p>Not to be outdone, Rwandan President Paul Kagame presided over a constitutional referendum in 2015 enabling him to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/rwanda-vote-gives-president-paul-kagame-extended-powers">remain in power until 2034</a>. The reform was approved by 98% of voters, with a voter turnout of more than 98%.</p>
<p>Overall, pending the outcomes in Kenya and DRC, each of the self-proclaimed candidates who won the recent bout of electoral contests can boast enviable popular mandates, and even landslide victories.</p>
<h2>Every leader for themselves</h2>
<p>In the eyes of these leaders their longevity, and that of their counterparts in the region, constitutes in and of itself a justification for remaining power.</p>
<p>Their relations, alliances and conflicts were carved out in a shared past, marked by civil wars and fiercely violent regional clashes. Widespread structural insecurity <a href="https://theconversation.com/burundi-and-rwanda-a-rivalry-that-lies-at-the-heart-of-great-lakes-crises-63795">plagues the entire region</a> as a result. The insecurity is fuelled by governments’ failure to lay down formal, mutually beneficial, political frameworks for cooperation and regional integration. Yet such frameworks would allow them to develop the human resources and agricultural and mining potential of the region in an equitable manner.</p>
<p>In 2013, as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/august-2013/intervention-brigade-end-game-congo">African Intervention Brigades</a> were authorised to take offensive measures to neutralise the main militia groups in the country’s Eastern region. The Brigades’ main target was the M23, a movement supported by Rwanda and Uganda, according to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/drc_5.pdf">intelligence</a> later submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The return to <a href="https://www.cfr.org/interactives/global-conflict-tracker#!/conflict/violence-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo">low-scale warfare</a> is a sign of a regulated joint governance of the instability.</p>
<p>Despite the presence of peacekeeping forces, numerous political and criminal armed groups still control vast, lawless zones. In their own ways, these groups secure the exploitation of natural resources. They supply a lucrative cross-border trade run at the highest levels of government. These activities bring in significant profits for the ruling classes. They also allow countries in the sub-region to export goods they do not produce themselves. And they ensure the continued viability of the various regional and international trade routes towards the Indian Ocean.</p>
<p>At every stage of wealth creation, profits are essentially redistributed according to private interests. It is therefore easy to understand why each head of state believes themselves best placed to serve both national and personal interests, and the interests of the political-ethnic groups they represent.</p>
<h2>The price of longevity</h2>
<p>When they came to power, the <em>new generation</em> of leaders from the Great Horn of Africa embodied the new ideal of “good governance”. They were “strong men” at the head of “strong and sustainable democracies”, ensuring the order and security necessary for development.</p>
<p>During the course of these elections, none of these so-called democrats, so regularly and resoundingly “elected” by their citizens, had any thoughts of retirement. Setting aside Kabila, whose fate is still undecided, at least two of them, in Burundi and Uganda, had no qualms about changing their country’s constitution to ensure their own reelection.</p>
<p>But in a region of considerable wealth, it’s by no means certain that government can indefinitely be determined by the life expectancy of leaders who are still incapable of developing the regional cooperative frameworks that would ensure peace, security and prosperity for their citizens.</p>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast for Word</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>André Guichaoua ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The outcome of the race between increasingly artful electoral manipulation and limitless possible manifestations of democratic expression is never entirely certain.André Guichaoua, Professeur des universités, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-SorbonneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/839832017-09-14T16:45:09Z2017-09-14T16:45:09ZAngola’s ruling party regains power but faces legitimacy questions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185820/original/file-20170913-23100-syh2n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Joao Lourenco and the ruling MPLA during an election campaign rally in Luanda.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Manuel de Almeida </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The swearing in of the new Angolan parliament marks the first time in 38 years that Angola has a new president. <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/who-is-angolas-next-president-joao-lourenco/a-40218458">João Lourenço</a>, who Angolans refer to as “JLo”, replaces the long-serving <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13036738">José Eduardo dos Santos</a>, who carries on as president of the ruling MPLA, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola).</p>
<p>Analysts have argued that Dos Santos will <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-unlikely-to-herald-the-change-angolans-have-been-clamouring-for-82851">continue to hold considerable power</a> behind the scenes. His recent promotion of 165 senior police officers to key <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-06/angola-s-dos-santos-awards-mass-promotions-within-police-corps">security positions</a> just prior to his exit is a strong sign that he intends to influence control despite Lourenço’s entry.</p>
<p>However, the equally important story of the 2017 election is the ruling MPLA’s loss of popular support. If opposition claims of egregious procedural irregularities in tallying procedures are true, the ruling party could be facing a pending legitimacy crisis. </p>
<p>Official results showed the MPLA losing support across the country. Even if the election results are accurate, the significant fall in support speaks of a population disillusioned with the last decade of MPLA rule.</p>
<p>If opposition claims are to be taken seriously, the MPLA’s losses could be even more severe than they appear. This will lead to serious legitimacy problems in the future, especially in urban centres where discontent with the current system has become progressively vocal. The MPLA faces a citizenry that is increasingly hostile to it. How this standoff will be negotiated will be decisive for the post-Dos Santos era.</p>
<h2>A tallying fiasco</h2>
<p>Voting closed at 6pm on August 23. Following this, in theory, the votes at each polling station would have been counted in the presence of observers. The results would then have been entered on sheets to be signed off by all the party representatives and other relevant individuals. </p>
<p>Copies were given to each party representative at the voting station, and one posted publicly so that people could know the results for their neighbourhood. Results from each station were then meant to be sent to the relevant provincial tallying centre, which in turn would transmit the results from the provinces via fax or electronically to the national tallying centre in the capital, Luanda.</p>
<p>On August 24, the head of the National Electoral Commission, Júlia Ferreira, appeared on national television announcing provisional results that showed the MPLA winning by a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/angola-elections-2017-mpla-leads-early-vote-count-170824164233809.html">clear majority</a>. But, just a few hours later, seven members of the commission held a press conference questioning the veracity of <a href="https://www.publico.pt/2017/08/25/mundo/noticia/comissarios-dos-partidos-da-oposicao-na-cne-demarcamse-dos-resultados-provisorios-1783343">Ferreira’s numbers.</a> They explained that they had not witnessed any tallying of votes, nor had they signed off on any document regarding provisional results. The source of her numbers was therefore a mystery.</p>
<p>Information began to trickle in that no results had yet been processed at some provincial tallying centres, and no results had been sent to the <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/08/angolan-vote-count-flouted-the-rules/">national tallying centre</a>. The opposition’s parallel vote was arriving at notably <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-08-26/explain-your-results-beaten-angola-party-head-tells-electoral-commission">different results</a> to the CNE. The implication was that the provisional results were invented.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185819/original/file-20170913-23100-19wwidr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angolan flag.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite these serious concerns, the international press embarrassingly continued to announce that the MPLA had won a landslide victory. Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo dos Santos even formally <a href="http://www.angop.ao/angola/en_us/noticias/politica/2017/7/34/Election2017-Portuguese-Head-State-congratulates-Angolan-elect-president,349fd45e-9707-4f6b-9dcd-4835c68beef6.html">congratulated</a> the MPLA before the tallying was completed. These actions ignored the fact that the “landslide” was potentially a total fabrication.</p>
<p>By September 1, agreement had only been reached on the results of four provinces. <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/09/unita-denuncia-nao-houve-escrutinio-eleitoral/">Cabinda, Uige, Zaire and Malanje</a>. The opposition lodged complaints about irregularities in vote tabulation with the CNE, but their <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/angola-election-body-rejects-opposition-complaints/">concerns were dismissed</a>.</p>
<h2>Looking Forward</h2>
<p>On September 6, the CNE announced the still disputed <a href="http://eleicoesgerais.cne.ao/99LG/DLG999999.htm">official results</a> which saw the MPLA win with 61.08%, followed by Unita (26.68%) and CASA-CE (9.45%). Unita and two smaller parties, the FNLA and PRS, have lodged complaints with the <a href="https://www.angop.ao/angola/en_us/noticias/politica/2017/8/37/Election2017-Opposition-parties-appeal-Constitutional-Court,62fbbe6e-fef6-491c-82aa-23983fc1e00f.html">Constitutional Court</a>, but a decision is still pending.</p>
<p>Despite the ongoing question mark over the veracity of results, the international community has been quick to <a href="https://ao.usembassy.gov/angolas-general-elections/">congratulate</a> the MPLA. </p>
<p>With Kenya already having been a moment of significant embarrassment for those countries quick to recognise locally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/01/kenyan-supreme-court-annuls-uhuru-kenyatta-election-victory">disputed results</a>, those rushing to congratulate the MPLA may equally find themselves with egg in their faces one day.</p>
<p>The MPLA’s influence over state institutions and the judiciary mean that any formal recognition of opposition concerns, such as took place in Kenya, is unlikely. The party can push through the official results, but it does this at the expense of a credible win. Unita has announced that, as a protest, it might refuse to <a href="http://www.dw.com/pt-002/unita-declara-que-n%C3%A3o-vai-legitimar-institui%C3%A7%C3%B5es-sa%C3%ADdas-de-atos-ilegais/a-40408072">take up its seats in parliament</a>. Most opposition supporters believe they have been swindled, and some are even calling for protests on September 15.</p>
<p>In Luanda, where at least a quarter of the population lives, even the contested official results show the <a href="http://eleicoesgerais.cne.ao/99LG/DLG059999.htm">MPLA only winning 48.21%</a>, meaning that the majority voted against them. Not only does Lourenço, given Dos Santos’s ongoing influence, face a difficult balancing act at the top, but he is now located in a capital city that does not want him or his party in power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claudia Gastrow has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Social Sciences Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.</span></em></p>Angola’s recent election results showed the ruling MPLA losing support across the country. If opposition claims are to be taken seriously, the losses could be more severe than they appear.Claudia Gastrow, Lecturer in Anthropology, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828512017-08-27T09:55:21Z2017-08-27T09:55:21ZElection unlikely to herald the change Angolans have been clamouring for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183460/original/file-20170825-28527-g0bt4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">João Lourenço, set to become Angola's president, is unlikely to bring any major changes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Manuel de Almeida </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 23 August Angolans went to the polls to elect a new parliament, and for the first time in the lives of a great majority of the population, a new president. José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country for 38 years, did not run this time as his party’s top candidate. </p>
<p>Instead, the MPLA, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) fielded Defence Minister, <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/who-is-angolas-next-president-joao-lourenco/a-40218458">João Lourenço</a>, as its presidential candidate. So the <em>mais velho</em> (old man) has <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1505928.stm">finally</a> left. This in itself is a significant moment, considering how difficult it appears for <a href="https://qz.com/1059007/angola-election-jose-eduardo-dos-santos-will-step-down-as-angola-elects-its-first-new-leader-in-38-years/">some African leaders</a> to relinquish power. </p>
<p>Despite this, it’s likely that the elections will bring more of the same, and only slow and gradual improvements — if at all — of <a href="https://www.cmi.no/news/1671-angola-from-boom-to-bust-to-breaking-point">the lives of most Angolans</a>. Lourenço is very much a product of the system. He has the backing of the party and the armed forces, which is an improvement over dos Santos’ previous intended successor, (former) vice-president, <a href="https://www.africa-confidential.com/whos-who-profile/id/3227/page/3">Manuel Vicente</a>. </p>
<p>Vicente was pushed through against the party’s will as dos Santos’ running mate in the 2012 elections. He had no “liberation credentials”, and is <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38996879">under investigation</a> for the corruption of a magistrate in Portugal. It would also appear that, for now, any plans for <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2013/07/dos-santos%c2%92-son-shapes-his-own-government/">dynastic succession</a> are off the table. </p>
<p>Some Angolan commentators have called Lourenço “dull”, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172vgh8cd1mg4v%22">“not previously known for his intellectual capacities</a>. But, compared to <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2016/10/incompetence-and-corruption-sinks-angolas-development-bank/">some</a> of his MPLA comrades, he has a reputation of relative probity. Nevertheless he is unlikely to be willing – or able – to <a href="https://www.voaportugues.com/a/cabinda-padre-congo-duvida-que-eleicoes-tragam-mudancas/3996126.html">change</a> the current political economic dispensation.</p>
<h2>Corruption</h2>
<p>Lourenço campaigned under the motto ”<a href="http://www.angop.ao/angola/pt_pt/noticias/politica/2016/11/50/Melhorar-que-esta-bem-corrigir-que-esta-mal-novo-lema-estrategico-MPLA,62faa988-79c5-4357-9c58-2716650c8f23.html">improve what is good, correct what is bad</a>“ and vowed to tackle corruption. </p>
<p>Legal frameworks to combat corruption already exist, such as the 2010 <a href="http://www.angop.ao/angola/pt_pt/noticias/politica/2011/10/46/Lei-Probidade-Publica-vem-reforcar-mecanismos-combate-corrupcao,72965749-90f9-48c7-9eff-1a028c953b97.html">law on public probity</a> and anti-money laundering <a href="http://cdn2.portalangop.co.ao/angola/en_us/noticias/economia/2016/0/2/Angola-BNA-implements-measures-prevent-money-laundering,93c706db-6098-497d-87ea-fd84ae765db9.html">measures</a> in the banking sector. But despite repeated high-level declarations of a "zero tolerance” policy, dos Santos, his family and his close entourage remain the <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/08/14/angola-elections-ruling-family-dos-santos-worth-billions-what-happens-when-dad-steps-down/">prime beneficiaries</a> of the misappropriation of public funds. This tendency has become even more marked in the past three years, with the president’s family openly multiplying their private gains from publicly funded investments. The <a href="https://southernafrican.news/2016/11/18/isabel-dos-santos-defends-appointment-to-sonangol/">appointment</a> of dos Santos’ daughter, Isabel dos Santos, at the head of state oil company Sonangol is the most glaring example of this. </p>
<p>Such “eating of commissions” in all productive sectors of the economy would have to be tackled to address the profound <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2016/03/the-economic-crises-in-angola/">economic, political</a> and <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2016/05/16/angola-s-health-crisis-deepens-after-slump-in-oil-causes-budget-cuts/">social</a> crisis the country has faced since the fall of world oil prices in late 2014. </p>
<p>But it’s doubtful Lourenço will be able to institute such a change, especially as dos Santos has “locked in” by decree his latest appointments. These include the heads of the army and state security forces, as well as those of his children Isabel and José Filomeno ‘<a href="http://expresso.sapo.pt/internacional/2016-07-17-O-destino-de-Zenu">Zénú</a>’ dos Santos, at the helm of Sonangol and the Sovereign Wealth Fund. </p>
<p>Dos Santos has granted himself and his entourage <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/06/lifelong-immunity-from-prosecution-for-the-president/">lifelong immunity</a> from prosecution and remains president of the MPLA. This ensures that whoever succeeds him is likely to depend on him and his family economically, and is unlikely to go after the family’s ill-gotten gains.</p>
<h2>Election outcome</h2>
<p>Although election day was peaceful and orderly, there was reportedly widespread abstention (20%) and targeted voter disenfranchisement. Some voters turned up at polling stations only to hear they had been registered at a different place, often kilometres away. On 25 August the nominally independent National Electoral Commission <a href="http://www.dw.com/pt-002/cne-atualiza-resultados-mpla-vence-elei%C3%A7%C3%B5es-em-angola-com-617/a-40238976">announced “provisional” results</a> with the MPLA as the winner with 61% of the vote, down from 72% in 2012 and 81% in 2008. </p>
<p>Parallel counting from the voting stations, by contrast, shows opposition parties winning in many urban areas. This tallies with some pre-election opinion polls and the general public mood. In a truly open contest — which it <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2010.507572">was</a> <a href="https://www.makaangola.org/2017/08/a-teoria-da-fraude-eleitoral-em-angola/">not</a> — the MPLA would probably have lost Luanda and some provincial capitals, even if at national level it would likely still have come out on top. </p>
<p>The results are thus likely to be fiercely <a href="http://www.dw.com/pt-002/angola-t%C3%A9cnicos-da-oposi%C3%A7%C3%A3o-contestam-apuramento-da-cne/a-40232826">contested</a>, though given the politicisation of the judiciary and the electoral organs, the MPLA is likely to emerge as the winner in the end, albeit with a significantly reduced majority. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the end of dos Santos’ rule will also mean turning the page on the <em><a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100492980">Sistema dos Santos (System dos Santos)</a></em>, and a change in the ways in which the Angolan political economy works. For the MPLA, losing key urban districts, and probably in a free contest only just scraping past the 50% mark nationwide was something hitherto unthinkable, especially for the party’s old guard who still think the MPLA has a destiny to lead Angola for the coming 25 years. Perhaps this poor showing might prove a wake-up call and strengthen reformist tendencies within the party, and provide some incentive to start a constructive dialogue with the opposition.</p>
<p>But the regime has so far been remarkably resilient to crises. The <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2013.798541?src=recsys&journalCode=cjss20">political awakening</a> of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/angola-repression-generates-more-dissent-politics-mpla">growing number</a> of Angolans over the past years has <a href="https://www.voaportugues.com/a/abel-chivukuvuku-pica-candidato-mpla-novo-pedido-debate/3964756.html">strengthened</a> <a href="http://www.angonoticias.com/Artigos/item/55128/eleicoes-2017-samakuva-reitera-governo-inclusivo-e-participativo">opposition parties</a> in their <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2016/02/29/angola-opposition-kicks-against-management-of-yellow-fever-epidemic//">positions</a>, yet it will require continued <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/02/angola-15-activist-your-support-got-us-out-of-prison/">pressure</a> and <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/a-trial-in-angola-increasingly-seen-as-a-farce/a-19131740">activism</a>, and more than a change of the figurehead at the top, to fundamentally reorder Angola’s social, political, and economic relations — which is what Angolans are increasingly <a href="https://qz.com/538237/ordinary-angolans-are-asking-where-did-all-the-oil-riches-go/">clamouring</a> for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Schubert's current research is funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) as part of a project called "War and State Formation in Africa". His research in Angola has previously been funded by the Theodor-Engelmann-Stiftung, Basel; the Janggen-Pöhn-Stiftung, St. Gallen, the Heringa Stichting, Utrecht; the Bolsa Rui Tavares, Lisbon and Brussels; and the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. </span></em></p>Angola’s president-elect, João Lourenço, has a reputation for relative probity. But, he’s unlikely to rock the boat as Eduardo dos Santos remains party chairman.Jon Schubert, Senior research fellow: Civil War and State Formation, Global Studies Institute, Université de GenèveLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827712017-08-24T19:29:16Z2017-08-24T19:29:16ZAfrican politicians seeking medical help abroad is shameful, and harms health care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183316/original/file-20170824-18746-orpi5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is one of many African leaders to have gone abroad for medical treatment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is an African idiom that if a man does not eat at home, he may never give his wife enough money to cook a good pot of soup. This might just be true when applied to politicians on the continent seeking medical help anywhere but home.</p>
<p>Africa’s public health systems are in a depressing condition. Preventable diseases <a href="http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/special-edition-women-2012/investing-health-africa%E2%80%99s-mothers">still kill a large number of women and children</a>, people <a href="https://www.aho.afro.who.int/en/ahm/issue/14/editorial/health-systems-and-primary-health-care-african-region">travel long distances</a> to receive health care, and across the continent <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/where-patients-sleep-on-the-floor-1268243">patients sleep on hospital floors</a>. On top of this, Africa’s health professionals emigrate in droves to search for <a href="http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2016-march-2017/diagnosing-africa%E2%80%99s-medical-brain-drain">greener pastures</a>.</p>
<p>It’s therefore not surprising that people from Africa travel abroad – mainly to Europe, North America and Asia – for their medical needs. In 2016, Africans spent over <a href="http://uncova.com/african-leaders-and-medical-tourism">USD$6 billion</a> on outbound treatment. Nigeria is a major contributor. Its citizens spend over <a href="https://www.imtj.com/news/nigeria-spends-1-billion-outbound-medical-tourism/">USD$1 billion annually</a> on what’s become known as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/features/medicaltourism/index.html">medical tourism</a>.</p>
<p>It can be argued that private citizens opting to seek medical help in other countries don’t owe the public any explanation, because it’s their own affair. But medical tourism among Africa’s political elite is a completely different kettle of fish and a big cause for concern, because they are responsible for the development of proper health care for the citizens of their countries. </p>
<h2>The shame</h2>
<p>It’s well documented that politicians from across the continent go abroad for <a href="http://uncova.com/african-leaders-and-medical-tourism">medical treatment</a>. The reasons for exercising this choice are obvious: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-40685040">they lack confidence</a> in the health systems they oversee, and they can <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/nigerian-health-care/3726922.html">afford</a> the trips given that the expenses are paid for by taxpayers. </p>
<p>The result is that they have little motivation <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-40685040">to change the status quo</a>. Medical tourism by African leaders and politicians could therefore be one of the salient but overlooked causes of Africa’s poor health systems and infrastructure.</p>
<p>Since the beginning of 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has spent more time in the UK for <a href="https://citifmonline.com/2017/08/14/buhari-feels-ready-to-go-home-after-treatment-in-uk/">medical treatment</a> than he has in his own country. By seeking treatment abroad, Buhari broke one of his own electoral promises – to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36468154">end medical tourism</a>. </p>
<p>Buhari is just one of many heads of state to find help elsewhere. Patrice Talon, the President of the Republic of Benin, underwent <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2017/06/19/benin-president-patrice-talon-underwent-surgery-while-in-paris/">surgery in France</a> a few months ago.</p>
<p>The cases of Buhari and Talon, however, aren’t as bad as other presidents who have had decades to fix their countries’ health care systems, but haven’t. Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe for the past 37 years, frequently seeks <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-mugabe-idUSKBN18711B">eye-related treatment</a> 8,240 kilometres away in Singapore. Jose Eduardo dos Santos who has just stepped down as Angola’s leader after 38 years, also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-angola-president-spain-idUSKBN19O1SK">travels to Spain for treatment</a>.</p>
<p>In the recent past, some African leaders died abroad while seeking treatment. Zambia’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/19/zambia">Levy Mwanawasa</a> died in France while the country’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29813612">Michael Sata</a> passed away in the UK. Then there was Guinea Bissau’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16473457">Malam Bacai Sanha</a> who died in France, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19328356">died in Belgium</a>, and Gabon’s Omar Bongo who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/08/gabon-omar-bongo-death-reports">died in Spain</a>.</p>
<p>A few fortunate ones made it home, but died shortly afterwards. They include Nigeria’s Musa Yar’Adua who died in Abuja after returning from <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/7683904/Nigerian-president-Umaru-YarAdua-dies-after-months-of-illness.html">treatment in Saudi Arabia</a>, and Ghana’s Atta Mills who died in Accra after returning from a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18972107">brief medical spell in the US</a></p>
<p>The picture painted above is shameful. As long as Africa’s leaders keep going abroad for medical reasons, the ambition for better health infrastructure will remain an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-40685040">illusion</a>.</p>
<h2>Costs and risks</h2>
<p>Countries pay a heavy cost for this behaviour. It’s estimated that in Uganda, the funds spent to treat top government officials abroad every year could <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/688334-1394344-9hmafbz/index.html">build 10 hospitals</a>.</p>
<p>Not only do the leaders travel with elaborate entourages, but they also travel in expensive chartered or presidential jets. For example, the <a href="http://sunnewsonline.com/nigeria-not-paying-4000-daily-for-presidential-jet-in-london-presidency/">cost of parking</a> Buhari’s plane during his three month spell in London is estimated at £360,000. That’s equivalent to about 0.07% of Nigeria’s <a href="http://www.financialnigeria.com/nigeria-s-health-budget-grossly-inadequate-feature-121.html">N304 billion budget allocation for health</a> this year. And there would have been many other heavier costs incurred during his stay.</p>
<p>The failure of leaders to improve health care and stem <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11327505">brain drain</a> also carries a heavy price. A 2011 report estimated that nine African countries – including Nigeria and Kenya - had lost <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7031">USD$2.17 billion</a> of their investment in health care professionals. This figure might be higher now.</p>
<p>On top of this, African hospitals that were previously world class have been reduced to symbolic edifices due to political negligence. For example, Lagos University Teaching Hospital was once deemed to be one of the <a href="https://guardian.ng/opinion/african-leaders-and-medical-tourism/">best on the continent</a>. Recently, it was criticised for <a href="http://saharareporters.com/2017/04/11/jaf-condemns-lagos-university-teaching-hospital-decadence">decadence</a>. Not far away, Ghana’s flagship national health insurance scheme is <a href="http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2017/April-13th/ghanas-health-insurance-on-the-brink-over-12-billion-debt.php">ailing</a>.</p>
<p>Essentially, when people charged with responsibility feel they have no need for public health systems because they can afford private health care at home or abroad, ordinary citizens bear the brunt. </p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>The effective health systems in western and Asian countries that are being patronised by African leaders only exist because they were developed, and are consistently maintained, through political commitment and visionary leadership, qualities that are clearly <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-citizens-have-good-reasons-to-be-fed-up-with-their-politicians-81053">lacking in Africa</a>.</p>
<p>To bring change, African citizens must start condemning political medical tourism. They must also push for regulations to curb the shameful practice. Taxpayer funded medical trips should be banned and criteria set detailing what sicknesses that can be covered by the public purse. Though a <a href="http://nigeriahealthwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-pdf-manager/1189__2014_Official-Gazette-of-the-National-Health-Act-,_FGN_1272.pdf">law</a> to this effect exists in Nigeria, it appears to be <a href="https://www.imtj.com/news/missing-healthcare-law-nigeria/">ineffective</a>. It must, and should work.</p>
<p>Essentially, if the leaders do not experience the poor state of health care, they might never strive for any positive changes to it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tahiru Azaaviele Liedong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Health care systems in many African countries are very poor. Instead of fixing them, many African leaders seek medical attention abroad incurring huge bills which are ultimately paid by taxpayers.Tahiru Azaaviele Liedong, Assistant Professor of Strategy, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/788472017-06-05T16:39:08Z2017-06-05T16:39:08ZDemocracy is looking sickly across southern Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172262/original/file-20170605-16869-1kz7k3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman votes in Zambia. Beyond multi-party systems and regular elections, many countries resemble very little of true democracies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GovernmentZA/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Politics are in shambles across the world. Populism and political gambles are making headlines from London to Washington. Southern Africa is no exception. If it’s any comfort, this suggests that there’s nothing genuinely typical about African versions of <a href="https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/populism-common-southern-africa-where-former-liberation-movements-have-become-dominant">political populism</a>. Nor are the flaws in democracy typically African. </p>
<p>This might put some events into wider perspective. But it’s nonetheless worrying to follow the current political turmoil in some southern Africa countries.</p>
<p>The regional hegemon, South Africa, is embroiled in domestic policy tensions of unprecedented proportions since it became a democracy. And the situation in the sub-region is not much better. </p>
<p>The state of opposition politics and democracy is in a shambles too. The fragile political climate and the mentality of most opposition politicians hardly offer meaningful alternatives. This is possibly an explanation – but no excuse – for the undemocratic practices permeating almost every one of the region’s democracies. </p>
<p>Beyond multi-party systems with regular elections, they resemble very little of true democracies.</p>
<h2>South African hiccups</h2>
<p>At the end of May the dimensions of “state capture” in South Africa were set out in a report published by an <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017/05/26/FULL-REPORT-%E2%80%98How-South-Africa-is-Being-Stolen%E2%80%99-a-report-on-state-capture">academic team</a>. </p>
<p>It shows how deeply the personalised systematic plundering of state assets is <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-05-26-betrayal-of-the-promise-the-anatomy-of-state-capture/">entrenched</a>. Additional explosive evidence was presented only days later through thousands of leaked e-mails. Dubbed the “Gupta Leaks”, they document a mafia-like network among Zuma-loyalists and the Indian Gupta family. </p>
<p>The evidence points to massive influence, if not control, over political appointments, the hijacking of higher public administration and embezzlement of <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2017/05/28/Here-they-are-The-emails-that-prove-the-Guptas-run-South-Africa">enormous proportions</a>.</p>
<p>Some 65% of South Africans want Zuma to <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/65-of-south-africans-want-zuma-to-resign--ipsos">resign</a>. An all-time low approval rating of 20% makes him less popular among the electorate than even <a href="http://time.com/4785127/michael-temer-nicolas-maduro-donald-trump/">US President Donald Trump</a>. Despite this – combined with growing demands from within the party that he steps down – the ANC still backs its president. </p>
<p>But divisions within the party are deepening, with some in its leadership demanding an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/88337066-4797-11e7-8519-9f94ee97d996">investigation</a> into the Gupta patronage network. </p>
<p>For his part, Zuma is focused on pulling strings to secure Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/dispatches/2017/03/10/zuma-succession-the-businessman-vs-the-ex-wife-or-is-it-all-smoke-and-mirrors/">his successor</a> as president of the party. The other front-runner candidate is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>Zuma’s assumption appears to be that, once in office, his former wife would not endorse any legal prosecution of the father of her children. </p>
<p>But the country’s official opposition party, Democratic Alliance (DA), isn’t reaping the benefits of the ANC’s blunders. It has its own problems, which are constraining the gains it might otherwise be making from the ANC’s mess. </p>
<p>The party is divided over what to do about its former leader and Premier of the Western Cape province, Helen Zille following a tweet in which she defended the legacy of colonialism. The comment whipped up a storm of protest and for weeks the party had been at pains on how to deal with the scandal. </p>
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<p>DA leader Mmusi Maimane finally announced that Zille had been suspended from the party and that a disciplinary hearing would decide what further <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40143710?ocid=socialflow_twitter">political consequences</a> she might face. But a resilient Zille immediately challenged <a href="http://m.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/das-u-turn-on-zille-suspension-20170603">the decision</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever the outcome, the DA’s image is damaged. Its aspirations to be the country’s new majority party has been dealt a major blow. </p>
<h2>Regional woes</h2>
<p>In Angola, 74-year-old Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in office since 1979, has decided to select a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3995176/Angolas-President-Dos-Santos-stand-2017-state-radio.html">successor</a>. The scenario will secure that the family “oiligarchy” will remain in control of politics and the country’s economy, while the governing People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) uses the state apparatus to ruthlessly suppress any meaningful <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-mercury/20170221/281706909446949">social protests</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast Robert Mugabe – reigning in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 - shows no intention of retiring. He was nominated again as the Zimbabwe African Nation Union/Patriotic Front’s (ZANU/PF) candidate for the 2018 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-30365706/mugabe-confirmed-as-zanu-pf-candidate-for-2018-election">presidential elections</a>. But everyone is anxiously following the party’s internal power struggles over the ailing autocrat’s <a href="http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/04/zimbabwes-make-break-moment/">replacement</a>. Fears are that the vacuum created by his departure might create a worse situation. </p>
<p>While the regime’s constant violation of human rights is – as in Angola – geared towards preventing any form of meaningful opposition, there are concerns that the unresolved succession might add another violent dimension to local politics.</p>
<p>Zambia’s democracy also looks sad. The country’s main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND) is on trial for high treason. Hichilema has been embroiled in a personal feud with President Edgar Lungu of the governing Patriotic Front (PF) for years. He was arrested in early April after obstructing the president’s motor cavalcade. The charge of high treason is based on the accusation that he <a href="https://zambiareports.com/2017/04/09/hichilema-willfully-put-pres-lungus-life-danger-state-house/">wilfully put President Lungu’s life in danger</a>. </p>
<p>The trial is feeding growing concerns over an increasingly autocratic regime. The once praised democracy, which allowed for several <a href="https://www.themastonline.com/2017/05/15/its-time-to-start-talking-about-zambia-says-cheeseman/">relatively peaceful transfers</a> of political power since the turn of the century, is <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2017/05/16/birmingham-university-professor-cheesemans-ignorance-democracy-shocking-regrettable/">now in decline</a>.</p>
<p>Lesotho is also in a mess. It provides a timely reminder that competing parties seeking to obtain political control over governments are by no means a guarantee for better governance. Aptly described as a <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-06-02-00-lesothos-groundhog-day-election">“Groundhog Day election”</a>, citizens in the crisis-ridden country went to the polls for the third time since 2012 with no new <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/06/02/lesothos-night-before-the-elections-photo-of-the-weekexplainer/">alternatives or options</a>. </p>
<p>Their limited choice is between two former prime ministers aged 77 (Tom Thabane) and 72 (Pakalitha Mosisili). The likely election result is another fragile coalition government – provided the military accepts the result. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the biggest challenge for relative political stability in the region might still be in the making: President Joseph Kabila, whose second term in office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ended in December 2016, is still hanging on with the promise that he’ll vacate the post by end of this year. </p>
<p>Despite a constitutional two-term limit, his plans remain a matter of speculation. In a recent interview, he was characteristically <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/die-lage-am-samstag-aggressiver-nationalismus-plus-atomraketen-a-1150544.html">evasive</a>. He refused to give a straight answer on whether he’s still considering <a href="http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/kabila-says-he-never-promised-to-hold-elections-in-drc-20170603">another term</a> and flatly denied that he had promised anything, including elections. </p>
<p>Kabila’s <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/12/21/Up-to-20-dead-as-Congo-police-protesters-clash-over-president/6411482288306/">extended stay in office</a> threatens to exacerbate an already explosive and violent situation, with potentially devastating consequences.</p>
<p>His continued reign would not only provoke further bloodshed at home. Any spill-over will challenge the Southern African Development Community’s willingness and ability to find solutions to regional conflicts in the interests of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-southern-africa-can-learn-from-west-africa-about-dealing-with-despots-71722">relative stability</a>. A stability which is at best fragile and indicative of the crisis of policy in most of the regional body’s member states.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber is a member of Swapo since 1974. </span></em></p>Democracy is in a parlous state in many countries in southern Africa. Autocrats hold onto power, while electorates have little to choose from at the polls.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/738682017-03-03T09:50:42Z2017-03-03T09:50:42ZAfrica’s elderly leaders get no prizes for hanging on<p>The Mo Ibrahim Foundation <a href="http://mo.ibrahim.foundation/news/2017/mo-ibrahim-foundation-announces-no-winner-2016-ibrahim-prize-achievement-african-leadership/">recently announced</a> that once again, no-one had earned its annual prize for Achievement in African Leadership. The prize is meant to recognise probity and commitment to democracy and, crucially, it is awarded to people who have relinquished power with grace rather than outstaying their welcome. </p>
<p>Alas, such people are few and far between – and, in its short history, the prize has not often been awarded. In previous years members of the prize committee, such as Kofi Annan, have addressed packed press briefings to say no-one has won – these days, a single press release does the same job.</p>
<p>Standing in the way are the African continent’s persistent “gerontocrats” – ageing leaders hell-bent on ruling in perpetuity. Once they realise they aren’t immortal, they cling on in hopes of dying in office. Right up until the moment of death, they indulge in every medical technology the world can offer to stave off the inevitable. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, is currently on extended sick leave in London to be treated for <a href="http://saharareporters.com/2017/02/28/president-buhari%E2%80%99s-doctors-also-treating-crohn%E2%80%99s-disease-intestinal-malady">various ailments</a>, most likely in an expensive private clinic. Eritrea’s president of 24 years, Isaias Afewerki, is <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/node/288615">rumoured</a> to have secretly received urgent high-level medical treatment in Israel in the 1990s on a trip that paved the way for <a href="http://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/02/05/Eritrean-president-visits-Israel/9629981034440/">closer bilateral ties</a>. </p>
<p>And most notoriously of all, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is well-known for his <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-mugabe-idUSKBN168509">medical visits to Singapore</a>. He’s officially being treated for a persistent eye complaint, but rumours abound that the treatment is for cancer. An increasingly frail 93-year-old, he always returns noticeably sprightly and rejuvenated.</p>
<p>Africa is hardly the only part of the world lumbered with such people. Various long-serving heads of state in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34499387">post-Soviet Europe</a>, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-azerbaijan-election-idUSBRE99812Z20131009">Transcaucasia</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-uzbekistans-dictator-dead-russia-seeks-to-extend-its-influence-64991">Central</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-25-years-of-independence-tajikistan-is-a-bastion-of-torture-and-repression-64945">Asian</a> countries find it hard to leave office – they too “win” election after election and disingenuously claim to be loved by their people. But even they have their limits. </p>
<h2>Preserving the line</h2>
<p>By and large, these leaders don’t seek to engineer their inevitable succession by members of their own family. Of course, family succession is hardly unique to Africa, and nor is it in itself wicked or anti-democratic: Singapore’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/singapore/1469191/Lee-Kuan-Yews-son-takes-over-as-Singapore-leader.html">Lee Kwan Yew</a> was succeeded by his son, as was Mauritius’s <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mauritius-politics-idUSKBN1550S2?il=0">Anerood Jugnauth</a>. In the US, Robert Kennedy might have been elected president had he not been assassinated as his elder brother was, George H. W. Bush’s son served twice as long as he did, and Hillary Clinton very nearly became the 45th president instead of Donald Trump.</p>
<p>But the point is that anyone aspiring to lead, regardless of whether they share the genes or surname of another officeholder, must earn their mandate to do so in a fair and transparent election after a fair process of selection. Power, unlike money, is not something to be inherited – and public accountability is a crucial safeguard against abuse of office. More than that, the privilege that elevates hereditary rulers has nothing to do with political or personal merit.</p>
<p>Sure enough, several creaking African leaders have loved ones waiting in the wings to take over without earning the right to do so. In Zimbabwe, Grace Mugabe is still thought to be manoeuvring to succeed her husband; in South Africa, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Jacob Zuma’s former wife, seems a favourite to succeed him. </p>
<p>Things are a little more subtle in Angola. Long-serving president, José Eduardo Dos Santos, has announced he will finally step down this year, and his rumoured successor is not a member of his family. But that doesn’t mean the Dos Santos family will lose their grip on the country – they still control civil society, private capital and the central bank’s sovereign wealth fund. Dos Santos’s daughter Isabel heads up <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/the-growing-empire-of-angolas-first-daughter-isabel-dos-santos/a-36162875">Sonangol</a>, the state-owned oil company.</p>
<p>Holding on while elderly and sick, living on through wives and family members – these are the symptoms of an almost clinical psychotropic condition in the elite African political class. Power is a drug – eventually it addles even the longest-lived presidents, draining them of any impetus to do anything except to cling onto life, and therefore to power itself.</p>
<p>Many of these leaders once used their tenacity to serve not just themselves, but their people. Some of those still clinging would do well to remember there are prizes for stepping down. The Mo Ibrahim Prize, for one, comes with enough money to fund a long retirement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Chan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s hard to award a prize to esteemed former leaders when so many are determined to die in office.Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/619182016-07-18T19:53:52Z2016-07-18T19:53:52ZHow revenues from oil and gas in Africa can be made to work for ordinary people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130881/original/image-20160718-2153-g3x8py.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Barrels in Nigeria used for transporting oil to communities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/127688197@N07/15467016505/in/photolist-pyLv9n-phguhw-pyLtTg-phgyYW-pyujpz-pyuo1x-pyLpk8-pyujUn-phgsMY-pyLoYB-phgxiS-7WXdw8-phgWp9-pyJD5o-phfxWg-7X1c2U-pyLsS8-phgvVG-fmChWf-phgyCq-pyugnT-74eWMf-pyunAV-cwvvhm-phhhHp-gUB68D-pyLrJX-cwvzUU-5jQVjm-7WxtGc-89Dfvh-51ywWG-gUB8Um-6fwZfS-hjcd3z-4REjh8-d5puwq-pyugpg-rmjnhD-7fGRV-kJbkaT-4REoLF-74j238-cwvsmY-4LgBCr-kJd1aL-7fGtG-fmo8yD-7WXcZM-4REpnv">Stakeholder Democracy/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Critics point out that ordinary people have not benefited from oil and gas exploitation in many African states. Billions of dollars in revenue have had little positive impact on the lives of most people in countries like <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-luandas-residents-are-asking-where-did-all-the-oil-riches-go-49772">Angola</a> and Nigeria. Local content policies have been <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420716300502">expanding</a> across Africa and are currently being drafted in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique. In a new book, <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/petro-developmental-state-africa/">The Petro-Developmental State in Africa</a>, Jesse Salah Ovadia argues that this needn’t be the case and that a different approach focused on local content is possible. This involves regulations that encourage employment and nurture local companies to increase domestic participation in the industry. I asked him whether his proposed approach could be a game changer for economic development in Africa’s oil producing states.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is the petro-developmental state and why does it matter now?</strong></p>
<p>The petro-developmental state is a vision of what sub-Saharan countries can achieve through their oil and gas resources. It is tapping non-renewable resources for <a href="http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/theme/structural-transformation-and-natural-resources">structural transformation</a> and improving people’s lives in the long term for an eventual transition to post-carbon economies.</p>
<p>In a petro-developmental state, local content policies support infant industries. The approach is anchored in oil and gas due to the state’s leverage with this commodity to regulate local participation. These industries can grow and develop comparative advantage over time in areas of economic activity that have non-oil applications and eventually employ large numbers of people and contribute to building a more robust economy.</p>
<p>In fact, it’s a vision of state-led industrialisation and job creation anchored in oil that actually diversifies economies away from oil. The value of local content is <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214790X14000604">just as great as the revenues from oil</a>, while the benefits are much more <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2016/02/10/is-natural-resource-based-development-still-realistic-for-africa/">important for long-term development</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Is local content the way forward following the oil price shock?</strong></p>
<p>The oil price shock has actually deepened my belief that local content is the key to how petroleum resources can be developmental. Oil prices will always be volatile and have provoked economic crises in Angola and Nigeria. That’s one of many reasons a development strategy cannot be based on use of petroleum revenues alone. </p>
<p>Even when prices drop, oil production continues. So the opportunities for development through local content remain because the companies producing the oil still require all of the same goods and services from local suppliers. The benefits are much more consistent and they also reduce the reliance on oil over the long term as local companies expand and diversify from the oil sector into the non-oil economy.</p>
<p><strong>What are the possible benefits of local content for communities in areas of oil and gas production?</strong></p>
<p>There are a number of different things meant when people talk about local content. In Ghana, Kenya and other new oil states in Africa, local content is often understood to direct benefits to communities. I don’t really see it that way, for me it’s about national development through expanded manufacturing and services sectors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130864/original/image-20160718-2150-1ng07l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A focus on local content, in countries like Angola, can see communities benefit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There may be some ways communities can participate in the industry in lower-skilled jobs and supplying basic services and this should be encouraged. But other policies are needed by governments to redistribute the revenues and benefits from petroleum and for companies to obtain their social licence to operate by giving back to the communities they work in.</p>
<p><strong>How might Africa’s new oil producers approach local content?</strong></p>
<p>There are a variety of factors to consider as Africa’s new oil producers <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420716300502">set up their approaches</a> to local content. The days of high oil prices are gone and we have to remember that local content involves a cost to both government and the private sector. </p>
<p>Governments should start by evaluating the existing levels of education and skills as well as industrial development. These factors, combined with the amount of oil the country has, how hard it is to extract and how long it will last, are important to consider when determining how to promote local content.</p>
<p>Setting unrealistic targets for local content will reduce the benefit. Rather than creating hard targets across all oil service activities, it would be better to try to build comparative advantage in selected areas. It is worth sacrificing some oil revenues in order to maximise local content if additional regulation would increase in-country value creation. </p>
<p>I worry though that over time as new producers develop their local content policies, they are bowing to pressure to take a less regulatory and more voluntary approach – something I call “soft local content policies”. This doesn’t work because local content is about national development, not creating shared value or win-win outcomes.</p>
<p><strong>What is meant by the dual nature of local content? How can it be reconciled with development objectives?</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589001.2012.701846">Dual nature</a> is the idea that local content can both benefit local elites and have positive developmental effects. But I think it will be a struggle in Angola and Nigeria as well as newer oil producing countries like Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique to have the positive effects outweigh the negative ones.</p>
<p>Angola’s <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-02/angola-president-appoints-daughter-as-head-of-state-run-oil-firm">recent appointment of Isabel dos Santos</a>, the president’s daughter, as the head of the state’s oil company has a dual nature. Clearly she’s there to ensure her father’s continued access to a key source of rent and patronage. But paradoxically she’s also there to reform and professionalise the company as it struggles to deal with the low oil price environment. I think she was put there for both of these reasons. This demonstrates the dual nature of Angola’s attempt to build a developmental state.</p>
<p>Angola’s top-down approach requires significant political reform to be successful because the balance between elite benefit and national development is so one-sided. The lesson for the citizens of Africa’s new oil states is to pay attention, engage on the issues and make their voices heard on questions of petroleum management and oil-backed development.</p>
<p><strong>How much of a game changer could local content be for the emergence of a petro-developmental state?</strong></p>
<p>I’m often accused of being overly optimistic on this matter, as there is a lack of evidence about the impact of various local content policies. But I believe I’m making a more nuanced argument about a shift in the limits of the possible and a new opportunity for petro-development. Obviously an actually-existing petro-developmental state would be game changing.</p>
<p>It’s a vision though that I theorise alongside a less optimistic vision of new forms of elite accumulation and rent-seeking. There is an open question about how successful old and new African oil producers will be in using local content to bring about developmental outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Lind receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). </span></em></p>It is important to nurture local companies and increase domestic participation in Africa’s emerging oil economies.Jeremy Lind, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.