Limitations on Term for Presidents is Essential for Democratic Change
February 19th, 2009
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela ‘s recent referendum victory to change
the constitution of his country to allow all elected public officials
including the president to stand for more than two terms is both a blow
for and against democracy. By 54% to 46%, Venezuelan voters voted to
remove all limits, which means that the popular President may continue to
stand for re-election till he dies.
It was a hotly contested referendum, given the highly polarised politics
of this oil rich country with a radical, openly socialist and
revolutionary President about whom no one is indifferent. He is a hero to
the masses but the villain to his internal rivals and former wielders of
power and their external allies principally the United States of America.
His opponents, with full backing of the USA, have for the past ten years
tried everything including assassination plots, investor strikes,
campaigns of sabotage, recall referendum and also a coup (backed by Bush’s
government) that ‘succeeded’ briefly (before the Masses struck back
returning Chavez to the presidency) among many other failed attempts.
His continuing popularity is not just because of defying the US (the
hegemonic imperial power in Latin America) but because his has been a
revolutionary government that is delivering to the ordinary people who
have been victims of irresponsible political leaders with no loyalty to
the country or any care for the people beyond lining their pockets and
keeping their imperialist bosses happy. He is reversing the proverbial
curse of ‘Oil boom to the rich and Oil doom for the masses ‘familiar to
many Oil producing countries into a boom time for the poor with remarkable
achievements in the area of health and education and reducing poverty.
That is why the ordinary people regard him as a Junior Jesus, but for the
same reason his enemies regard him as a Junior Judas!
His foreign policy is not only militant in declaration, but he has been
able to put his money where his mouth is. He never hides his revolutionary
inspiration/linkage to the Bolivarian and Cuban radical
nationalist/regionalist revolutionary tradition; anti-imperialist
especially anti-American; South–South solidarity; and progressive
internationalist alliances.
With Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, return of the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua and the general swift to the left across the Americas, Chavez
and his comrades have become icons of the left, globally proving that we
all do not have to give in to the dictates of the west: we can have
different dreams and organise our society to serve our people’s interests.
More importantly we can elect leaders to serve our interests instead of
being agents of outsiders. More importantly their democratic victories
assert the right of all free peoples to choose their own leaders. The rest
of the world does not have to like such leaders but they have to respect
that decision. For instance the rest of the world did not like Bush but
the Americans elected him by whatever disputed circumstance in the first
term but with clear majority in the second. We were forced to put up with
him for 8 years that have happily come to an end. Why then is it difficult
for the Americans and their Western cousins to respect the democratic
wishes of other peoples whether it is in Gaza, Iran, Haiti, Venezuela,
Bolivia, Algeria in the 1990s or other countries? Democracy needs not
produce the best outcome but it is no less democratic because of that
imperfect outcome.
Western hypocrisy, selective amnesia and opportunism on demanding
democracy here, looking the other side there or giving unilateral discount
on human rights and democracy to leaders and countries allied to its
selfish interests continue to undermine democratic development globally.
That unprincipled position has become a wilful ally of dictators,
perpetuating dictatorships that can exploit anti-western sentiments to
remain in power. In many countries in Africa, Asia or Latin America being
anti-West, especially anti-American and anti-former-colonial-powers
(predominantly Britain and France, and to a lesser extent, Portugal, in
Africa) is a winning card.
However my support and admiration for Chavez notwithstanding, I think this
referendum victory might in the long run prove pyrrhic. Sometimes an
election may not be about democracy, but a conspiracy against it. The
principle of limiting the terms of office for public officials especially
the presidency is about renewal of democracy; giving the public effective
choices, preventing leaders from becoming complacent and undoing the good
they may have brought about. It is about institutionalising change rather
than personalising it around ‘great leaders’ that often lead to
personal/family rule and fake dynasties. Many of our tired and tiring
leaders in Africa, some of them ex-revolutionaries, who have changed their
constitutions to perpetuate their personal rule in perpetuity (even if
none of them dared put it through a referendum) will be standing side by
side with Chavez, but it is the wrong kind of solidarity. A wrong cannot
be made right because the perpetrator happens to be one’s hero.
The world has changed and so must revolutionaries. The conditions that
produced and prolonged the regime of Fidel Castro are completely different
from what obtains today. Also Cuba occupies a very peculiar historical
situation which cannot be used to justify other countries’ situations.
What are the compelling reasons for Mugabe, for instance, to continue to
hold on to power in Harare? Is it really true that Uganda will collapse if
Museveni does not rule it till he dies? Would Ethiopia or Eritrea not be
better off if there is a limit on the terms that Meles or Afewerki
continue to dominate? Of what benefit is the long term dictatorship of
Omar Bongo to the people of Gabon? While Libya remains a prosperous
country with huge benefits percolating down to the masses is it
sustainable that it cannot have another ruler but Brother Gaddafi? Is it
not part of the problem of limitless and ultimately purposeless time in
office that is making Gaddafi to despair of his own government? Recently
he criticised his own government for being corrupt and failing the Libyan
people in delivery of social services. He has recommended the General
People’s Congress to dissolve the government and give Libya’s vast oil
fortune to Libyan citizens.
Is this not an indictment of his own forty year leadership as the ‘guide’
of the Al Fatah revolution? Imagine what would have happened to South
Africa had Thabo Mbeki been able to impose his will over the ANC and
changed the constitution of the country to go for a Third term. What would
have Obasanjo done to Nigerians if he had succeeded in his third term bid?
Limiting terms may not limit the suffering and oppression of the citizens
but it is essential if people are to have any faith in the democratic
order. Instead of leaders trying to perpetuate themselves in Office, they
should be seeking a legacy that ensures that their good practice and
transformative agenda outlives them. This should be as true in Caracas as
it should be in Kampala, Addis, Harare, Asmara, Yaunde and countless other
capitals across this continent where Presidents delude themselves into
thinking they can occupy State power till they die and even after death
through their fake dynasties.
What you cannot do as president in 10 years, you may not achieve in a
hundred years.
“Forward ever, backward never”…..Kwame Nkrumah (1909 - 1972)
………………DON’T AGONISE!…………………..ORGANISE!!…………….
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