Out of Africa

Three of Africa's big leaders—Mbeki, Obasanjo and Museveni—need a successor. Is it time for more women leaders on the continent?
December 17, 2005
Political storms ahead

Africa's year is drawing to a close. Will the G8 promises of more aid, debt relief and a better trade deal be followed up and delivered? Watch this space. But is Africa ready for a great leap forward? The whole project is based on the premise that Africa is poised to take off—all it needs is the money. I wish it were true, but Africa needs decades of steady change, not a sudden big push. Are the Make Poverty History campaigners ready for the long march, harrying governments and prodding institutions? Getting them to stick with Africa during the setbacks and bad times will not be easy.
This is especially true given that we may be set for a new wave of political storms in Africa. The wheel of fortune is turning for the three rulers who have done most to turn Africa around in the last few years. Now they are caught up in political endgames that make it difficult for them to continue to rule effectively or to secure successors.

In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki has another four years in office but the succession battle is superheated. He fired his popular vice-president, Jacob Zuma, in June because of corruption charges. Zuma was the cheerful face of the government and is also Zulu, South Africa's largest ethnic group. His replacement, a Zulu woman, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, was booed on her home territory by government supporters. Ruling South Africa is not easy if KwaZulu-Natal is unhappy.

In Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo has also fallen out with his deputy and has even less time to find a successor. For the rest of the world the best candidate by far would be Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the brilliant finance minister who has guided the Nigerian economy and secured a debt deal. But her sex means she stands no chance. Nigerians next vote in 2007, but no one of national stature seems to be emerging. Some fear that Obasanjo might defy the constitution and stay on for a third term. Others fear that before they get to the election, the president and vice-president, grappling together in fatal combat, will take Nigeria over the cliff. Unlike South Africa, Nigeria has exceedingly weak institutions that cannot handle a serious political crisis.

In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni has already decided to stay on indefinitely and arranged for the constitution to be changed accordingly. When he came to power in 1986, he told me it would take him five years to sort things out and then he would step down. Twenty years on, he is telling people he has to stay for a third term because no one else has the vision. Under his rule Ugandans have shown what they can do with a stable state. They have rebuilt the place and made themselves richer. So have Museveni's friends and family, and that has upset the professional classes. Without their support, Museveni's "sad tun," as "third term" is pronounced in Uganda, is jeopardising Uganda's future.

Elsewhere, Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian ruler who served on Tony Blair's Africa commission, is now killing and detaining demonstrators on the streets of Addis Ababa, and his old friend Isiais Afwerki, the Eritrean president, has chosen this moment to thump the war drums. If that fratricidal war restarts, all this year's hope and support for Africa will evaporate.

Liberian girl

So while some parts of Africa are surviving, the continent, ruled as ever by rainfall and politics, is clearly still subject to periodic droughts and turbulence. Many people who want Africa to change permanently believe that women are the key. It may be time that Africa plumped for its first elected woman head of state. Liberia, synonymous with warlords and male violence (hanging your dead enemies' testicles around your neck was popular in the civil war), had a woman head of state for a while and may have just elected another—the vote-counting had not finished by the time Prospect went to press.

Before the Europeans came there were some mighty queens—particularly among west Africa's matriarchal societies—but almost 50 years of independence has not yet produced a female leader. Coups do not tend to promote women and Africans have chosen not to vote for them. At least as presidents.

African women do well in parliaments, however. The register of women's representation in the world's parliaments is led by Rwanda, with 39 women out of 80 MPs. Africa—which comes near the bottom of most international league tables—has more countries in the top quarter of the women-in-parliament league than in the last quarter. Eleven African countries have a higher percentage of women in parliament than Britain, 14 more than the US and 22 more than France.

Tasty termites

Stories about hunger in Africa in the western press usually contain a line about people being reduced to eating roots and leaves (a bit like us, judging from our diet of potatoes, beetroot, lettuce and cabbage). In a variation on the usual theme, the Guardian had a recent piece on the Malawi famine which described hungry people eating termites. In Malawi, as in most of Africa, termites are a delicacy. They can be deep-fried or eaten raw from the termite mound. They taste rather like chestnuts and are very nutritious.